Cross training is any exercise you do that’s not skating.  It has two main purposes: to get you stronger at the things you need help with, and to counter any imbalances that might come along because of your all-derby-all-the-time regimen.

The best cross training will pinpoint areas where you lack as a skater and develop them further—whether that means strength training to make yourself a more solid blocker, doing cardiovascular work to give you the endurance to get through an entire practice or scrimmage, or even doing more recovery-focused work like foam rolling, yoga, or Pilates to help your body respond better to the tough workouts it faces.

Over the next few posts, I’m going to tell you about the different types of cross-training a derby gal should do: strength, cardiovascular, flexibility, balance, and agility.  And don’t worry—while having access to a gym is great, many of your goals can be accomplished at home or in public spaces.

For today, let’s start off with strength training.

I love strength training.  Love it.   If I could spoon an Olympic barbell in bed with me at night, I would.

Strength training comes in all sorts of forms—classes that involve rainbow-colored weights, heavy-lifting like Crossfit, uber-precise tiny movements like Pilates, plain old nautilus machines, suspension training that borders on S&M…  You get the idea.

For most people starting in derby (your goals will likely change as you progress, which I’ll cover in a minute), two main issues come up with muscle strength: endurance and joint stability. Endurance comes into play (ha! pun!) when you first start trying to hold derby stance, which is essentially like you’re sitting without a chair.  Now imagine doing that for two hours.

Mmm, thigh burn.

My inner geek wants to get into the biomechanics of what’s going on when your muscles get tired, but that’s really another blog post, another time.  The long and short of it is that you’re going to work on strengthening both your quadriceps (those big muscles on the front of your legs that burn like crazy when you’re skating) and the muscles that make your hips and ankles happy (which, incidentally, often get tired and just stop working, making your knees go in all kinds of weird directions and your back hurt, and a variety of other uncomfortable ailments.)   Coaches will tell you to work on your wall squats and bodyweight squats to get the quads stronger, which are a great place to start.

That said, many of us are “quad dominant,” which means our quadriceps are a fair amount stronger than the rest of our leg muscles; focusing only on exercises that strengthen the quads will cause the knees and hips to get thrown out of alignment and lead to knee and back pain.  I don’t know about you, but I have enough issues that make me feel like an old lady (ie, my 9pm bedtime) that additional aches and pains aren’t on my bucket list for becoming a grown-up.

Other useful areas to train:

The Butt

The butt is composed of a variety of muscles with multiple functions, including extending your hips (like when you’re standing straight up), abducting the legs (kicking your leg out to the side, like when you’re skating), and internally and externally rotating the legs (like when you plow stop or skate sideways in a Mohawk position).  Proper butt function is necessary for balance and pain-free knees, since a lot of our leg’s movements (or lack thereof) are actually controlled at the hip.

For exercises to help isolate those buns of steel, try out hip bridges and clams.

For bridges, just lie on your back with your knees bent at about a ninety-degree angle and feet flat on the ground.  Squeeze your tush to lift your hips off the ground, and hold.

For clams, lie on your side with your legs bent at a ninety degree angle, your feet on top of one another.  Your knees should be slightly in front of you, with your feet in line with your bum.  Open and close your knees while keeping your feet together, not letting your hips rock back and forth.

The Abs

First off: STOP WITH THE GODDARN CRUNCHES ALREADY.

Ahem.  Pardon.

The best way to understand your core is to understand that it includes ALL the muscles that control he spine.  We often think of that as just the abs, but the term “core” really refers to the various abdominus muscles, low back muscles, hip muscles, upper back, and chest muscles.  Crunches and sit-ups focus on the rectus abdominus, the thin sheet of muscle on the front of your body that flexes the spine forward.  (The six-pack muscles) In derby, we need to concern ourselves a lot less with bending forward through our midsection and more with keeping everything strong and stable with occasional rotational movement, which means focusing on the bigger inner muscles, known as the transverse abdominus and the inner and external obliques.

Good starter exercises for your core include planks and side planks.

Hold those positions as long as you can.  The stick figure looks uncomfortable because they’re not pleasant. Sorry.  You still need to do them.

I’m also a huge fan of V-Sits, which teach your body to stabilize the core while your body is bent at the hips… much like when you’re in derby. That exercise looks kind of like this:

Once again, hold as long as you can, keeping your shoulders back, so you don’t turn into Quasimodo.  The Hunchback of Notre Dame = not fantastic at derby.

You can hold a ball and twist from side to side, which is also helpful for when you start weaving around the track and whipping your teammates.

The Upper Back

Good posture takes a little more than remembering to stand up straight.  Freshmeat and veteran skaters alike often find themselves hunching over as they skate, leading to lower back pain.  Although it’s good to remember to keep your shoulders back, your muscles will fatigue eventually and no amount of mindfulness will keep your posture perfect.  Instead, you really have to work on strengthening your upper back muscles.

My two favorite no-equipment exercises are Scapular Pushups and Wall Slides, both of which are deceptively simple.

Scapular pushups are a bit of a misnomer—you don’t actually bend your arms to push yourself off the ground.  Instead, while holding a plank on your hands, you squeeze your shoulder blades together for a couple seconds.  Then, you try to spread them as far apart as you can (it’ll feel like you’re trying to push the ground away from you to do this).  Repeat 10 to 15 times.  You can make it easier by going on your knees.  You should feel the muscles between your shoulder blades after.

Observe:

Thanks, Friendly Neighborhood Shirtless Guy, for illustrating the technique better than my stick figures could.  (And by “Friendly Neighborhood,” I mean “Google Image Search.”)

Wall slides involve standing by a wall with your knees slightly bent, so your hips and shoulders are against the wall and there’s a slight curve in your lower back.  Bring your arms up beside you, like you’re being held up. Now, keeping your elbows, wrists and hands pressed firmly against the wall, straighten your arms overhead.  Try not to hunch your shoulders or arch your lower back.  Then, pull your arms down, so your elbows squeeze against your sides—once again, keeping your elbows, wrists and hands pressed against the wall.  Repeat 10 to 15 times.  If it’s insanely difficult and you feel it between your shoulder blades, you’re doing it right; if it feels really easy, you’re probably not keeping everything against the wall; if you just feel your neck, then you need to work on pulling your shoulders down as you extend your arms overhead.

(Note that the fact that these stick figures have enormous heads and next to no shoulders makes showing this exercise kind of hard.  You want your arms to be as parallel to one another as possible when you extend them overhead.)

As you get stronger and into more advanced derby, you’ll find that working on your overall strength and how much you can move will be helpful for pushing folks around and being pushed around on the track.

In general, try to strength train two to three days per week, for a minimum of thirty minutes.  Our bodies actually build muscle and strength AFTER our workouts, when the muscles repair themselves, so give yourself a day off in between strength workouts (or work different muscles) so that your body can have adequate time to get stronger.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll cover other sorts of cross-training that will help you become a better derby player, including cardiovascular fitness, flexibility training, agility drills, and balance work.    Hooray for fitness!

For the first couple months of the red line program, after practice I would get dinner with a couple of my teammates, then go home and fall asleep promptly at 6pm. Occasionally I would try to keep myself up to a more reasonable hour (like 8pm), but I’d usually spend the time staring at food blogs in a zombie-like stupor, unable to move from the giant armchair in the corner of my bedroom. I’d sleep for roughly twelve hours, and the next day would progress as normal.

Then, inevitably, sometime mid-afternoon the day after practice, I would become overwhelmingly ravenous. As in, that-pound-tub-of-Trader-Joe’s-peanut-butter-cups-is-totally-a-single-serving-right? level of hungry.

The pattern was unmistakable.

See, a gal can get through a typical workout—a run around the reservoir or an hour of strength-training—without worrying about much besides hydration. Since I’ve never had major fitness goals beyond general improvement of strength and endurance, I’ve never had to get too complicated with my eating habits. I’d make sure I ate within a couple hours before my workout for the day, and then the next time I ate would be whenever I got hungry again.

While that method was enough to get me through an hour of working out, or even the occasional two-hour workout, it clearly wasn’t passing muster for the three-hour skate-stravaganza that was red line practice. I chatted with my coworker, a registered dietician, and then rooted around the internet to figure out what the latest information on exercise nutrition suggested, which I will now present to you, dear readers, so there isn’t a dearth of peanut butter cups because a bunch of new skaters have swarmed Trader Joe’s. (And don’t try to tell me Reese’s are the same.)

Before practice…

The food you eat prior to practice will fuel your workout. A couple things to keep in mind when eating before practice:

• Give yourself enough time to digest whatever you eat. Seriously. You’ll feel puke-y if you have a bunch of food sitting in your stomach. (And it won’t do a whole lot for your energy levels just sitting there.) A good rule of thumb is to have either a small snack (like a granola bar, banana, bowl of oatmeal, whatever) an hour before hand, or a larger meal two to three hours before.
• Similarly, make sure it’s easy to digest. Now is not the time to be going for high fiber foods or healthy fats—go for easy to digest carbs (cereal, fruit, bread) with a bit of protein for staying power (eggs, yogurt, that kind of thing).
• Tasty examples: cereal with milk, toast with a smear of peanut butter, an apple and cheese, a turkey sandwich.

During practice…

• Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.
• Endurance athletes will sometimes weigh themselves before and after a workout to see how much fluid they lost and then replace that amount. So if you lose two pounds, you need to drink 32 ounces of water. Since that can be a bit of a hassle, just make sure you drink enough water that your pee is light-colored or clear.
• Start taking in carbs and electrolytes after the first hour—ie, sports drinks.  They’re not really necessary before the first hour. For red liners, that means you’ll want something extra for your three-hour Saturday practices, but not for the one-hour weekday practices (agility and endurance).
• Don’t like plain water? Ice some non-caffeinated herbal tea, or cut up some fruit, cucumber, or mint to infuse your water with flavor.
• To get a good carb/electrolyte hit, you can go with classic Gatorade, but you can also try coconut water, or even water down some regular juice and add a pinch of salt. If you want to get uber precise, try to get about 14-15 grams of carbohydrates for every eight ounces of liquid, plus about 110 mg of sodium and 30 mg of potassium.
• Some folks prefer using gels, gus, shot blocks, energy jelly beans—they all work the same way, as an easy-to-digest means of getting sugar and minerals into your blood stream. A more natural alternative is to take some raisins and toss them with a bit of sea salt. (Sounds gross, but it’s actually wicked tasty when you’re in the middle of a tough workout.)

After practice…

• A fair amount of research suggests getting your post-workout snack in the first 30 minutes after practice. Other research, however, says that it may not be quite as necessary to time your post-workout food so closely if you’re not planning to exercise again in the next 12 hours.
• Carbohydrates will refill your depleted glycogen (read: fuel) stores in your muscles. Sports nutrition books generally recommend anywhere between 50 and 100 grams of carbs.
•  Protein will help your body repair your muscles after a long workout.  You don’t need a ton—just 10 to 20 grams. That’s the amount in a couple of hard boiled eggs or pieces of string cheese (or a mouth-watering slab of tofu? Sorry, I realized I’m only offering up non-vegan options here).
• Post-exercise munchies: Yogurt with granola, cheese and crackers, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, chocolate milk, beans and rice.

In close, I’m going to leave you with a link to a handy infographic from The Greatist, which goes over all the ins and outs of sports nutrition basics with pretty pictures.  And remember: Eat well! Play well!

1) Enjoy the hitting

Let’s admit it, the first time you go to a roller derby bout, you’re looking for big hip-checks and skaters sprawling on the floor. That’s okay! To misquote Yogi Berra, 50% of this sport is half physical, so enjoy the big hits and the big falls.

2) Watch the jammers

The blockers focus on them most of the time; so should you. The jammers are the ones who score the points, and as a bonus they’re the ones who get hit most often. Plus, they’re easy to spot because of that star on their helmets.

3) Watch the pack, even when the jammers aren’t there

This is similar to watching the action “off the ball” in most sports: how a basketball half-court offense sets up a play, or a football defensive scheme. Watch who’s moving to the front and who’s dropping back. Look for blockers that have been isolated by their opponents. Watch how the pack changes speeds depending on where the jammers are. Watch for the refs to signal where the pack is (with arms stretched straight out, pointing to the front and back) when it starts to fall apart, and how it reforms when that happens.

Got this far? Great. You’re now a derby fan! Hopefully at this point you’re hooked, and you’ve already bought tickets to the next game. Ready for more? No worries, we’ve got plenty more…

4) Watch the referees

A good referee is part of the action. Pack refs follow the pack and signal penalties. Jam refs follow the jammers and count points with a raised hand at the end of each scoring pass. Look for a five point “grand slam”, when a jammer passes all opposing blockers as well as lapping the opposing jammer. Read the WFTDA Official Hand Signals document and learn all the penalty signals.

5) Watch the penalty box

When a team has blockers in the box, opposing jammers can score free points on those blockers. When a team’s jammer is in the box, they can’t score at all! Penalties last for one minute; when a skater has 10 seconds left, they stand up to prepare to re-enter the game.

6) Watch the skaters at the edges of the pack

“Pack definition” and the “20 foot rule” are like the Offside rule in soccer: hard to understand at first, but a critical part of game strategy and important to any fan who wants to really know the game. When blockers get too far ahead or behind the pack, listen for an “Out Of Play” warning from the referee. When the ref’s hand goes up (arm bent like an “L”), skaters have to stop what they’re doing and rejoin the pack, or they risk getting a penalty (hand comes down in a chopping motion).

At this point you’re wowing your friends with your knowledge of derby. You’ve already bought season tickets for next year. What do you mean, you still haven’t had enough? Okay, you asked for it…

7) Read the official rules

You won’t get it all on the first time through. Don’t even try. You might actually try reading them backwards—start at the end and work your way forward. But at some point, you just have to read the official wording to understand why the game is called the way it is.

8) Think about the strategy

Why did the lead jammer call off that jam? How much time is left in the period? What’s the score? Which jammers get ahead on speed, and which get ahead by letting their blockers do the heavy lifting? Which blockers rely on hard hits and which use positional blocking to stop opponents or clear a path for their jammer? How do blockers work together in pairs, or in a pack? How does a jammer get help from the blockers on their team? How quickly does a team shift from offense to defense depending on their jammer’s position? How does strategy change when a team has a numerical advantage, or when the opposing jammer is in the box?

9) Count jammer points

See if you can tally how many opposing skaters a jammer has passed. Remember, only legal in-bounds passes count, but a jammer also scores on opponents in the penalty box after earning one point on the track. You might not always get the same number as the jam ref, but the first time you call a grand slam before the jam ref signals it, the look of awe from your friends will make it worthwhile.

Still want more? Are you kidding me? Well…

10) Train as an official for your local league

At this point you’ve got the essentials down pat; the rest is just learning to recognize the finer points and respond to them quickly and accurately. Roller Derby is still a fast-growing sport and officials are in high demand across New England, North America, and the rest of the world. And hey, you’ll get into every bout for free! (No, seriously, you might just love it. Contact us for more information about becoming part of the BDD Officiating Crew.)

No, let me rephrase: You can cover a lot of new skills in three hours.

Every Training and Rec Team practice includes loads of new information. I know, that can sound intimidating, but most of it builds on itself: learn to stop, then learn to stop on a track with other people, then learn to stop to try to slow down other skaters, etc. The same day you learn a skill, you’ll learn related skills—so as you learn to stop and modulate your speed, you’ll do more “pack work,” or skating in close proximity to your teammates, or as you learn to move side-to-side on your skates, you’ll also learn to move around your teammates.

Of course, when you’re covering so much material, it can really throw off your mojo if you don’t really nail one of those basic skills.

Which, you know, has happened to me a lot. I’ve gone through some sad, mojo-less periods. (Though, don’t worry—it’s back! Hooray for mojo!). It took me many, many moons to learn to stop, and I’m still figuring out how to use that footwork when I’ve got an opposing blocker slamming into me full force.

For a while, when I first was learning to skate, I tried to just keep plugging away at whatever I was working at, thinking, “Hey, if I just keep TRYING to turn around, eventually my feet will get it and I’ll do it, right?”

It took me about six months to realize that’s not the case. Yep. Highlighter amidst the box of primary-colored markers? That’s me.

Ironically, in my non-derby life, I work as a personal trainer. My clients think I’m lying, or at least seriously exaggerating, when I try to explain how hard it is for me to pick up the skills needed to play roller derby. You make a living at showing people how to exercise; it makes sense you should be good at it, too, right?

Except I first started playing around with my mom’s free weights fifteen years ago; I did my first back squat with a loaded Olympic bar maybe a year after that. I’ve been trained by at least a dozen other fitness professionals, studied countless books and articles about kinesiology and exercise science. As a result, if somebody tries to explain a new strength-training exercise to me, I can usually figure it out fairly quickly—I’ve had years of practice.

Coincidentally, the last time I put on a pair of roller skates of any sort was also about fifteen years ago.

A lot of the “basic” moves in roller derby are, in fact, multiple movements in quick succession. Take turning around: First, you start by skating forward. Then, you pick one foot up, and point it backwards. (If you ever did ballet, think first position.) Then you pick up the other foot and point it backwards. Ta-da! Now you’re facing the opposite direction, moving backwards.

Easy enough, right? This move, the transition, has been the bane of my derby existence (Although I do probably just overthink it at this point. Another post, another time.) I would attempt to stumble through it for a long time, until I realized I needed to treat it like I would teach an exercise to one of my clients: piece by piece.

In personal training, you generally start with the basics, and then progress the movement after the client has proven she can do the exercise safely and well. In other words, if one of my clients is pressing weight over her head, but can’t get the weight in the air without shrugging her shoulders to her ears or arching her back, I’m not going to, say, ask her to press the weight over her head while standing on one leg. Hell, I may even regress the movement a bit for her, by having her sit down, giving her lighter weights, or offering some other form of assistance.

I’m realizing that I need to do the same thing for myself with skating. With transitions, I had to break the movement down into the pieces to see what was and wasn’t working. My coaches suggested practicing skating on one leg, but I realized fairly quickly that balancing wasn’t an issue. Instead, I realized that while I have the flexibility to open my hips wide enough to do the mid-point plié, I don’t actually have the strength in my stabilizing muscles to keep my hips that open, so I just stumble.

What’d I do to fix it? A lot of this exercise:

Tip over on one leg, then open up so your chest is facing the wall, then go back so your chest is parallel to the ground, then stand up. It teaches your body to stabilize on a single leg while you externally rotate through the hip, much like you do when you’re picking up one leg to turn it in the opposite direction from the way you’re skating.

Also a lot of plies while on my skates. No pics, because it’s far less elegant than it sounds.

Learning derby has been a good reminder for me of what it means to develop a new skill. Don’t be afraid to take it down a notch and figure out where things aren’t working out. You’re building habits and muscle memory, and the stronger you make those building blocks, the sturdier of a base you’ll have the rest of your ass-kicking derby skills.

The first practice of Red Line, I pretty much knew I would cry afterwards. I predicted it before the session even started. Not because there was anything particularly daunting about my interactions with the Boston Derby Dames up until that point, but because let’s face it: group exercise makes me cry.

First Zumba class I took, which only contained six people? Ran into the bathroom crying after. Body Pump? Sobbed in the showers. Hip hop class to boost morale among employees at my work? Sniffled in the corner while my friends shook their booties. Strength training class taught by one of my best friends? Nearly had a nervous breakdown near the end, at which point my friend promised to never encourage me to take one of her classes again.

Yet I found myself at The Fort nonetheless. “The Fort,” by the way, is the warehouse in Somerville where Boston practices. To help you visualize, it’s (for the most part) what you’d expect of a warehouse: white cinderblock walls and concrete floors—and not much else. A track is laid out with duct tape and rope, and the support columns are padded with blankets and upholstery foam, because, you know, safety. The space has been Martha-Stewarted with some handmade posters and a smattering of camping chairs.

A variety of practices are hosted at the fort throughout the week, ranging from the Red Line basic skills classes on Saturdays to mid-week sessions on skills like agility, endurance, offensive teamwork, etc, and all the way up to team practices for our home and all-star teams.

Thankfully, for criers like me, all the practices are taught by other players who have, at some point, wobbled onto the track in their own fresh-from-the-box skates. There’s a lot of actual, physical hand-holding during the first few weeks.

Redline practices are coached by Estrogeena Davis, who, besides being delightfully Finnish, has an incomparable number of euphemisms for ladies’ pelvic regions—you can’t get through a derby practice without at least one creative name for a booty block or the proper way to hold your hips when in derby position.

She and a handful of other skating veterans lead the three-month Redline program that teaches all of the basic derby skills in a progressive manner; in other words, you don’t, say, learn to jump over cones before you know how to fall safely. Each incoming group has about twenty-five new skaters, some who come in able to crossover and skate backwards, and a lot more who (like me) find navigating a track full of skaters challenging enough—without adding in any fancy footwork.

My first derby practice started with a gear check. The coaches go around, tugging on your pads, toe stops, and helmets, to make sure everything’s secure before you go out on the track.

Thunk. We all turned and looked. Somebody’s feet slipped out from her while waiting for gear check. “You okay?” one of the coaches asked, and the skater nods bashfully and stood up.

Lesson 1: We all mess up at stupid times.  It’s okay.

After, we headed out to the track for a warm-up: skating forward, weaving across the track, some standard stretches on skates. I wobbled through all the pieces, afraid to lift one foot off the ground to stretch my quad or move my leg around in hip circles. (Sidenote: The stretching routine actually led me to my greatest accomplishment in my derby life—I can finally do a figure four stretch on skates, which is when you lift one ankle to the top of your other thigh and sit into an imaginary chair. Seriously, kids. I’m prouder of this skill than pretty much anything else I can do on skates at this point, possibly because of the many, many warm-ups where I couldn’t do it.)

Once we all got sufficiently warmed up, we moved into a series of drills that would make up a bulk of the practice session. I would love to have some funny, charming memories to tell you about right here, but, honestly, it’s a bit of a blur at this point. (So many practices! So little brain space!) Geena always spends a few minutes in the middle of the track explaining the next drill, then we all head to the track to practice.

This first day, we covered basic falls and stops. We began in lines with cones, skating as quickly as we felt comfortable (which, for me, was pretty slowly), and then practicing the falls. Yes, it is very similar to the relay races of elementary school, but better. Unlike in elementary school (well, at least my elementary school experiences), nobody makes fun of your white-girl afro or the fact that you just skidded into a wall. Everybody gives you high fives and encouraging feedback after an attempt at, say, sliding on one knee.

Cue the heartwarming music.

After most people got the hang of the skills in question, we took them to the track, where we skated around, falling and stopping whenever Geena blew a whistle. The other coaches weaved in and out of the group, offering more sage advice, like don’t fall directly on a knee without sliding, because you’ll bust your knee, and most of us like our knees intact.

And then, because the coaches really like to make sure everybody knows what the heck they’re doing before progressing to the next drill, we play games. No, not scrimmaging just yet—red light, green light!

Much like in elementary school, I don’t think I got much further than ten feet from the starting line that first day, although six month later, at the beginning of my third time through of Red Line, I totally won a couple rounds. Skill building! It happens!

And you know what? No crying. Not even the tiniest bit of hyperventilation. Derby girls: they’re wicked nice.

Once my friends and I decided we wanted to play roller derby, we had to get gear. We trekked out to The Bruised Boutique in New Hampshire, this adorable store owned and operated by a handful of players from the Boston Derby Dames. Because most the staff is so involved with roller derby, they were able to give us plenty of advice about practices and gear—plus a sweet freshmeat discount.

(Does this sound like paid advertising? Sorry. I really am sincere. Pinky swear.)

Bruised Boutique is one of those horribly dangerous stores that you go into and want to buy ALL THE THINGS. I mean, there’s a wall of knee socks. A WALL! My little accessorizing heart nearly exploded with glee. I also spent a significant amount of time trying to convince my friend Dianna—who, mind you, I have never seen wearing a single piece of clothing designed for women—to buy a pair of booty shorts with metallic rainbow ruffles on them. Seriously, who wouldn’t want that? (Dianna, apparently.  Killjoy.)

Thankfully, Anna Wrecksya helped us stay on task, pointing out the gear that would be necessary for practice as well as the goodies that would probably help down the line. Here I present to you a version of that list.

Skates ‘n plates

Pretty obvious why these are at the top of the list. Bruised offers a few varieties of starter skates that aren’t too pricy (between $100 and $200) but will get you through your first few months of practice until you have a better idea of what you want and are ready to invest in a more customized pair. Mine (a pair of Riedell R3s) have lasted me for a good nine months now, and are still going strong.

With your starter skates, you’ll get plates—the things that attach your wheels to your boots. These come in two flavors: nylon, or some sort of metal (aluminum, magnesium, etc). When you buy your next skate, you can choose to upgrade your plate along with it—pretty much every part of your skate can be taken apart and replaced with something else.

Wheels (and bearings)

Though your starter skates usually come with some kind of wheel, these are the first guys you’re going to want to upgrade. For my first set, I ended up with a set of bright pink Radar Flat Outrageous wheels. Most everybody I met in the first few weeks also started with these wheels—you’ll hear a bit as you get started about “grippiness” and “hardness” of wheels; the Flat Outrageous are a softer wheel that helps you stay more in control when you’re skating quickly. Most people upgrade their wheels pretty soon after they get comfortable on their skates, since harder wheels allow you to skate faster and stop more smoothly.

Bearings are what help your wheels spin on the axle. I still don’t understand them that well. I think they’re magic?

(Edited to add:  After writing this, the lovely Artoo Detoonate introduced me to Bruised Boutique’s Freshmeat FAQ, which discussed wheels and bearings a little more in depth. Kind of like wheels that are harder reduce friction, bearings are designed to give differing amounts of friction on the axle. Fascinating!)

Pads

I’m going to assume you understand the logic behind these. You’ll need pads for your knees, wrists, and elbows. Some ladies like to get padded shorts, ankle braces, and knee gaskets as well. (Bonus: If you need to buy all of these at once, most derby stores offer pads packages that discount the overall cost.)

If there’s anything you want to spend a little extra money on, it’s your knee pads. Unlike maxi-pads, a thinner profile is not better. Feel like you’re strapping loaves of bread to your knee? Good. Some people even invest in something called knee gaskets, which are a sort of underpadding that help support the knee and keep the knee pad in place during harder falls. Remember, you spend a lot of time throwing yourself into concrete floors, so you want all the cushioning you can get.

Additional fun fact: wash your pads every month or two. They start smelling like Cheetos if you don’t.

Helmet

I don’t know about you, but one of my major life goals is to never crack my skull open. Thus, helmets. Your bike helmet won’t be enough. Skating helmets cover the back of your head, since you can fall backwards just as easily as you can fall forwards. That said, most soft-foam skating helmets are meant only for single-impact—you smash them against anything, you need to replace them. Instead, many skaters invest in a multi-impact helmet, like S-One, or in a hockey helmet.

Mouthguard

For a gal who never played any sports that require mouthguards, these are kind of reminiscent of those wax teeth you used to get as a kid at Halloween. For such a tiny wad of plastic, it’s pretty important—you won’t be allowed to practice without it. One of our coaches, Sticky, recently wrote a great blog post about her favorite mouthguard. Some people say they help prevent concussions; I have a friend who’s an athletic trainer who says that’s not actually the case, but you still want to wear one because toothlessness = not hot. (And oral surgery = expensive.)

Toecaps

These are little caps of leather/pleather/whatever that you put on the toe of your skate to give it a little extra reinforcement. While they’re not necessary, you spend a lot of the first few months of practice dragging your toes against the ground when you work on falling safely. The friction will wear down the front of your skates pretty quickly; toecaps are a cheap way to keep your skates intact longer. Or, heck, if you want to go even cheaper, you can use some good quality duct tape or hockey tape.

Toe Stops

Toe stops are the little pieces of rubber on the front of your skate. Most people looking at skates for the first time think you use them to put on the brakes; you do, when you’re going backwards, but you spend a lot more time in derby running on them. Yes, running. The ones you start with are small and fairly short, which do work, kind of—because of their dimensions, though, it can be tricky to avoid nose-diving into the track. For me, I realized I needed larger toe stops to balance better, and most people I know upgrade their toe stops along with their wheels after starting practice.

High socks and ankle guards

One thing I noticed after a couple practices is that if I wore my normal athletic socks with my skates, I got some pretty gnarly blisters around my ankle. Knee socks have worked well for me, and some of my friends have actually invested in ankle guards. The ankle guards actually provide a snugger fit altogether, which can be helpful when running on your toe stops.

Duct tape

We use it to fix everything. EVERYTHING. Go to Target and invest in some stylish tape. Mine has cupcakes on it! Some folks [Editor's note: Me!] actually like to use hockey tape, which is cloth and also great for keeping gear scuff-free.

That’s it! This gear should help you get through your first few derby practices happily and healthily. And no, there aren’t any tutus or fishnet stockings—sadly, both those accessories are fairly impractical during gameplay. (I have totally seen ruffle-butts on the track, though. Ahem. Dianna? *cocks eyebrow*.)

Don’t worry: Though it may seem like a lot of stuff, choosing your gear can be really fun and interesting, especially if you have a great store to consult nearby. And then you get to actually learn fun skills to impress all your friends. Which brings us to… (drumroll, please)

Next time, in Diary of a Redliner: Go through a day of practice!