Happy New Year from XSports Protective!  With the turn of the calendar, many us of make resolutions for the upcoming year: We’ll lose weight (always a popular one). We’ll finally learn Spanish/read the collected works of Charles Dickens/clean out the attic/go through all those old photos. We’ll learn to ski. We’ll learn to snowboard. We’ll get back on our skates or skateboard. If your New Year’s resolution involves an action sport, make sure you do it safely. Any sport in which you might take a tumble is a sport for which you need protective gear. Remember: Falling hurts.

Ski Protective Gear
Is this the year you’ve resolved to finally get back on your skis (or to learn to ski)? Just about everybody knows you need a pair of ski goggles to protect your eyes from the sun’s glare and from bits of flying snow and ice, but a ski helmet is equally important. A blow to the head can cause serious injury or even death. Advances in materials technology mean that helmets have gotten lighter while offering better protection. And you can find ski helmets that are specifically designed for how or where you ski. For instance, you can find Giro ski helmets that are designed for park use, powdery conditions, or ski racing. Depending on what type of skier you are, other ski protective gear includes ski padded shorts or pants, ski body armor, or ski elbow and/or knee pads.

Snowboarding Protective Gear
Whether you’re pulling your first Ollie or going for a McTwist, sooner or later you’re going to fall. A snowboard helmet is a necessity. Given that it’s a winter sport, snowboard gloves are a necessity too. If you’re going to have to wear gloves anyway, they might as well protect you. Level makes great protective snowboard gloves with a unique wrist guard called BioMex that’s been shown to reduce the likelihood of snowboard wrist injuries by 7.5 times. Depending on where you snowboard, in what conditions you snowboard, and what kind of tricks you’re attempting,you might want to invest in snowboard body armor, snowboard padded shorts and pants, snowboard goggles, and snowboard elbow/knee pads. Our snowboard protective gear Learning Center can give you a little more information on how to select the right protective equipment for you.

Inline Skating and Roller Blading Protective Gear
Did you get a new pair of skates this holiday? Did you get a skate helmet too? Remember that even the most experienced skater falls once in a while. Why risk serious injury to your head? While many skate helmets still have the classic styling from the late 1970s, advances in materials technology have made them lighter, more comfortable, and more protective. And they come in some fantastic colors. The other must-have piece of skate protective gear is a pair of skate wrist guards. When we fall, we instinctively put out our hands to catch ourselves. Skate knee pads and skate elbow pads are helpful too, but trust us on the wrist guards.

Learning a new sport can be fun if you take the proper precautions. No matter what your New Year’s resolution is, please do it safely.

Christmas is less than a week away. If you’re still looking for a gift for the action sports enthusiast on your life, why not get him or her some protective gear? Maybe your grandson or nephew has taken up snowboarding or maybe your wife or daughter started skating roller derby. We all worry about our loved ones, more so when they’re zipping down a hill at thirty miles an hour, doing a tricky jump on the half-pipe, or hurtling around a track on a pair of skates. A safety-related gift is a great way to say:  1) I know you love this sport and 2) I want you to be able to do this sport safely.

There’s still time to order your gift from XSports Protective and get it before December 24–but time is running out.  You’ll save money on shipping costs if you order soon.  If we receive your order by 3:00 p.m. EST on December 20, it”ll go out UPS three-day select. If you order by 3:00 EST on December 21, it’ll go out UPS 2nd day air (are you sensing a pattern here?). If you order by 3:00 p.m. EST on December 22, it’ll go out UPS next day air.

Here’s hoping you have a safe and happy holiday.

The *New* Blackburn Bike Lights for 2011 at XSportsProtective are prefect little stocking stuffers for the bike guru who needs to be seen while night-riding, commuting along with heavy traffic or in adverse weather conditions.  Pair these lights up with a Giro Bike Helmet or Bell  Bike Helmet or Giro Bike Gloves and gift away!  Keeping your loved ones safe, while they sweat, perfect their craft or pick up a new extreme sports hobby has never felt so good (or been this easy!)In stock and ready to ship:2011 Blackburn Flea 2.0 Front Light2011 Blackburn Flea 2.0 Front & Rear Light Combo Pack2011 Voyager Click Front Light2011 Mars Click Rear Light2011 Voyager/Mars Click Front/Rea Light  Combo Pack

Ever since she was a little, Anna Prata has always been a competitor and huge fan of going fast.  And as a kid growing up in the Pacific Northwest, she always had an interest in snow sports.  She and her siblings often enjoyed pouring water on steep slopes, creating ice hills then racing down them.  During the spring and summer, she took her passion for speed to the track, where she competed as a sprinter and always a member of the relay teams. Her specialty was running the curves and she was darn good at it!  She continued to push her limits, post-college and found herself participating a myriad of extreme sports and activities, from Cross Fit, to dog-sledding, Formula 1-Racing, mountaineering and survival training.  Professional, poised and friendly, Anna Prata is one tough lady.

In 2004 Anna decided to “try something new.”  There had always been this underlying sense of adventure and attraction to winter sledding sports filed somewhere within her being and spirit.  Given the chance to try out for the US bobsled and skeleton team while on an assignment in Alabama, she figured that there was no sense in suppressing her desire any longer.  Initially interested in giving the bobsled a go, she was told that she was much too tiny and light to be super competitive within the sport.  As fate would have it, she was invited to lie on a skeleton sled later on during tryouts.  Anna, not being the type to ever let such a neat opportunity pass, jumped at the chance to see the world from the skeleton perspective.   She lowered herself on to the slim sled, her nose only an inch from the grass.  Shivers ran down her back as she imagined the grass morphing into icy track. 

“At that moment I just got that feeling…we had found each other.” she says.  A coach suggested she give skeleton a go and get into [skeleton] driving school in Utah in order to train with the Olympic Development team and to be coached by the best.– the next milestone in the sport.

Fast forward to November of 2010:  Anna finally decides to attend [skeleton] driving school in Utah to really learn how to cruise the icy track.  This is her first time facing the slick gauntlet face first and she is unfazed.  All nervousness dissipates as she pumps her arms and legs, digging spiked shoes into the ice and pushing off from the start to begin her trip down the track.

“The first 6 seconds of being face down on the ice will change your life,” Anna says.  “A human will either go for a second run or know within that 6 second period they will never do it again.   I knew when I smelled the ice and heard the runners that I was hooked.  I fell in love with the ice- I fell hard.” 

Although it may sound cliché, on a skeleton sled, you have to make a commitment to become one with the sled, ice and the track.  It is a very calming and spiritual relationship, she mentions.  That experience, in 2004, set the stage for what would eventually become a passion realized.  Another milestone accomplished!

“How did I do coach?” she says after a week of being “observed”, bright with excitement.  “You did good, really good.”  Her skeleton coach was VERY impressed, to say the least.  So, Anna continues to slide and train and get faster and better.  And with supporters like Jimmy Shea (The US Men’s Skeleton  2002 Gold-Medalist with a long Olympic family history) and her coaches she is determined to accomplish as much as possible.

“It’s not the adrenaline for me,” says Anna, “This sport is highly intentional, planned and a sport of relaxation.   You have to stay loose, yet focused, intent, yet adaptable as you shoot through curves, reaching forces up to 5G.  I love those G-forces!”

Although Anna relishes barreling head-first down the icy track at speeds over 75 MPH, she is also realistic and knows all to well after cracked ribs and torn muscles, that the potential for serious injury is high.  Consequently, she uses protective gear to help keep her safe.   She makes a point of wearing the right gear with the right protection while training; pointing out that she wants to get fast and learn the ice with all of the protective bulk, then start looking for gear that makes those hundredths-of-a-second differences, such as a paper thin body suit, called a “skin,” a and an aerodynamic helmet.   

Anna still faces challenges to becoming a member of the US Olympic team, but at the end of the day, she notes that it’s not all about making it to that stage. 

“I wouldn’t call myself and Olympic hopeful,” she says to me when I ask. “I’m doing something that I love to do.This is a sport of isolation- there is only you, the ice and the sled and a time clock.  Although I have goals to go as far as possible – I have learned that every time I get on the track, every time I slide, I must compete within myself and I do my very best, all of the time.”

Now that is GREAT advice to live by, regardless of what you aim to accomplish!  The XSportsProtective crew wishes Anna the best of luck and hope she’ll keep us posted on all of her pursuits.  Stay fast and stay safe Anna!

Since there isn’t protective gear made specifically for skeleton athletes, Anna has found that snowboard crash gear (which offers great protection, especially for cold weather applications) works incredibly well.  Roller Derby Body Armor and Mountain Bike-specific knee and elbow pads have also proven effective within her discipline and offer slightly less bulky options. 

Some of the gear she has used from XSportsProtective includes: 

• Demon Flex Force PRO Upper Body Armor

• Crash Pads 2200 Thermal Padded Pants

• Triple Eight Bumsaver Padded Shorts

• McDavid Hexpad Elbow and Knee Pads

• McDavid Hexpad Roller Derby Shorts

• Crash Pads 2500 Padded Shorts

• She has also begun to try the Troy Lee Designs gear, including the BP4600 Hot-Weather Padded Shorts.

*Do you have protective gear questions for a sport not specifically listed on our site?  If so, give us a call or send an email and let us know!  We’d be happy to help you find the right gear or advise you on other options!*

Now that the Holidays are over (phew), we know you’re ready to get back out there and tear it up!  So, we’re going to help you start the New Year off right with the best selection of protective gear for your ski and snowboard runs, derby bouts, BMX races, downhill MTB courses, skate parks and more!

***For the month of January, use COUPON CODE: DMJAN3 to get $20 off orders of $100 or more*** (exp. 01/31/11)