Is there padding or gear sold that can reduce the likelihood?
Experience helps too but that’s harder to get safely!
Now maybe that's just folk wisdom that isn't really true, but it sounds plausible to me. And if we reason by analogy a little, it's not too far off what my surgeon told me when I tore my rotator cuff. I fell and came down on my elbow, and he explained that the energy from the fall pushed my humerus up into my shoulder, and pinched my rotator cuff between two bone heads, which is what caused the tear.
So yeah, not much padding can do about stuff like that I guess.