Patent Publication Number: US-2010115682-A1

Title: Piece of clothing

Description:
The invention relates to an item of clothing, in particular for use in athletic activities such as jogging, skating, skiing or the like, provided with padding in the area of the outside of the joints. 
     Clothing serves to protect a person, in particular to protect against weather. Under certain conditions, e.g., in athletic activities, clothing also serves to protect against injuries. Furthermore especially at low temperatures, clothing has the task of preventing cooling of the body. To do so, it should be windproof and water-repellant. 
     If the clothing is worn when the body is at rest, its functionality is ensured at any time. However, with movement, in particular in athletic activities, the clothing is stretched and compressed, which may have a negative effect on the functionality which exists in the resting state. Especially in the area of the joints where in the event of flexion there is a stretching of the clothing on the outside, which leads to a reduction in the thickness of the material that is used, the protective function which is ensured in a resting state is no longer provided. 
     To avoid this disadvantage, it is known that padding may be provided on the outside of joints (cf. DE 81 04 653 U1, for example). The padding results in an increased material thickness, so that in the case of flexion of the joint, the layer of material on the outside of the joint is thicker than would be the case without padding. This results in an improvement in the insulation properties, but the padding that is used is also stretched with flexion of the joint so that here again this results in a reduction of the thickness of the material, which reduces the good insulation properties in the resting state. 
     This is where the present invention seeks to remedy the situation. The object of the present invention is to create a clothing item, in particular for use in athletic activities, which will have insulation properties in the area of the outsides of the joints in the case of flexion of the joint, such that the insulation properties then will be just as good as in the case of when the joint is extended. According to the invention, this object is achieved by the fact that the padding is formed by ribs arranged side by side next to one another on the side facing the skin and are aligned essentially at a right angle to the longitudinal axis of the item of clothing, and the ribs are separated from one another. 
     The present invention creates a clothing item, in particular for use in athletic activities, such that it will have insulation properties comparable to those even in the area of the outside of the joint in the case of flexion of the joint. This is created in particular by the fact that the ribs are uncoupled from one another, so that flexion of the joint results only in stretching of the outer material, but the ribs retain their material thickness so the distance between the outside of the clothing item and the skin remains unchanged. In this way, the weathering which acts from the outside on the flexed joint will be kept away from the skin so that there is no unpleasant cold feeling on the skin. 
     In a further embodiment of the invention, the ribs are arranged without any connection to one another. This creates the possibility that in the case of flexion of the joint, the individual ribs can change their positions independently of one another so this prevents any mutual influence on the movement of the ribs due to neighboring ribs in the case of flexion of the joint. This results in an extremely flexible insulation, which is also of a high quality at the same time. 
     The ribs are preferably designed with a loop shape. The design of the ribs in the form of loops entails the advantage that an air chamber is formed between the interior of the loops and the outside of the clothing item. Due to the neighboring arrangement of loops and the air cushions therein, a very good insulation effect is achieved, which also persists unchanged even in the event of flexion of the joint. 
    
    
     
       Other further embodiments of the invention are characterized in the other dependent claims. An exemplary embodiment of the invention is depicted in the drawing and is described in detail below. In the drawings: 
         FIG. 1  shows a schematic diagram of a section of padding in the area of the knee joint in the unflexed state, and 
         FIG. 2  shows the padding illustrated in  FIG. 1  in the flexed state of the knee joint. 
     
    
    
     The inventive clothing item is explained, for example, on the basis of the area of the knee. A padding  1  is provided in the area of the knee joint  2 . The padding  1  is arranged on the outside  21  of the joint of the knee joint  2 , i.e., in front of the patella or kneecap and consequently on the back of the knee  22 . With other joints such as the elbow, the inventive padding is arranged on the side facing away from the bend in the arm. Likewise, in the area of the shoulders the padding would be on the side facing away from the underarm or in the case of the finger joints the padding would be on the side facing away from the hand/finger surfaces of the hand. These sides are the outsides of the joint in the sense of the present invention. 
     The padding  1  lies on the skin  3  of the person wearing the clothing. It covers the area of the knee  2  generously. The padding  1  is formed by ribs  4  which are sown or knitted onto the outer material  5  which forms the remaining clothing item, which is usually a textile material. The ribs  4  are also made of a textile material. The ribs  4  are arranged on the outer material  5  on the side facing the skin  3 . A number of ribs  4  are provided next to one another, aligned essentially at a right angle to the longitudinal axis of the clothing item, i.e., in the exemplary embodiment, aligned essentially at a right angle to the longitudinal axis of the leg and thus essentially horizontally. The ribs  4  each have two walls  41  and a base  42  joining the walls  41 , so that the ribs  4  rest on the skin  3 . Consequently, the ribs  4  touch the skin  3  with only a narrow strip so that wearing comfort is increased. The ribs  4  are designed in a loop shape so that chambers  6 , which are filled with ambient air, are created between the walls  41 , the base  42  and the outer material  5 . This creates air cushioning. 
     The ribs  4  are uncoupled from one another. The uncoupling of the ribs  4  means that the ribs  4  are adjacent to one another and arranged so they come in contact in the extended state of the joint ( FIG. 1 ), but they are arranged without any connection to one another so that flexion of the joint and thus stretching of the outer material  5  do not result in stretching of the ribs  4  as shown in  FIG. 2 . Instead, stretching of the outer material  5  causes a shifting of the ribs  4 , so that a column  7  always remains between the neighboring ribs  4 . The comparison between  FIGS. 1 and 2  shows clearly that the distance between the outer material  5  and the skin  3  remains the same even in the flexed state of the joint. Thus the air cushion created by the chambers  6  is still present even in the flexed state of the joint. The formation of the column  7  between the neighboring ribs  4  prevents the outer material from resting on the skin  3  in the flexed state. This also creates a type of air cushion between the ribs  4 , preventing direct action of the ambient air on the skin and thus preventing cooling of the joint. 
     The inventive padding is suitable in particular for clothing items for athletic activities, but its use is by no means limited to these activities. The use of the inventive padding is especially advantageous for types of sports that are performed in a cold environment or in a strong wind. These types of sports include in particular skiing, snowboarding or ice skating, but also include cycling, which is performed even at low temperatures and in which the wind also acts on the joint. Then the inventive padding leads to much less cooling of the joints.