Snow Skills

Your skiing and riding is predicated that the movements you’re making with your body will result in an anticipated response from the skis and snowboard. How is it that one person can naturally just take to a sport like skiing while another never seems to look comfortable with what they’re doing? The answer isn’t so much that these two people are making different movements, but that these movements are translated into different degrees of balance and control from their gear. It’s very common that there are inherent variables in your body alignment; for your best performance, all serious skiers and riders should pay a visit to their local boot fitter.

Almost all alpine and telemark ski boots are designed with an incline (a.k.a. ramp angle) inherent to the boot. That incline is intended to help you stand well-balanced when moving over steep, uneven terrain. It’s a bit of a leap of faith that this ramp is the best angle for you specifically to build balance on, however. Now factor in that almost all downhill bindings have about a quarter inch of ramp designed into them as well and, with all that additional lift, it’s a wonder we all just don’t fall flat on our faces. Rather than try (usually unsuccessfully) to adapt to the gear, adjusting the boot ramp angle to place you in a balanced position is an appropriate and easy task for a boot fitter.

Another important boot issue is how your boots are aligned to your legs. The boots are designed to be neutral such that each one is identical left and right to align to the skis. The huge assumption there is that your body is aligned identically to the boots, but that’s usually not the case. It’s very common that people’s legs are not identical, such that some legs are pro-nated, some supernated, some pigeon-toed, some knock-kneed, one leg longer than the other, etc. Those many varying alignments need to be taken in to account in the boot’s fit in order to properly align you to the gear and result in your most effective skiing. The boots can be adjusted to fit your body by your local boot fitter through the use of such efforts as shims, cants, lifts, and cutting out material.