Essentials Of A Good Skiing Boot

By Author: Groshan Fabiola
Total Articles: 2678
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You cannot begin your ski weekend without having the essential skiing equipments such as skiing apparel, skis, gloves, boots, helmet and goggles. We are going to take a look at the importance of having the correct boots when you go for a ski weekend.

Your feet are of utmost importance in skiing. The initiation of the twists and turns start with the feet, and the feet rest inside the boots, so we will first have a look at boots. Your boots should be comfortable, flex adequately and your feet should be in perfect alignment with your boot if you want to spend the ski weekend fruitfully. If they are not, your performance will be affected as you will not be able to balance properly.

If you have good knowledge about your feet and stance and know some terminologies, then you can get a good boot made from the supplier. There are three tests recommended to be taken to increase your knowledge. 1. Stance Test: It is essential that you have proper alignment between your feet and boot so that you can ski better on the ski weekend; catskiing. When you slowly bring your legs together, if your knees touch before your ankles, you ...
... are knock-kneed. But if the reverse happens, then you are bow-legged. To have stability, slightly knock-kneed stance is better.

2. Knee Tracking Test: Stand with your feet six to eight inches apart. Ask someone to measure the distance between your knees with a tape measure. Flex forward and ensure that your heels remain on the floor. Take the measurement again. If the distance increases or decreases, your foot is going inward or outward, respectively. Ideally, your knees should remain straight when you flex forward during skiing on your ski weekend. If they don't, you may need the support offered by a foot bed, which is a custom insole moulded for your particular foot.

3. Ankle Flexion Test: It is imperative to find out whether you are channelising energy efficiently to the front of the boot during skiing on your ski weekend; heliskiing. To do so, stand with your feet six to eight inches apart. Flex forward and ensure that your heels remain on the floor. If you can flex the front of your knees forward to a point between the base of your big toe and approximately one inch beyond it, you have a good range of flexion. However, if your knees stop at midway or go way past the big toe, you need to have your boots flex-tuned for your lower body.

Take the results of all the three tests so that you can discuss this with your boot maker. Ensure that you get the best fit depending on the requirements of your body. You shouldn't get shoe-bites or feel numbness in your feet while enjoying the ski weekend. Your boots should be light weight and be as if they are a part of your body.

For more resources about heliskiing or about catskiing please review these pages.