I’ve got the flexibility and energy to crawl around with kids, but I need knee pads when it’s hard wood or tile floors. I just feel the hard surface scrape against the bones of my knees/ankles. Kids don’t seem to notice a difference. What is different about their knees that allows them to enjoy any kind of floor?
In: Biology
Don’t underestimate how much less a kid weighs than you do. Dramatically fewer pounds per square inch of pressure on those kneecaps.
Baby kneecaps are cartilage, not bone. Makes them softer and more pliable.
They don’t start turning to bone until around 2 years old, by which time most kids are walking
https://azopt.net/knee-pads-for-crawling/
Kids weigh far less, so there’s less pressure. But also, the legs of most kids are always bruised and beat up. So I’m thinking kids just generally don’t care. I never thought about knee pads as a child, that’s for sure.
It’s mostly about weight differences. The square cube law “When an object undergoes a proportional increase in size, its new surface area is proportional to the square of the multiplier and its new volume is proportional to the cube of the multiplier.”
What this means is that your weight goes up way faster than the surface area of your knees does which means you face more pressure per square inch of knee than a child would by a whole lot. 200lbs across 20 square inches of knee is a whole lot more pressure than 40 across 10
A baby’s kneecaps are made of cartilage. They turn to hard bone between ages 2-6.
Since cartilage is softer, that might make it easier for them to crawl on their knees, in addition to the point others have made about them being a lot lighter.
[square cube law.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square%E2%80%93cube_law)
basically there is a LOT more force on your knees then on kids knees.
Babies under about 2 legitimately don’t have knee caps. When babies are born they have way more bones than an adult does, and way more cartilage. Knees in particular are mostly cartilage and internal padding when they’re too little to walk. Knee caps don’t harden up till later
You get heavier. You skin gets less resilient. The expected result ensues. It’s really as simple as that. Remember, your skin isn’t going to get tougher or thicker in proportion to your growth.
They weigh like 20 pounds. Most adults also can’t do monkey bars without months of training, same reason. Kids are more active and mobile so they’re stronger relative to their body weight but also that body weight is tiny
How much do you weigh? There you go.
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