Knee pads have become a staple part of uniforms for a wide range of athletes. But 125 years ago, they were used in fields, not gyms. How has this simple piece of protective gear become so important for athletes and laborers? Let’s start at the beginning.
The First Knee Pads Were Built for Work, Not Sport
If you’ve ever dug around a garden, you know how painful and annoying it can be to crawl around on the rocky, damp earth. Even if stones aren’t digging into your legs, it quickly becomes uncomfortable to put so much pressure on your knees.
Leading up to the late 1800s, farmers created ‘knee pads’ from everyday materials like leather, canvas, wool, or old rags. Sometimes they would sew the fabric together to create a pocket and stuff it with cotton. These homemade options were fine, but two inventors knew there had to be a better, more comfortable and durable solution.
In 1895, James Walter Davis and Elijah Clark Brown saw the pain farmers and laborers endured as they worked on the ground and the crude solutions they used to protect their knees. So they designed the first officially patented knee pads.
These knee pads are a far cry from what we have today, but they paved the way for laborers, and later athletes, to have the comfort and protection they need.
Knee Pads Get Adopted for Basketball
You'd probably guess volleyball players were the first athletes to wear knee pads. It was actually basketball players, although the way it was played looks very different from today.
Early basketball courts were rough. Traveling teams especially had no idea what they were walking into when they showed up to play in an unfamiliar gym, and sometimes the floor hadn't been properly finished at all. It was possible for players to fall on nails, splinters, or uneven planks. This became such a problem that players started wearing knee pads just to survive the court itself. They cared more about using knee pads to stop objects from coming through, not to cushion their fall, and the design of the knee pad they used reflects this.
By the mid-1900s, gyms had modernized and hardwood courts became the standard. The danger that brought knee pads into sports was mostly gone. But the habit wasn't. The concept that knee pads could protect players had already taken hold.
Knee Pads Became a Hindrance, Not a Helper
When basketball was first played in the late 1800s, the early rules made it more like handball than modern basketball, especially since players couldn’t even run with the ball (which, at the time, was a soccer ball). As basketball kept growing into the professional sport we see today, players kept getting bigger and stronger.
Despite knee pads moving away from hard shells to softer cushions, players eventually felt that wearing them did more harm than good. Knee pads were seen as constricting and uncomfortable, so by the 80s, knee pads had largely phased out of men's basketball. However, knee pads were continuing to find their place in other sports like wrestling, dancing, and volleyball.
Knee Pads in Volleyball
By the time volleyball got fast and physical, the knee pads built for farmers and early basketball players weren't going to cut it. Those older designs were built for slow movement, and their rigidness and bulk were unsuitable for jumping and diving.
So the design changed again. Instead of a pad buckled on from the outside, manufacturers built a padded front section directly into a stretchy elastic sleeve, something a player could pull on and flex their leg in.
That's the moment knee pads stopped being borrowed equipment and became gear built for the sport itself.
Knee Pads Became an Occupational Safety Standard, Too
If you've ever watched someone lay tile or install flooring, you've probably seen them kneeling for hours at a time. It's exactly the same problem farmers had back in 1895, just on a different surface.
Knee injuries are still one of the most common injuries in physically demanding trades. OSHA doesn't require every kneeling worker to wear knee pads, but it does require employers to look at the hazards on a job site and provide the right protection when the work calls for it.
Organizations like the International Safety Equipment Association took this a step further and built real testing standards for knee protection, checking how well a pad holds up under repeated pressure and impact. It's the same problem that started this whole story back in 1895.
Athletes Today Play a Different Game
The idea that today's athletes are just better than the ones who came before isn’t a clickbait headliner. It's backed up by real numbers. The winner of the 2012 Olympic marathon finished in two hours and eight minutes. If he'd raced the winner of the 1904 Olympic marathon instead, he would've won by nearly an hour and a half. Athletes' bodies have changed too. Today's elite shot-putters are, on average, two and a half inches taller and 130 pounds heavier than the elite high jumpers standing right next to them at the same meet, a gap that didn't exist a century ago. Better training, better technique, and better equipment all played a part in pushing athletes past limits nobody thought were possible.
Volleyball hasn't been any different. The sport is faster and more physical at every level than it was even a generation ago. Players are jumping higher, hitting harder, and diving for balls that would've been unplayable in the sport's early years.
Which is exactly the problem. Knee pads built for a slower, gentler version of the game are being asked to protect players competing at a level nobody designed for. That gap is why we built the Patella Protector. It’s a knee pad built for how volleyball is actually played today, not how it was played when the design was first figured out.
Sources
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International Safety Equipment Association. (n.d.). Knee protection. Retrieved 2026, from https://safetyequipment.org/worker_protections/knee-protection/
National Geographic. (2018, July). Athletes are going faster, higher, and farther, thanks to technology and smarts. Retrieved 2026, from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/building-a-better-athlete
Nemours KidsHealth. (n.d.). Safety tips: Wrestling. Retrieved 2026, from https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/safety-wrestling.html
Occupational Safety and Health Administration. (n.d.). Personal protective equipment: Standards. U.S. Department of Labor. Retrieved 2026, from https://www.osha.gov/personal-protective-equipment/standards/
Portal to Texas History. (n.d.). Knee-pad. University of North Texas Libraries. Retrieved 2026, from https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth174222/