Boot Alignment - Fix your stance!
Having your ski boots aligned so that your legs match the angle of your ski boots upper cuff will make for a much more relaxed ski experience, enabling your skis to be run flat against the snow. If you have Bow legs or Knock knees you may find your skiing frustrating as your continually fighting against your edges.
Leann booked a Premium Bootfitting appointment with us to replace her old boots. This includes selecting her new boot to match her foot shape and skiing ability, sidas custom insoles and full alignment check. She decided the new Tecnica mach1 105w fitted her foot the best, we made her new custom insole then set about checking her alignment as she presented with very knock knees that was holding her skiing back.
You can see from this photo that Leann's right leg is pushing against the inside of the medial (inside cuff) side of the cuff. He left leg is not as bad, but still requires some adjustment. We adjusted the cuffs using the inside and outside cant adjusters that come on this boot, but she still required more to get her centered. |
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We fitted an Align+2 on the boots base board which moved her right leg across to a much more centred stance. We fitted an Align+1 to the left boot. You can see in the photo that her legs are sitting in the middle of the cuffs now. Her knees were almost touching before but now had a much more noticable gap between them. |
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Upon checking the centre of her knee we noticed more was required and we fitted a set of Tecnica 1 degree cant wedge between the replacable soles of her right boot only. With the builders square both knees now present 2 mm inside the boot centre which we find is an ideal stance on snow. |
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Leann's story
Gravity bootfit put the fun back in my skiing, thanks Pete.
I bought some new boots and booked in for a full fit including alignment and Pete fitted the shell, fitted the footbeds and adjusted the alignment to straighten up my knees, I can’t believe the difference it has made.
Turns are much easier, I can cruise, and take bigger carve turns without getting up too much speed.
I can control my skis in all situations with much less effort
My thighs don’t burn from all the effort (and I am definitely no fitter than last year.)
My feet don’t hurt when skiing
My shins and calves don’t hurt after skiing
I don’t have to loosen off my boots after each run
Even when tightened up, my boots are comfy
I can keep up with my expert skiing group without exhaustion
The extended story;
I learned to ski as an adult, but I always ski with friends who grew up skiing and are either ex-patrollers, ex-instructors or ex-racers, or generally ex-perts, so I have always been pushed quite hard. Recently my resilience to this has been dropping (age, yes, but also only skiing a less than 6 days per year for the last few years) I was starting to feel like it was hard work rather than fun. Peter from Gravity observed me one day last year and told me (in the nicest possible way) that I was knock kneed and that would make it harder turning as I was fighting the skis at each turn. So, I bit the bullet and asked him to fix it for me. I don’t normally overstate things and I’m not overstating this when I say it was a revelation on day one after my new boots and alignment bootfit. Thanks Pete, I wish I had done this years ago.