Standing Up Straight - by Georgie Brackin. As Published in Skiing Magazine
PRESS >> “STANDING UP STRAIGHT”. SKIING MAG, DECEMBER, 2004
Standing Up Straight
Pronation, when your foot bones spread out under your weight and cause your ankle to roll inside your boot, affects 90 percent of skiers - causing pain, discomfort and fatigue. In the past, the only remedies were custom footbeds, which can cost as much as $300; boot-grinding, a permanent, hail-mary option; and binding shims, which - thanks to integrated systems - have gone the way of the straight ski. Now there’s a new tool entering the foot-fight: the Shim Balance System (SBS), developed by Aspen Ski Instructor Eric Ward.
First, you step on a metal box to find the angle at which your foot is in its most balanced (and power-efficient) position. Next, rubberized shims, custom-made to counteract rolling, are placed inside the boot underneath the liner. The fifteen-minute process costs around $75, and is available throughout North America and Australia.
Ward says shaped skis have made the nuanced movements of the foot within the boot much more important. “My testers were all Aspen ski instructors,” he says. “they felt SBS helped them stay balanced and be more aggressive on the hill.”
To test yourself, try straight-lining the bunny hill on one ski. If you can do it easily, you’re fine. If the ski tends to carve off to one side, or you find yourself doing the Funky Chicken to keep from turning, welcome to the unbalanced majority.
Bill Lamond, a 14-year veteran of the war on ill-fitting boots at Wild Willies ski shop in Whistler, sees a bright future for Ward and his metal box. “As a boot fitter, you’re seen as a problem solver. This tool is going to make a huge difference.” thefootfoundation.com
Georgie Brackin