Practice Room Mats

[ENoblewrestling]

We are looking at practice room mats for our high school.  The plan is that the mats will come up daily and be putdown at night (not my choice, but rolling with it).  Anyhow wondering what experiances you guys have had with mats that have a self-attaching (velcro, seams) component.  How do they hold up?  Any company recomendations.  Thanks in advance!

[brickfor6]

We have had our Dollamur Velcro for around 5 years and it has held up pretty nice, but we only use it for competition. I don’t know how it would hold as a practice mat

[InjuredReserve]

One of our middle school mats is a light weight Velcro mat.  It has to be rolled up after every practice.  It’s about 10yrs old and a couple years ago the Velcro started to pull off the mats.  

We are babying it and trying to glue it but it’s is progressively getting worse.  Dullamur said can’t repair and sent me a 12k quote for a new one. 

 

Double edge sword, light and easy for our middle school kids to handle but not durable enough to last more than 10yrs with ripping it apart everyday of the season year after year.  
 

Our next set of middle school coaches can ask school to buy a new one, lol.

[CoachBumgardner]

We had Resilite zippers. Resilite was fantastic to work with, but the zippers were not my favorite in any way. 

[MattM]

The first set of Dollamur Velcro we purchased (right when they came out) are still in pretty good shape for as much as we have transported them.  
Those seemed to have a harder surface and had a more stiffer connection than the current model.  They were not everyday use but there have been only two point of damage on them since purchase.  A 6in rip on the vinyl mat along the Velcro flap from what really was the wrestlers trying to pull the apart as quickly as possible at the end of a roll up to get done.  That is somewhat correctable if you have someone useful making sure the start of the mat separation is done with a little care before rolling, as well as, ensuring a clean separation before moving the mat at the end of the roll up. From what I gathered the wrestlers ended up trying to turn and lift the mat before the separation was complete and the tension up on the stiffer edge caused it to tear some.  The other point of damage was a part of the Velcro coming loose, likely from again the wrestlers trying to pull the mats apart in a big rush. But that was easily fixed with some epoxy glue. 
 

We did purchased another set of the Dollumur Velcro about two years ago and have to say I think they tooled with the product since the first edition.  They surface has a little more give to it (though still harder than a traditional foam coated mat).  The Mat connection edges are a little more flexible with what seems to be a sturdier coating (seems less likely to tear).  The new ones are currently use as practice mats too, although we do not take them up everyday.  
 

Obviously the upside in convenience of assemble and transport.  The down side I have see as a practice mat are: While they are generally giving when thrown on them it does take your knees a little time getting used the the harder too surface.   If you are running sprints on them the mat may slide around a little depending on what’s under them.  And like I said earlier, even with the new model I would take some care in making sure the start and end of the Velcro separation is done with a little care to ensure they last longer without develop a edge tear.  

One last piece of advice if you are going to roll and unroll the mats regularly.  Get a market and number the mats in order on both sides.  That way regardless of which side you start rolling them they will still be easily identified for when they need rolled out again.