Is your equipment helping or hindering your Fore/Aft balance?

[KingGrump]

IME, the optimal forward lean angle for a particular skier can be totally boot related.
All my boots prior to 2012 were whatever come out of the box with the exception of the Dachstein V5. Most of the boots were San Marco and Head. Switched to the Fischer Vac 130 Pro in 2012. Molded the boot at 14°. The boot skied well. Had couple more pairs of Fischer Vac after that one. All set up identical to the first pair. All skied well.
Few seasons back, switch to an Atomic WC 130 Pro. The boot came out of the box set up for 14°. Boot did not skied well. Started tinkering after 5 days on snow. Addition of a spoiler made the boot better (for me). That effectively increased the forward lean. I swap out the 14° forward lean wedge with a 18° wedge that was included in the box. The boot came alive for me. YMMV.

If the boot allows for forward lean experimentation. Go for it.

 

[LiquidFeet]

Simples side slips to start, teaches fore and aft, left to right (edge control), and so on. Now to be fair sure I'm very sure you know more variations than I do and the intent that those variations focus on. ...
...I still do these myself at the start of the season to regain muscle memory and feel aong with variations of 360's....
This is strictly about letting natural instincts come to the fore front of what is the right reaction given the encumbrances boots and skis add to the equation.

^^That.

 

[bud heishman]

Wow, looks like we are going backwards in this thread. If you think manufacturers know what angles and combination of angles (there are 6 that I can think of) are best for each skier's foot and body dimensions and ranges of motion, best of luck to you. Manufacturers try to find a norm or average which inevitably misses the mark on most, not some, MOST. Many skiers are content to compensate knowingly or unknowingly for these less than optimal angles. Those who desire to improve and find optimum performance will seek to personalize their equipment to their particular needs.

So either you care or you don't. Your choice, but don't fool yourself into believing you will reach higher levels without addressing this area. Spending money on lessons before removing impediments caused by your equipment angles is a waste of money IMO. Again, your choice.

And for what its worth I am not suggesting that proper alignment replaces technique instruction and aquisition of skills! It just makes it much more easy and removes compensations.

 

[Philpug]

Wow, looks like we are going backwards in this thread. If you think manufacturers know what angles and combination of angles (there are 6 that I can think of) are best for each skier's foot and body dimensions and ranges of motion, best of luck to you.

I don't think it is going backwards at all, you have "equipment" in the title. The equipment is the elephant in the room, knowing a acknowledgment and addressing the gear is key to the instruction part. It is just being brought the surface the differences that there are in gear.

 

[Lauren]

Manufacturers try to find a norm or average which inevitably misses the mark on most, not some, MOST.

If manufacturers are missing the mark, I'd be interested on hearing your take on why this level of boot fitting is not the "norm"? (at least it doesn't seem to be that way here on the east coast). And what people that don't have access to this kind of expert advice can do to optimize their equipment?

*this comment is not meant to be snarky, I'm very curious on opinion here*

 

[bud heishman]

Thank you for that question elemac!

How many rich boot fitters do you know?

Most skiers go through a kind of "Rights of Passage" when purchasing equipment and learning to ski. While at the elite world cup level this kind of knowledge and service is commonplace, it doesn't trickle down so well. There just isn't a ground swell of demand for it at the recreational level. I would venture to say most instructors do not pay much attention to equipment alignment/balancing until the level 3 prep, if then.

Firstly, most don't realize it's even a thing. Secondly, most new skiers search for the "best deal" not necessarily the best product for them. As they stumble through their first few years of skiing they then realize their boots are too big, too cushy and hopefully their next purchase is a bit better. I guess to make a long story shorter, very few skiers demand this kind of service, ski schools and race programs ignore it or dismiss it as an excuse ("all they have is a hammer").

I have been doing this for 40+ years and beat my head against the wall trying to convince resort ski schools and PSIA to incorporate this service in their programs to no avail. To be fair, it would not be profitable for the resort to commit resources and real estate to this quest nor would the Risk Manaagement likely accept the liability. PSIA is slooowwwwwly incorporating input from boot fitters into their publications but still do little to teach their instructors how to recognize and differentiate equipment issues from technique, physiological, or psychological issues, let alone incorporate this understanding into the certification curiculum.

Unfortunately, to find the few that pay particular attention to this area a skier will likely have to attend a specialty ski camp or venture to a larger ski resort region to find this expertise for now. Going back to my first question here... To be good at this a boot fitter has to understand good ski technique (most I know have a high level instruction or coaching cert) they need to have a deep understanding of biomechanics and physiology (many are pedorthist) they need to have good understanding of kinesiology and be able to relate sensations of skiing to the spectrums of equipment angles, and so much more. There has to be a passion for doing all this and working for very little monetary reward. This kinda narrows the field a bit.

If you ever have the opportunity to experiment with changing these angles, you will immediately notice how they affect skiing performance! If one never steps outside the box they will never know greener grass.

 

[razie]

@elemmac the boots are very varied. We're talking beginner boots with thick padding and soft flex all the way to race plugs that hurt. The soft ones have little adjustment options because it makes no sense, that skier will never feel a 0.5 degree cuff adjustment anymore than a Toyota Camry would drift better with a small caster adjustment.

A car with 70 ratio tires and soft suspension will never drive and be influenced by small adjustments as much as a supersport stiff car with 35 aspect tires.

Think lateral alignment: the soft and thick padding of a recreational boot will cancel any small cuff adjustment, just by being too soft and slow to transmit movement.

When you talk 130/150 flex and up, it's normally a different kind of fish. Those skiers would definitely be influenced by a 1 degree canting change and even 0.5 becomes often visible, depending on the athlete's performance. If you don't ski with big angles on hard snow most of the time, you go back to the soft boots issue - as the snow would hide small alignment changes.

Now on top of that - why are manufacturers not nailing the boot design? There's too many body types and joint alignments out there. Skiing is like no other because we lock the feet in long stiff boots, so the parameters of these boots interact a lot, positively or negatively, with the way you balance and move, much more than running shoes, where your ankle movement is free and you mostly care about soles and footbeds... and thus it is easy for most manufacturers to make "good for average" shoes...

Why isn't serious alignment the norm? Good question. If you buy your boots from the superstore, the teenager there likely has no idea what they are and chances are you won't buy performance boots there.

If you go to a ski town and buy boots, chances are alignment services will be better. And so on - a higher level racing team would likely have the better services or rather the most precise services, because they need them. I know for instance even in the same store, you will have different quality depending on the fitter assigned to you. I don't think there is much fitting training out there's it's more an apprenticeship model and the results vary as well.

The basics are fairly straight forward and while it's true the more advanced aspects are more opaque, I guess the reason some think it's not an exact science is because a) experience matters a lot and b) there are so many body types, some people will never get perfect alignment... if your tibia moves diagonally and rotates as you flex, you're generally out of luck. How many shops could even help with these situations? Not many.

Also, being a movement sport, the fitter should see you ski. The alignment in the shop is called static alignment. The way you move **under load** is sometimes different, so for a precise result, take the fitter with you to the slope. I don't think many do - again with racers it's easier to get a fitter on the hill to setup and entire team...

 

[razie]

I find @pliny the elder 's posts quite insightful. All those ideas about quite a few "bad habits" being often compensatory movements and changing the skiing with alignment more or less depending on how close the skier was aligned to begin with, these are the messages that the big mass of pros should get. Not necessarily how do alignment, but how it interacts with movement and technique and to know when to strongly recommend alignment to a skier - which is generally "always".

And to give an example and to circle back to EPT - if you rotate more in your turns, is that a technique issue (you don't know better), is it a movement issue (you can't separate due to phisiology) or is it an equipment issue (boots too strong) or is it an environment/psych issue (out of comfort zone) ? How many pros could figure that out? As everywhere else in life, your results will vary...

One more note on forward lean. As mentioned, some issues like reduced mobility require specific fixes, but not even that is cast in stone. A big heel lifter will allow more lean even for reduced mobility, although it may require more changes elsewhere. And the forward lean is just one parameter - stiffness, length, tongue, booster strap mount etc all interact with this. You can use tongue pads and shims to change the "perceived" position of the cuff, even if the boot you chose has a different lean than optimal for you.

And... the way you setup the boots and the equipment in general changes in time, not just as your body changes, but as your ski performance changes.

 

[Philpug]

A few years ago we got invited to spend some time on a ski deck. At that time, @Tricia had just receieved new boots and we did not have a chance to do our normal assessment which was usually some canting and dealing with a slight leg length discrepancy.

The alignment in the shop is called static alignment.

Very true, because you need that solid basis as a starting point. To that, this is where the skideck was actually like that too, it wa a consistent environment, flat, smooth no variables. Even on the most manicured terrain, there are variables. This is something that we didn't even consider before getting on it. The ski deck really exentuated Tricia's stance issues because there were no variables in the snow, it also was essentially stack skiing terrain . It was quite interesting. I am not saying that everyone should get on a deck but besides for working on technique it was surprisingly a great tool to expose alignment issues.

 

[Philpug]

most new skiers search for the "best deal" not necessarily the best product for them. As they stumble through their first few years of skiing they then realize their boots are too big, too cushy and hopefully their next purchase is a bit better.

I made one small correction there. We see it here with our readers, "What ski is a low cost altenative to, lets just say it, The Stockli Laser AX?" Which is the Kool-Aid Of The Year (KOTY) winner for the past 3 years running. Stockli's and specifically the AX are great skis, I have reccommended then numerous times...not just every time.

Being gear centric, a couple of things I despised with most reviews out there is A. The "Best in Test" or "Product Of The Year" awards and B. The numbering/rating of skis in a ski test. Trust me, I understand the intent of these but they can do more damage to the reader than good. What frustrates me the most about it is that the brands know it and still condone it! While we do have our favorite skis, yes with clear biases, we, as us SkiTalk and our testers, are clear not to say this is the only ski you should buy. When we do our Cage Matches, we do not pick one over the other, we let the reader choose. If you also notice our Tester's Choice winners are not just our advertisers, but they are from all skis that we test. How many review publications can say that?

 

[Wendy]

Thank you for that question elemac!

How many rich boot fitters do you know?

Most skiers go through a kind of "Rights of Passage" when purchasing equipment and learning to ski. While at the elite world cup level this kind of knowledge and service is commonplace, it doesn't trickle down so well. There just isn't a ground swell of demand for it at the recreational level. I would venture to say most instructors do not pay much attention to equipment alignment/balancing until the level 3 prep, if then.

Firstly, most don't realize it's even a thing. Secondly, most new skiers search for the "best deal" not necessarily the best product for them. As they stumble through their first few years of skiing they then realize their boots are too big, too cushy and hopefully their next purchase is a bit better. I guess to make a long story shorter, very few skiers demand this kind of service, ski schools and race programs ignore it or dismiss it as an excuse ("all they have is a hammer").

I have been doing this for 40+ years and beat my head against the wall trying to convince resort ski schools and PSIA to incorporate this service in their programs to no avail. To be fair, it would not be profitable for the resort to commit resources and real estate to this quest nor would the Risk Manaagement likely accept the liability. PSIA is slooowwwwwly incorporating input from boot fitters into their publications but still do little to teach their instructors how to recognize and differentiate equipment issues from technique, physiological, or psychological issues, let alone incorporate this understanding into the certification curiculum.

Unfortunately, to find the few that pay particular attention to this area a skier will likely have to attend a specialty ski camp or venture to a larger ski resort region to find this expertise for now. Going back to my first question here... To be good at this a boot fitter has to understand good ski technique (most I know have a high level instruction or coaching cert) they need to have a deep understanding of biomechanics and physiology (many are pedorthist) they need to have good understanding of kinesiology and be able to relate sensations of skiing to the spectrums of equipment angles, and so much more. There has to be a passion for doing all this and working for very little monetary reward. This kinda narrows the field a bit.

If you ever have the opportunity to experiment with changing these angles, you will immediately notice how they affect skiing performance! If one never steps outside the box they will never know greener grass.

Jim Lindsay did an indoor and on-snow clinic (2 parts) at PSIA’s national event some years ago and I attended. That was probably one of the best clinics I’ve seen on alignment. The on-snow portion consisted of us putting duct tape in different numbers of layers on either the inside or outside heel of our boots so we could feel how alignment differences affected our skiing.

There was one instructor there who was so good at compensating that no matter what Jim did to his boots, the guy was able to ski well with no visible change.

 

[Wendy]

I made one small correction there. We see is here with our readers, "What ski is a low cost altenative to, lets just say it, The Stöckli Laser AX?" Which is the Kool-Aid Of The Year (KOTY) winner for the past 3 years running. Stöckli's and specifically the AX are great skis, I have reccommended then numerous times...not just every time.

Being gear centric, a couple of things I despised with most reviews out there is A. The "Best in Test" or "Product Of The Year" awards and B. The numbering/rating of skis in a ski test. Trust me, I understand the intent of these but they can do more damage to the reader than good. What frustrates me the most about it is that the brands know it and still condone it! While we do have our favorite skis, yes with clear biases, we, as us SkiTalk and our testers, are clear not to say this is the only ski you should buy. When we do our Cage Matches, we do not pick one over the other, we let the reader choose. If you also notice our Tester's Choice winners are not just our advertisers, but they are from all skis that we test. How many review publications can say that?

Yeah, the ranking thing can be bad. I’ve fallen prey to more than once. Sometimes it worked out, sometimes not so much. The “Tester’s Choice” works so much better.

Case in point: the Laser AX! Super fun ski. I enjoyed a season on mine very much. But…when I got on the Blossom Whiteout, I instantly realized that it was a better ski for me. Just a bit more compliant and friendly and a ski that will help me progress.

 

[Wendy]

A few years ago we got invited to spend some time on a ski deck. At that time, @Tricia had just receieved new boots and we did not have a chance to do our normal assessment which was usually some canting and dealing with a slight leg length discrepancy.

Very true, because you need that solid basis as a starting point. To that, this is where the skideck was actually like that too, it wa a consistent environment, flat, smooth no variables. Even on the most manicured terrain, there are variables. This is something that we didn't even consider before getting on it. The ski deck really exentuated Tricia's stance issues because there were no variables in the snow, it also was essentially stack skiing terrain . It was quite interesting. I am not saying that everyone should get on a deck but besides for working on technique it was surprisingly a great tool to expose alignment issues.

That would be awesome to be able to test a boot in a ski deck. And as @elemmac said, not only is it tricky to find a good bootfitter without driving many hours here on the East Coast, but finding a ski deck is a whole other thing.

I had a very well-regarded fitter in VT put me on this thing that was like 2 blocks of wood with round bottoms. The idea was to determine if I was balanced correctly in my boots. I believe that instrument accentuated my alignment problem WAY TOO MUCH. I ended up with boots that were canted a ton…and then created hip pain so bad I couldn’t walk.

This brings me to another question, @bud heishman :
After doing major boot work on somebody that hasn’t had that level of fitting before…for instance, canting on somebody who has never had it - Is it normal for that skier to feel awkward at first on snow as they readjust? Or should they instantly “at home?”

 

[bud heishman]

@elemmac the boots are very varied. We're talking beginner boots with thick padding and soft flex all the way to race plugs that hurt. The soft ones have little adjustment options because it makes no sense, that skier will never feel a 0.5 degree cuff adjustment anymore than a Toyota Camry would drift better with a small caster adjustment.

A car with 70 ratio tires and soft suspension will never drive and be influenced by small adjustments as much as a supersport stiff car with 35 aspect tires.

Think lateral alignment: the soft and thick padding of a recreational boot will cancel any small cuff adjustment, just by being too soft and slow to transmit movement.

When you talk 130/150 flex and up, it's normally a different kind of fish. Those skiers would definitely be influenced by a 1 degree canting change and even 0.5 becomes often visible, depending on the athlete's performance. If you don't ski with big angles on hard snow most of the time, you go back to the soft boots issue - as the snow would hide small alignment changes.

Now on top of that - why are manufacturers not nailing the boot design? There's too many body types and joint alignments out there. Skiing is like no other because we lock the feet in long stiff boots, so the parameters of these boots interact a lot, positively or negatively, with the way you balance and move, much more than running shoes, where your ankle movement is free and you mostly care about soles and footbeds... and thus it is easy for most manufacturers to make "good for average" shoes...

Why isn't serious alignment the norm? Good question. If you buy your boots from the superstore, the teenager there likely has no idea what they are and chances are you won't buy performance boots there.

If you go to a ski town and buy boots, chances are alignment services will be better. And so on - a higher level racing team would likely have the better services or rather the most precise services, because they need them. I know for instance even in the same store, you will have different quality depending on the fitter assigned to you. I don't think there is much fitting training out there's it's more an apprenticeship model and the results vary as well.

The basics are fairly straight forward and while it's true the more advanced aspects are more opaque, I guess the reason some think it's not an exact science is because a) experience matters a lot and b) there are so many body types, some people will never get perfect alignment... if your tibia moves diagonally and rotates as you flex, you're generally out of luck. How many shops could even help with these situations? Not many.

Also, being a movement sport, the fitter should see you ski. The alignment in the shop is called static alignment. The way you move **under load** is sometimes different, so for a precise result, take the fitter with you to the slope. I don't think many do - again with racers it's easier to get a fitter on the hill to setup and entire team...

Excellent!

 

[bud heishman]

Jim Lindsay did an indoor and on-snow clinic (2 parts) at PSIA’s national event some years ago and I attended. That was probably one of the best clinics I’ve seen on alignment. The on-snow portion consisted of us putting duct tape in different numbers of layers on either the inside or outside heel of our boots so we could feel how alignment differences affected our skiing.

There was one instructor there who was so good at compensating that no matter what Jim did to his boots, the guy was able to ski well with no visible change.

You would love my clinic with the 9 pair of identical skis with various alignment set ups on canting, delta angle and binding placement. It's a real eye opener. Would love to co op with Jim at the National Academy.

 

[bud heishman]

That would be awesome to be able to test a boot in a ski deck. And as @elemmac said, not only is it tricky to find a good bootfitter without driving many hours here on the East Coast, but finding a ski deck is a whole other thing.

I had a very well-regarded fitter in VT put me on this thing that was like 2 blocks of wood with round bottoms. The idea was to determine if I was balanced correctly in my boots. I believe that instrument accentuated my alignment problem WAY TOO MUCH. I ended up with boots that were canted a ton…and then created hip pain so bad I couldn’t walk.

This brings me to another question, @bud heishman :
After doing major boot work on somebody that hasn’t had that level of fitting before…for instance, canting on somebody who has never had it - Is it normal for that skier to feel awkward at first on snow as they readjust? Or should they instantly “at home?”

Wendy, There is a bit of Whoa! factor but the skier should acclimate within a few runs and learn to trust new movements that were tabu before. I remember Tricia's reaction when we did her boots at Big Sky Epic Academy some years ago. I was just riding up my first chair of the day as Tricia skied underneath whooping and hollering in joy! I always tell my customers to ski their first few runs on easy groomed terrain, stay away from the edges of the runs, and start out turning close to the fall line then graduate to rounder turns and steeper runs. If your canting is changed as little as 1/2 degree you will probably feel that difference just skating to the chair lift. It definitely should feel good and should not hurt any of your joints. We never want to take somebody to the end of their joints range of motion.

 

[Tricia]

Jim Lindsay did an indoor and on-snow clinic (2 parts) at PSIA’s national event some years ago and I attended. That was probably one of the best clinics I’ve seen on alignment. The on-snow portion consisted of us putting duct tape in different numbers of layers on either the inside or outside heel of our boots so we could feel how alignment differences affected our skiing.

There was one instructor there who was so good at compensating that no matter what Jim did to his boots, the guy was able to ski well with no visible change.

You would love my clinic with the 9 pair of identical skis with various alignment set ups on canting, delta angle and binding placement. It's a real eye opener. Would love to co op with Jim at the National Academy.

@Wendy we did this with Bud a few years ago with several Mt Rose instructors. What an eye opener for the instructors who were open minded. Even a few who started out not being open minded.

Wendy, There is a bit of Whoa! factor but the skier should acclimate within a few runs and learn to trust new movements that were tabu before. I remember Tricia's reaction when we did her boots at Big Sky Epic Academy some years ago. I was just riding up my first chair of the day as Tricia skied underneath whooping and hollering in joy! I always tell my customers to ski their first few runs on easy groomed terrain, stay away from the edges of the runs, and start out turning close to the fall line then graduate to rounder turns and steeper runs. If your canting is changed as little as 1/2 degree you will probably feel that difference just skating to the chair lift. It definitely should feel good and should not hurt any of your joints. We never want to take somebody to the end of their joints range of motion.

It was interesting what that adjustment made for me. As I figured out different things about my back issues, hip issues and such, the type of alignment I needed changed a bit. But that day...wow. Things I'd been trying to do finally came together.

 

[David Chaus]

D

Thank you for that question elemac!

How many rich boot fitters do you know?

Most skiers go through a kind of "Rights of Passage" when purchasing equipment and learning to ski. While at the elite world cup level this kind of knowledge and service is commonplace, it doesn't trickle down so well. There just isn't a ground swell of demand for it at the recreational level. I would venture to say most instructors do not pay much attention to equipment alignment/balancing until the level 3 prep, if then.

Firstly, most don't realize it's even a thing. Secondly, most new skiers search for the "best deal" not necessarily the best product for them. As they stumble through their first few years of skiing they then realize their boots are too big, too cushy and hopefully their next purchase is a bit better. I guess to make a long story shorter, very few skiers demand this kind of service, ski schools and race programs ignore it or dismiss it as an excuse ("all they have is a hammer").

I have been doing this for 40+ years and beat my head against the wall trying to convince resort ski schools and PSIA to incorporate this service in their programs to no avail. To be fair, it would not be profitable for the resort to commit resources and real estate to this quest nor would the Risk Manaagement likely accept the liability. PSIA is slooowwwwwly incorporating input from boot fitters into their publications but still do little to teach their instructors how to recognize and differentiate equipment issues from technique, physiological, or psychological issues, let alone incorporate this understanding into the certification curiculum.

Unfortunately, to find the few that pay particular attention to this area a skier will likely have to attend a specialty ski camp or venture to a larger ski resort region to find this expertise for now. Going back to my first question here... To be good at this a boot fitter has to understand good ski technique (most I know have a high level instruction or coaching cert) they need to have a deep understanding of biomechanics and physiology (many are pedorthist) they need to have good understanding of kinesiology and be able to relate sensations of skiing to the spectrums of equipment angles, and so much more. There has to be a passion for doing all this and working for very little monetary reward. This kinda narrows the field a bit.

If you ever have the opportunity to experiment with changing these angles, you will immediately notice how they affect skiing performance! If one never steps outside the box they will never know greener grass.

I guess I am fortunate, I have a bootfitter (Jim Mates) who was in the past a full-cert (L3) instructor, and I take clinics from Snow Performance with Gavin Hunter, who is also a bootfitter and works closely with Jim Mates. Jim mentioned to me that Gavin’s clinics are the only ones he’s seen where boots and equipment are checked as part of the clinic.

This is Snow Perfomance’s website:

We approach every client with 3 concepts to create permanent lasting change:​

1. Equipment: Provide a full assessment of your entire equipment setup and make needed changes to optimize stance, balance and performance.

2. Mental: Challenge and refine your basic mental concepts of what and how you think you should be doing

3. Physical: Assess and redirect your physical movements to be more effective.

They elaborate more on each area. Regardless, I guess I didn’t know how unusual it is to have this kind of integrated approach to skiing improvement, and I wish it could be more prevalent.

@bud heishman, I really appreciate all the experience you have and information you provide here.

 

[geepers]

Thank you for that question elemac!

How many rich boot fitters do you know?

Most skiers go through a kind of "Rights of Passage" when purchasing equipment and learning to ski. While at the elite world cup level this kind of knowledge and service is commonplace, it doesn't trickle down so well. There just isn't a ground swell of demand for it at the recreational level. I would venture to say most instructors do not pay much attention to equipment alignment/balancing until the level 3 prep, if then.

Firstly, most don't realize it's even a thing. Secondly, most new skiers search for the "best deal" not necessarily the best product for them. As they stumble through their first few years of skiing they then realize their boots are too big, too cushy and hopefully their next purchase is a bit better. I guess to make a long story shorter, very few skiers demand this kind of service, ski schools and race programs ignore it or dismiss it as an excuse ("all they have is a hammer").

I have been doing this for 40+ years and beat my head against the wall trying to convince resort ski schools and PSIA to incorporate this service in their programs to no avail. To be fair, it would not be profitable for the resort to commit resources and real estate to this quest nor would the Risk Manaagement likely accept the liability. PSIA is slooowwwwwly incorporating input from boot fitters into their publications but still do little to teach their instructors how to recognize and differentiate equipment issues from technique, physiological, or psychological issues, let alone incorporate this understanding into the certification curiculum.

Unfortunately, to find the few that pay particular attention to this area a skier will likely have to attend a specialty ski camp or venture to a larger ski resort region to find this expertise for now. Going back to my first question here... To be good at this a boot fitter has to understand good ski technique (most I know have a high level instruction or coaching cert) they need to have a deep understanding of biomechanics and physiology (many are pedorthist) they need to have good understanding of kinesiology and be able to relate sensations of skiing to the spectrums of equipment angles, and so much more. There has to be a passion for doing all this and working for very little monetary reward. This kinda narrows the field a bit.

If you ever have the opportunity to experiment with changing these angles, you will immediately notice how they affect skiing performance! If one never steps outside the box they will never know greener grass.

Bit of a depressing read! Which I'm sure wasn't the intent. (The downer is that may not live long enough to accumulate enough knowledge to even have an intelligent conversation on boot fitting needs.)

Fortunately the @razie post on range of ski boots, snow and levels of performance put it in perspective.

So the question becomes: how do we know if our set-up is acceptable for our purposes?

and then created hip pain so bad I couldn’t walk

Ugh.

This sort of thing is an issue. A few months back had to get some shoe inserts for one of those neuroma things and plantar fasciitis in one foot. The podiatrist also did the same for the other foot as a preventative. A few days later the knee on the good foot side began hurting. Had to use a much milder insert on that side to get the knee back to normal.

 

[tch]

As a reader/non-contributor to this thread, I find it extremely frustrating. It seems clear that optimizing one's equipment (esp. boots) is a really important element to skiing at one's best. BUT... where and when and how can the average skier find this expertise? Even here, there seems to be some disagreement about certain points, and, as a couple of people have noted even well-regarded boot fitters seemed to go wrong. How is a normal guy supposed to pick through all the competing claims and theories of even the fitters that are accessible -- much less the experts who are at a big remove?

Bud sets himself up as the master of knowledge (and I'm not disputing that in any way!), but so do other people. My wife went to a highly recommended bootfitter here in the east who dealt with her "dead foot" issues by simply blowing out the anterior side of her ski boots -- "big bubbles equal no troubles" was his exact statement. But, in fact, her issue is compression of nerves at the top of her arch -- and even the next guy who accurately diagnosed the issue is not quite able to completely fix it. And this is a fairly simple bootfitting issue, far removed from static or dynamic canting questions.

I appreciate knowing the importance of lean angle, alignment, canting...but I am no further along in really solving my own question about whether I'm set up optimally. As I said, it's frustrating.