Now if only I knew something about boots...
Cheers.
Ben
Uh-oh.? OK, I am a big believer in Harald Harb and those he has trained for fitting boots.? Below are some thoughts from him (Gary, correct me if I mess up).
1.? Boots, generally, are either lateral or rotary.? Rotary boots cause the foot to rotate as you apply edging pressure to the ski.? This has to do with the relative positions of the hinges and forward lean and "other stuff".? When I bought boots last year I was looking at a Lange ?? and the Head S12.? My static alignment was pretty good in both boots, but when I flexed forward in the Lange's I was out of alignment by 2 degrees.? When I flexed the Head the same way, I was still in alignment.? Anyway, it's more difficult to maintain good balance over your skis if your alignment over the ski changes as the boots flex.? I would have preferred the Head stance anyway, but it a validation of what Harald describes in his books (and he classifies Langes as rotary).
2.? There is a lot of description in Harald's book about people's misunderstanding of why Herman Maier (as an example of a strong skier) needs a boot with a stiff flex.? The common perception is that strong skiers can have a stiff boot because they are strong enough to flex it.? Harald says that the purpose of a boot is to provide leverage to help you get back into balance when you find yourself out of balance, and powerful skiers need a stiffer boot to push against to regain balance.? Nowadays, turning forces should be transmitted laterally through the boot to the entire edge of the ski and not by levering and flexing the forebody of the boot and twisting the leg/knee/foot.
3.? I have had a couple of boot fittings, but until I went to the Harb camp last December no one had ever noticed that I had "forefoot varus".? With my ankle in a neutral position, the ball of my foot was 3+ degrees 'high' (basically my foot was twisted).? When walking, I wore out the outside of my shoes but had adapted movements by collapsing the ankle to the inside (this is often also diagnosed as fallen arches).? In ski boots I couldn't make this adaptive move, and had trouble really getting pressure to the big toe pad.? My skiing balance improved overnight (and I had been places that had the machine with the "stand on the pad to measure pressure" and they showed nothing).
4. (this is my opinion, not from Harald's books) I hear lots of places talking about supporting the foot by adding padding under the arch.? The arch isn't a load bearing part of the foot, so I don't understand why they want to pad the arch to make it load bearing.? The load bearing surfaces are the heel and the forefoot.? My "guess" is that many people diagnosed as "fallen arches" really have some form of forefoot varus or valgus, especially if the ankle really collapses to the inside (the body's adaptive mechanism to get the forefoot down on the surface).
5. Gary taught me last year that a 1/2" dowel rod stuck in the boot is a much better way to measure shell space than by trying to stick your fingers behind the heel.
6. Don't be intimated by Gary, because I hear that even the really good skiers put their silk undies on one leg at a time.? ?