3 Best Wrist Guards for Longboarding [2022]

Falling sucks. When you fall your natural reaction is to catch yourself by putting your hand on the ground, delivering an instant impact on your wrist joint. Wrist sprains and fractures are far too common, but the best way to prevent them is to invest in a good pair of wrist guards for longboarding. In this buyer’s guide post we’ll break down our favorite wrist guards specifically for longboarders. Falling will happen, let’s make sure you’re prepared.

Best Wrist Guards for Longboarding

Wrist Guard Plastic Splint? Price
[1] 187 Killer Pads Wrist Guard No $
[2] Triple Eight Hired Hands Yes $$
[3] Triple Eight Wristsaver II Yes $$

[1] 187 Killer Pads Wrist Guard

187 is commonly known as the code for murder, and they want to save your wrists from being murdered. 187 Killer Pads is easily the best bang for your buck of any of our wrist guard picks. These come highly recommended in various skating communities for beginners or anyone not looking to spend a ton of money.

The 187 wrist guards are comfortable to wear by still providing some give where you don’t feel like you are wearing casts on your arms. Longboarders need flexibility and breathability while also being protected, and for the money these are a steal to accomplish both.

These guards also come in a variety of sizes so you can make sure you get that custom fit that will make them feel even more comfortable than a generic one-size-fits-all guard.

These are designed for comfort while you wear them and you won’t feel like your wrists are restricted to an angle that might be painful. Even better news is that they offer some of the best knee and elbow pads for riding as well.

[2] Triple Eight Hired Hands Longboarding Wrist Guard Gloves

Triple Eight is a brand we are big fans of on this site. We have included them in our best longboarding helmets guide through the years. We have also highlighted them in our reviews of the best slide gloves. Basically these guys are no strangers to protective boarding gear.

The Hired Hands wrist guards are a bit of a quality upgrade from the 187s as they offer impact resistant ABS splints on the top and bottom of the guards. A nice touch is how the plastic splints are removeable in case you want a bit more flexibility. We’d strongly advise beginners to leave them in until they get better at balancing.

The ABS splints are nice and wide. Other splints on cheaper wrist guards tend to be a bit narrow and we’ve seen people still break bones while wearing them. You don’t want to skimp out on protection and the Triple Eight guards were created with splints that will actually protect your bones.

Double stitching is used on the top grain leather material for added durability. These are bit more like gloves than some other guards on our list, but the purpose of them is to protect the wrist in the event of a fall. The shock absorbing foam layers also help the areas around the wrist in the event of a fall.

Overall these are very high quality and quite comfortable to wear while riding.

[3] Triple Eight Wristsaver II Wrist Guards

If you’re looking at the Triple 8 Hired Hands but just want a wrist guard instead of gloves with built-in wrist guards- these are for you. You still get the quality from Triple 8 with the Wristsavers, but without the glove restrictions.

Just like with the Hired Hands, the Wristsavers come with a removable ABS splint in case you want more flexibility. The slide on design makes putting them on and taking them off super easy as well. If you do want to keep the ABS splint in we think that’s a great idea- it will provide added wrist and palm protection.

Be warned that reviewers have mentioned that these can run a bit small so you may want to order a size bigger than what you think you need.

Overall this is a high quality wrist guard for longboarding. You get the hand freedom while still protecting your wrists and palms.

best wrist guards for skateboarding longboarding

FAQ

Do wrist guards work for longboarding?

Yes, wrist guards work for longboarding when worn properly. Riders who don’t like to wear them defend their position by saying that overprotecting the wrist will just cause the forearm to break. The truth is that wrist fractures can take up to 6+ months to fully heal while a forearm fracture may take 3 months to heal. Nobody wants to fall, but wearing a wrist guard when longboarding is better then wearing nothing at all.

Are wrist guards dangerous?

No, wrist guards are not as dangerous as riding without wearing them. As we’ve explained in our previous answer, there are folks who defend not wearing them, claiming they are dangerous. In reality, the wrist is a more complex part of the body than the forearm. Falling isn’t ideal but in the unfortunate event you take a nasty spill, when it comes to long-term recovery you’ll want to protect your wrists.

If you look hard enough you’ll see some negative reviews on wrist guard product pages that show people who broke their arm because they wore wrist guards. In a perfect world- you would fall and not break a thing! But that’s just not practical. As we’ve mentioned earlier, a broken wrist is much harder to deal with than a broken arm.

A great way to avoid broken bones even more is to learn the right way to fall. The wrong way to fall is to land directly on your hand/wrist, for the right way, check out the video below.

How to fall on a longboard: What’s the right way?

We’re all going to fall- if you don’t think you will then you probably shouldn’t longboard. Check out this video below to learn different ways to fall the right way.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/KSQ-q7F8e2o

It’s all about spreading out the impact. Natural human reaction for falling is to put our hand or hands down to try to catch ourselves. In reality this is not the right idea because all of your impact hits at that single point (usually the hand/wrist). The more you can spread the impact to other body parts, the less of a chance of injury.


Falling is how you learn and improve on your board. Falls will happen and we want you to be protected, because there’s nothing worse than having to sit out for a while as you heal up. It’s important to stay safe and wear protective gear such as a good helmet.

Whether you need wrist guards for longboarding – we have provided a few great choices.

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