#111: Soft Knee Braces

As we all know, unless your Dad is one of those really weird super fit guys who gets up at 4AM to run a marathon before work, Dads are well past their physical peak. They have beer bellies, flat feet, bum shoulders, no cardio fitness whatsoever, and that nagging neck injury from that one time they actually got into a football game in high school. With this laundry list of injuries you would think Dads would avoid the sports they played as teenagers. You thought WRONG. From Late Night Basketball Leagues to Roughhousing Dad keeps trying to be the physcial specimen he was in college. But Dad's body does not always agree with his brain and it fights back with sore joints. How does Dad fight back at his stupid body? With Soft Knee Braces.

Every Dad has at least one bad knee (shoot I have two of them, and I am 25) that creaks and groans with every basketball crossover or swing of a softball bat. Dad makes sure it holds up until he gets home with that simple Neoprene compression sleeve with a knee cap cut out. Or it is the thin straps that hold a ligament in place. Or it is super duty and actually has a metal brace frame. Whatever it is you can bet Dad self-diagnosed in the CVS pharmacy and bought the first Mueller (the #1 name in Dad Knee Treatment) knee brace he could find. Now Dad uses it for every physical activity. He even wears it Golfing and Shoveling the Driveway. He says it "keeps everything in place" but you are pretty sure all it does is collect sweat and smell awful. They even become a conversation point at those Dad sports leagues because every one has a different ailment that is solved by the knee sleeve. Dads discuss injuries, how they got the injury (usually throwing a touchdown in the state championship back in '78), and how their miracle of neoprene solves their problem. Although these braces only have one real use, they solve more problems that duct tape and WD-40 combined.

But it does not stop at knee braces. Dads have an assortment of wrist straps, ankle braces, hamstring compressors, tennis elbow straps, heated shoulder wraps, and an armada of ice bags and Icy Hot to fix their ailments. It is a tough job reliving the glory days of Little League baseball and high school tennis, but someone has to do it. And the soft knee braces will always be there.