answer:When I played volleyball, I never actually got my knee pads to smell good, but you can help keep them from smelling terrible. Washing them often helps, as does using a bit of bleach. It also helps to let them air out after you use them. When you get home, set them out to dry rather than leaving them stuffed in your bag. While this doesn’t help the pads, it’s something else I found helpful. When storing them in my bag, I always kept my pads and shoes in a separate compartment from my clothes. That way, the little bit of odor that I couldn’t keep out of them didn’t affect the smell of everything else in the bag. When I got home, I set the pads and shoes out of the bag to dry out, and I left the bag open so it could dry out as well.