CelestialBurden

Thanks for the details. Interesting to hear about the differing preferences. What do you mean about strapping behind your knee? The leg pad knee strap? I've seen normal horizontal strapping behind the knee and then the loose strapping down to the calf area. I tried that but again, felt too loose and like my leg pad was flopping all around.

Does your chest protector still feel tight enough if you don't tuck? Do you have to adjust it a lot from rotating? I just find that tucking and suspenders help keep it in place better without any movement restriction.

Thanks everyone! I ended up trying a half-tuck setup and it's working nicely so far. Basically I tighten the inner belt, tuck the sides of the chest protector into the pants, and then the belly/front hangs over the flap of the pants. I've taken some shoelace and tied the front of the pants in the jock area to the big loop on the center of the belly. I think this helps keep it centered, although I still have to push the chesty back to center a bit sometimes as it gets rotated. I also use suspenders sort of next to/under the floaters. This keeps the chesty down. This half-tuck has been great in terms of the chesty not popping out of the pants though. I should try untucked again, but it felt too loosey goosey before. It makes sense other goalies might cut out the flap on the front of the pants. Now that the chest belly is over the flap, though, I don't find it uncomfortable and don't mind the extra layer of padding.

So I started playing less than a year ago and I’ve been tucking in my chest protector most of that time. My pants have an (removable) internal belt so it’s a little bit awkward and the chest protector pops out sometimes. I recently tried removing the internal belt to see if that helped, but I found that the front flap on the pants would not stay up as a result and completely flopped forward. Is it supposed to go under the chest protector even though I'm tucking? Or is it supposed to go on top of the chest protector so that every part of the pants is outside of your chest protector? If so, how do you keep the front flap from flopping over? Most goalie pants I've seen have some sort of lacing on the front, but mine don't. However, I did just discover there are loops on the front of the pants. I assume this is for skate lace and somehow integrating this with the chest protector to hold up the flap and connect the chesty and pants, but I’m not sure how to tie it all up. Does anyone have any pictures of how they’ve done it? The chesty has two types of loops on the belly. How do you integrate the thicker loop and thinner loops on the front of the chest protector? Do those tie into the pants? Or to my jock, which also has thin loops on the top? Also, what are the loops on the inside of the chest protector for? Lastly, I’ve been using Bauer suspenders to try to keep everything in place and prevent my chest protector from popping out of the pants, especially in the front, but I feel like the extra cloth just hangs off an awkward way and maybe I have set them up incorrectly. Is this how they should look or is there some better way to do it? I've attached pictures of everything mentioned above with arrows to make it easy. Thanks a lot!

Regarding the strap being backwards, I thought so... I put it on correctly but wasn't positive so I ended up asking on Reddit and it was suggested to install them like this instead. I'll go back to the way you described and try again. What do you mean by "landing within 75% of the landing pad (so no out the outer parts)"? That 75% of my knee is on the block? I have a ball hockey game tomorrow night and could probably take a video of the butterfly.

Is this helpful at all? https://imgur.com/a/hP9eFhs Thank you. I was mostly concerned with getting the pad to sit higher so that I was landing "dead center," which is what everyone says in regards to a pad fitting properly. I can close the 5 hole pretty well when I squeeze my knees together or flare harder. But if I do a "typical" quick reaction butterfly, there's usually a slight gap (pads don't touch) when I land. Yes, I measured FTK and it comes up as Large for Bauer. However, they felt really clunky (thigh rise really high, lots of overlap while in the stance position, etc.). So I bought a Medium and they felt better in terms of overall size. I measured 1" difference in total height, and only 0.25" difference in knee block height. I emailed some pictures to The Hockey Shop trying to reach Cam, who I discover on YouTube. I got someone else, but without me biasing them, they suggested the Large looked too big and that I'd be better off with Medium so long as I was still landing on the knee block. I'm not using a boot strap or lundy loop. I keep the toe tie relatively tight, though, because when I don't, the pads don't always rotate back when I stand up from the butterfly.

I need to say I am new to hockey and bought my first leg pads this summer, but I've been having a hell of a time finding the "right" leg pad size. I bought some Bauer GSX in Large, but they felt too tall in the thigh. So I bought some Bauer Vapor 3X in Medium, and the height feels so much better. There is only a 1" difference in total height, but the knee block height is very similar and in both pads, my knee lands on the block. So, I kept the mediums and have been playing well. However, even though my knee still lands on the block, I noticed that it lands in the upper half of the block. I wanted to get my knee more centered (and get better 5 hole coverage) by getting the pad to sit higher, so I added a professor strap. However, I think it had the opposite effect. I'm now consistently landing on the top 25% of the knee block and my knee guard hangs off of it. Note that I still land on the block, just towards the edge and not in the center. I've never landed on the ground, always the block. Why would this happen? I'm guessing my pads normally slide up a bit when I go into the butterfly, and keeping them tighter with a professor strap prevents this, cause my knee to land higher on the block? More importantly, is any of this a problem? When people say they fall "off" the knee block, do they mean literally off? TLDR: I plan to remove the professor strap because it worsens the issue and creates a bigger 5 hole, but I know my knee will still not be in the center of the block, and I'm not sure if this is a problem as long as I still always land on the block.

Just a quick update: After not really seeing a difference in how my knee landed in the Large versus Medium Bauer GSX leg pads, I decided to put them side by side to see what was going on. Turns out the L and M are almost identical, except the thigh rise on the Large is 1" higher. There is maybe a 1/4" difference in the knee block height. It feels easier to walk (I play in shoes, not on ice) in the Mediums, but I get a better 5-hole seal with the Large.

Damn, still no closer to a decision. Both Medium and Large seem to fit and I land on the knee block with both. Large feels a little unruly, but I may just be used to a smaller pad. Medium feels more manageable, but when I bend my knee, it looks like the knee block will be too low. But then I land just fine on the knee block anyway. Another thing to keep in mind is I'm playing in shoes. I suspect if I was playing in skates and the pad actually rested on the skate, Medium would be too small. But when I wear shoes, the pad sits a bit higher so the ground doesn't interfere when I drop into the butterfly. As a result, it raises the knee block a bit, but also makes the thigh come up a bit higher than it would for an ice hockey goalie.

Thank you! I'm pretty much always in between Medium and Large with everything, including T-shirts lol. I'm going to just order a Medium to know for 100% certainty and return whichever feels worse.

First time leg pad buyer here: how should the GSX fit? I measured FTK (20" to 21" depending on how I measure) and ordered a Large accordingly. However, they feel much bigger than what I'm used to wearing, which are some very old, heavily used 34" pads. I don't know if I'm just used to a smaller pad and Large/35"+1 is what fits me correctly, or if I somehow measured wrong and should get a Medium. My knee seems to land right, but there's a good bit of overlap in the thighs when I'm in the butterfly. How high up my thigh should the top of the pad reach when I'm standing? There's no where around me that has Mediums in stock to try on.

Thanks for the advice. I didn't mention that this is going to be for roller hockey with a ball, though, so I'm not overly concerned with glove padding. Unless you think that's a mistake...

Thanks to you both! Super helpful. Looks like the GT2 are probably not the right size anyway, so I'll likely wait for the GSX, and probably get the whole line (chest, blocker, glove).

Thanks! If you had to pick between Warrior GT2 Classic leg pads and the new GSX, is one clearly better than the other? Again, I'm totally inexperienced here and won't be able to try before buy, but the Warriors are on clearance and probably a similar price as a result.

I'm a new goalie that was looking at the GSX line due to its price point, but noticed it's out of stock most places. I found this thread when I realized 2023 updates were coming and googled it. Apologies if this is obvious, but how can I buy the new GSX '23 line? Do I just need to wait for it to come in stock online?