I slapped on all the padding I could and it took me nearly a year to get my bodyweight outside of my feet and really carve at high speed. Why? Because my flexibility, strength and muscle activation all had weird gaps.
I ended up getting a slackboard as well about a year in.
I am basically impossible to knock over now, I can wear sperrys on ice, my legs and core are incredibly strong in a way lifting heavy never accomplished, I no longer have weird little muscle pains, all the muscles are strong.
When cycling I used to have occasional knee pain in my left exterior of my knee. No longer.
I've found 3 fast stretches to do after... I mean, rollerblading is basically yoga (which I find boring) at 15mph with pebbles and no ability to bail, it's fucking awesome and pretty damn hard.
I wear all the pads and it's glorious, I'm ~40 and I haven't felt this athletic since my late 20s.
I was getting sore before I started, that creeping old man shit, now I skate between 3 and 30 miles a week and its great. I skiied 3 days straight at 11k ft elevation and had no muscle soreness and no multi day fade, it was unreal.