Supportive Apparel - The Best Knee Brace for Skiing

Fresh air blowing on your face, the rush of snow beneath your skis and a bluebird pow day. Your spirit is high and it feels so damn good to be back in the snowy mountains. But there is one drawback - the toll that skiing can take on your knees. When you ski, you are exposing your knees to pressure that can lead to injuries or exacerbate the existing ones. Choosing appropriate knee support is crucial. 

Since our launch, Stoko has been receiving an amazing response from elite athletes, including skiers and snowboarders. Our Supportive Apparel provides adjustable medical-grade joint support similar to a traditional knee brace without compromising comfort.

So why should you invest in a pair of K1s? Below, we’ve compared our products to conventional knee braces to help you uncover the incredible full body support our products provide.

Base Layer

Our Supportive Tights also double as a base layer. Our fabric is breathable and 4-way stretchable. It minimizes heat and perspiration, allowing your body to cool down even when skiing.

For optimal temperature control, choose between the K1 or K1 Breathe. Both products offer similar support but the difference is in the fabric itself. The K1 Tempo offers knitted ventilation patches throughout the tights to offer a more breathable option if you tend to run hot or prefer to wear light layers under your gear.

Comfortable Fit

All K1 products will fit nice and snug under your ski boot. From your waist to your calf the K1’s Embrace System wraps your legs with over 90 feet of high strength support cables that are directly integrated into a compression tight. The cabling is positioned to naturally move with you, while compression around your knees reduces pain and improves blood flow, providing additional comfort and faster muscle recovery.  

Packability

First thing’s first - skiing is not a minimal gear kind of sport. Goggles, extra-base layer, ski boots, skis, helmet, did you forget anything else? Oh yes, don’t forget to add a knee brace to your list as well. 

Stoko products are 60% lighter than a conventional knee brace and 6 times more packable. They are a pair of tights with knee support seamlessly integrated into them, so it wouldn’t take much space. If you want to save some time, you can even wear them right away and tighten up the support only when you need it. Less hassle - more time to ski.

Bracing for Both Knees

When wearing conventional knee braces, you are focusing on providing support for only one of your knees, completely disregarding the other one. Essentially, you favour your injured knee and disregard the other. Because of that, your uninjured knee is exposed to greater pressure, resulting in a higher chance of getting injured. Stoko products secure both of your knees - providing support for the injured knee while protecting the other as well.

Full Lower Body Support

While our products were designed to support your knees—specifically intended for moderate to severe ligament injury (ACL, MCL, PCL, LCL), general knee instabilities and sprains and strains—we have repeatedly received feedback from our athletes reporting that our Supportive Tights also provide other added support. Some have expressed that our Tights have improved lower back pain while others have told us that they have noticed improvement in their hips too. 

Migration 

So what is migration? It is when your knee brace is slipping down your leg and nothing seems to stop it.

Carving down a hill is an exciting feeling, but not when a bulky knee brace is migrating. When you are full-on speed, there’s nothing worse than the slipping-down feeling of your brace. A knee brace can provide the support you need and reduce the chance of getting an injury but only if it stays where it supposed to. Unless you want to stop every 30 minutes and take off your ski pants to readjust it, there's nothing you can really do to hold a knee brace in the right place.

Our Supportive Tights fully eliminated this problem. We’ve created enhanced compression around the waist, and ankles to ensure that our support stays in place. You can ski easy knowing that the support will be where it’s supposed to be.

Freedom of Movement

Skiing requires mobility and the ability to have a range of movements. Skiing with a clunky, cumbersome knee brace won’t help you to do so. With already heavy skiing boots, you don’t need any more weight to hold you back.

Instead of relying on rigid material to create structural support, the Stoko Support System uses flexible high-strength cables that are integrated into the fabric and distributed throughout the garment. This makes Stoko Supportive Tights lighter and allows you to have full freedom of movement while carving down the slopes.

Washability

Wearing a conventional knee brace for a long time means stink and sweat by the end of the day. Imagine wearing one over thermals and under ski pants, it would be even worse. Figuring out how to wash your knee brace can be quite daunting - trying to align all the straps after you took them out is not an easy task.

With Stoko's K-Line supportive tights, you can forget about all the hassles. Just throw it into the washing machine and it will be ready to go for your next skiing sweat session. We even provide a garment bag to ensure your tights withstand repeated washing.

Trusted

We understand that all of the above might sound too good to be true but we promise it's not! Stoko products are worn, trusted and promoted by many in the ski industry, including Olympians, professional skiers and snowboarders, weekend warriors, ski patrollers, heli-ski guides, ski instructors and more. Our Supportive Tights are a game changer and if you don't want to take our word for it, take theirs instead.

You don’t have to limit and compromise your skiing experience. Our Supportive Tights were born because we were tired of being held back by the issues of traditional knee braces, and we know that you were too. That’s why we created a product that inspires movement and provides support without compromising your comfort. 

Still unsure about the Supportive Apparel? Learn more about it here.