Foot Foundation Press

Recently we attended the National roller sports championship in Omaha, Nebraska.  We worked with many skaters there and the responce was overwhelming.  The improvement that we observed was clearly what everyone is looking for.  Once again the Shim Balance System proved to be a very clear improvement.  We are now working with Inline Speed skating, Artistic roller skating, ice figure skating, and hockey for ice, and inline. 

Skating is unique in that it is an activity that is completely one footed.  There is almost never a time where both feet are on the ground.  So our unique take on balance and how to improve it is very applicable and that was proven beyond a doubt in Omaha.  Thanks to all that helped and to those that are now enjoying our products. 

Eric ward 

PRESS DYNAMIC VS. STATIC BALANCE. MARCH, 2006
Dynamic vs. Static Balance

Dynamic balance vs. static balance, is what makes the Shim Balance System™ work. In our program we look at the body in motion, as opposed to looking at the body standing still. Standing on one foot is what makes this happen.

IF you stand on one foot, the foot and ankle moves, compare this to what happens while standing on two feet, the difference is clear.

During One footed balance, many things are happening all at once. Muscles contract and relax involuntarily to move the skeleton into balance. The proprioceptive, or onboard computer system maintains balance by analyzing the info that is being sent to the brain from all parts of the body. The end result is sustained one footed balance. We stand up and walk on two legs but to do this we actually need to be able to balance on one foot at a time.

Simple dynamic balance testing can be used to identify certain structural biases within the foot. These symptoms are common among about 80% of humans. You might have been told that you are either a pronator, or a suppinator. Well the truth is that, while in dynamic balance you are both pronating and suppinating.

Let’s break this down; a dynamic balancing cycle is like this. There are three components of your leg and foot: Bones, muscles, and connective tissues. Pronation, the act of the foot collapsing to the big toe side is an act of skeletal collapse. Meaning that if we were to take a skeleton leg and foot and stand it up on a table it would fall toward the big toe side every time. Structurally almost all humans would experience this. Obviously, some much more than others.

Now, the act of rolling the foot towards the little toe side is called supination. Any amount of movement in this direction requires muscular contraction of the anterior tibialus. This is the major supinator muscle and runs from the outside of the knee to the arch of the foot. When fired it looks like a pencil across the front of the ankle. It is critical to understand these two factors and how they work to create an understanding of dynamic balance.

While balancing the wiggling that we feel is pronation and supination in action. What you might notice is that you initially fall to the inside just slightly, then immediately make a move toward the little toe and then this is repeated. What you just experienced is a balancing cycle. First the bones collapse, then the muscles recover The system that allows the brain to know when to help and when to stop helping is our proprioceptive network. Muscles and bones communicate through this intricate web of nerves. It is like out internal world wide web. The spinal column can make decisions on our balance, based on information coming from our eyes, ears, and millions of proprioceptors all around our body. Especially present in our hands and feet.

There is a lot to understand and this is just a simple look at our balancing system and what we look at to understand and help people balance better. If you can slow down the amount of structural collapse you will also lessen the need for muscular recovery. This gives you more relaxed foot and ankle, and a better feel for what ever may be underfoot. e.g Ski boots, golf shoes, bike shoes, bowling shoes, ice skates, roller blades, running shoes…

PRESS ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS. JANUARY 17, 2006
Better Movement Hinges on Balance

By Craig McNeil, As Published in Rocky Mountain News. January, 2006

Alignment in skiing is frequently discussed but often misunderstood.

One thing is certain, however: Skiing is all about balance, so the better your balance as you move, the more efficient you are when making turns.

Because of how we stand over our feet, most skiers favor one side over the other and, thus, rely on the dominant ski more than the other. Because one side does more work in the turn, balance in stance and turning ability is compromised.

There’s a simple way to test your alignment, but you should try it on a fall-line straight run that is flat and smooth so speed is not an issue.

Choose a focal point, then pick up one foot and try to ski straight toward that object. Any bias toward one edge or the other means you have an alignment issue. (For most skiers, the ski wants to track toward the big-toe edge.)

So what to do if you have an alignment issue?

There’s the Shim Balance System, a patented balancing process that instantly can improve a skier’s balance and, thus, performance.

The SBS system is designed to improve balance using preangled “balance shims” that fit between the liner and shell of a ski boot. The precanted rubber “balance shims” come in 12 angles, measured in half-degrees from .5 of a degree to 6 degrees, and will create an immediate change to the exact angle your ankle needs to balance most efficiently.

How this translates is perfect balance over your feet and equal edging from side to side. The SBS process is a quantifiable way to measure how you stand on your skis. It is not the same as grinding boots, shimming bindings or merely guessing based on the “plumb bob on the knee test.”

The SBS process, which is designed to position the foot properly within the boot, costs about $99. It takes about 15 minutes and includes a complete balance assessment, cuff alignment and custom fitting.

Test yourself for alignment

• Find a relatively flat, smooth part of a ski trail. Pick an object down the slope as a focal point.

• To test your alignment, lift one foot and ski; stand and balance on the other. The slope you use should be relatively flat and smooth, so speed is not an issue. (Be sure to look uphill to avoid other skiers.)

• If you are in a neutral stance, the ski should track straight toward the object of your focus. If your ski tracks to the big-toe or little-toe edge, have your alignment checked.

Get it corrected

• Do you have a dominant side or edge when you ski? As you stand and balance on one foot, the muscles in the lower leg “fire” to maintain balance.

• The Shim Balance System measures a bias to either the big-toe or little-toe side of your ski stance.

• As you seek to find your balance, you “dial in” your stance by adjusting the platform. In the neutral position, muscles in the lower leg work most efficiently.

Measure results

• When the foot is brought to neutral, the muscles in the lower leg “fire” most efficiently to help maintain balance. The platform adjusts the foot by degrees to a neutral stance.

• In this photo, the skier stands on the Shim Balance System, using the custom insole he or she will ski in to help further stabilize the foot.

• The SBS process improves dynamic balance using preangled “balance shims” that fit between the liner and the boot shell. The precanted rubber “balance shims” come in 12 angles, measured by half-degrees from .5 of a degree to 6 degrees, and will create an immediate change to the exact angle your ankle needs to balance most efficiently.

Wednesday: Custom boot liners.

For more information about The Foot Foundation and the Shim Balance System, visit www.footfoundation.com.

About Craig McNeil
Craig McNeil is a certified Primary Movements instructor with more than 30 years of teaching experience.

GOLFING PRESS RELEASE. JULY 10, 2005

Balance makes a better athlete no matter what the venue

Press release. July 10, 2005
Aspen, Colorado, July 10th. 2005

Eric Ward, first lauded for improving skiers’ balance with his custom canted ski boot footbeds in 2000, is venturing into uncharted territory.

Ward’s latest innovation The Shim Balance System (SBS) was first created to open the advantages of ”balanced footing” to a mass market of skiers. Now the system that has already assisted thousands of people in improving their skiing performance is turning its attention toward greener pastures.

Ward’s Foot Foundation after much research has determined SBS can offer Golfers similar success in their sport. Foundation tests at some of Aspen’s most exclusive Golf Courses showed stunning results. Golfer’s fitted through SBS not only noted improvements in their performance but also remarked of less fatigue, ankle, knee and back pain as well. Several pros explained their improved posture left them feeling “more grounded, solid over the ball, and stable during the swing”.

SBS‘s premise is simple. The system evaluates a person’s stance and then allows a retailer to supply their clients with pre-angled rubber shims, which offer similar advantages to Ward’s custom footbeds at a fraction of the cost and time. Ward has found that by placing his shims underneath the insole of most sport shoes a platform is created which holds the foot in “dynamic neutral”. This position is ideal for any athlete who uses their feet.

How does this apply to a Golfer? Well, the Foot Foundation’s extensive research shows the balance created by “dynamic neutral” is just as important in golf as it is in skiing. Golf requires one crucial thing, getting the club face to strike the ball squarely. If you have ever watched a novice golfer you might notice they fall away from the ball or almost over just swinging a club. Now imagine how this affects the delicate relationship between the club face and ball. Herein lies the genius of the Foot Foundation’s Shim Balance System. SBS can give a golfer the chance to make this connection without having to struggle with his own naturally compromised balance by placing his feet in “dynamic neutral”.

One Golfer even noted he “could hit further and harder, beating his best scores” after being fitted. Still more telling was another’s comments “I did not have to think as much about what my body was doing. It just worked better.”

Ward believes he can improve people’s performance in many other sports, as well, “ its only a matter of time” he says. And if past performance is any indication this pioneer in “footing” will be sure to tackle each and every one.

The SBS System is currently being offered in more than 40 ski stores throughout the US, Canada and Australia.

For more info check www.footfoundation.com. Contact Eric Ward @ 970-544-4984 or at eric@footfoundation.com

PRESS ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS. MARCH 02, 2005
A complement to a custom fit
Shim wedge system can enhance skier’s balance in boots

By Cindy Hirschfeld, As Published in Rocky Mountain News. March 02, 2005
Custom footbeds can work wonders on all manner of boot-fit issues, but they are an admittedly pricey add-on, especially when you already have spent several hundred dollars on boots.

For that reason, Eric Ward, an Aspen ski instructor, developed the Shim Balance System, which prescribes small rubber wedges that slip between the liner and boot board to put the foot in a neutral, well-balanced position. This relatively affordable alternative also derives from Ward’s unconventional approach to fit and performance.

Ward, who also makes custom footbeds, veers from standard boot- fitting wisdom by focusing on how to balance on one foot at a time instead of two simultaneously weighted feet.

“We spend very little time equally balancing on both feet (when skiing),” he said. “The foot needs to be understood in this application.”

Pronation, which causes the foot to collapse inward, typically interferes with an ability to balance. While we might be able to compensate when standing on two feet, balancing on one foot signals the extent of pronation. And pronation, in turn, hinders an ability to effectively edge on skis.

The patented Shim Balance System is “like front-end alignment for your feet,” Ward said. “When you let go of your steering wheel and your car stays on the road, you know everything is cool.”

In a similar vein, Ward suggested a self-test. On a catwalk or other relatively flat slope, try skiing straight while standing on one ski.

“If you can be fairly relaxed and cruise on a flat ski, then things are going well,” he said. “If you have to use tension and body English to keep the ski going straight, then you know there’s a problem.”

To evaluate balance indoors, Ward developed a metal box that clients stand on; he can then change the surface angle until a client can balance well on one foot. The goal, he said, “is to get the foot positioned so the knee tracks forward and you can balance with the least amount of muscle tension.”

The shims come in 12 angles to mimic the effect of the balancing box.

Today’s skis and bindings helped drive Ward’s research.

“Shaped skis demand that we be in a functional place in the boot,” he said. “The input/output factor in these skis has quadrupled in the past few years; we put so little in and get so much back. And with integrated binding systems, there’s no more opportunity to cant under the binding. We used to removed the binding from the ski and place wedges under it.”

Ward, though, doesn’t refer to his system as canting.

Instead, Ward works from the bottom up, focusing on the foot’s position within the boot.

Even if you already have a custom footbed, Ward said adding his shims can enhance fit and performance.

At the One Stop Ski Shop at Steamboat Springs, boot fitter John Kole recommends the Shim Balance System in conjunction with the footbeds he crafts.

“I’d prescribe it for anybody,” he said. “As people stand in a neutral position (with custom insoles), there’s (still) a space under the feet. The shim fills it in.”

The result, Kole said, is “incredible edge control.”

Currently, seven stores in Colorado offer the Shim Balance System; the process of evaluation and shim fitting costs about $75. For more information, go to www.footfoundation.com.

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

>> PRESS >> SHIM TO WIN. JUNE 30, 2004

Shim to Win!

Simple, Easy to Fit Shim Balance System® Now Available at Selected Bootfitters

For Immediate Release. June 30, 2004

Aspen, CO – Speed. Agility. Power. Coordination. These are the hallmarks of great skiers, everywhere. Whether you’re an aspiring junior racer looking to move up the FIS ladder or a hard-core weekend warrior hammering down groomed corduroy, you need all of the performance you can get from your boots. Proper leg and foot alignment is as important in a top-of-the-line ski boot as it is in a Formula One Ferrari. Customized internal shims under your favorite footbed could boost your boot’s performance in a way that you never thought possible. The Foot Foundation’s exclusive Shim Balance System® is now available at specialty ski shops

Think footbeds on their own do the job? Try this simple test. Take off your shoes and stand on a hard floor, and try balancing on one foot. See how your foot starts to roll from side to side instantly. The Shim Balance System® is placed underneath your footbed to stabilize the effect of these minute balancing movements from within the boot.

The Foot Foundation founder Eric Ward likens the Shim Balance System® to fitting prescription eyewear. “This simple system is about you feeling that your balance is in focus, rather than me telling you that it is. As you go through the fitting process at one of our accredited shops, you’ll likely feel that one of our shims is perfect”.

Ward adds, “ski boot shells are manufactured from rigid material to maximize control, but we all know that our feet can still move within the boot and the liner. This is the first bootfitting system that looks inside the boots to see where biomechanical inefficiencies occur, especially around the ankle. Your lower legs and feet can be out of alignment and you might not realize it.”

Eric Ward is a staff trainer for the Ski and Snowboard School of Aspen. He’s been teaching skiing for 16 years, and is a PSIA (Professional Ski Instructors of America) certified Level III instructor, and is also a USSCA (United States Ski Coaches Association) Level Two coach. He’s been developing the patented Shim Balance System® for the past seven years.

See the difference that shims can make in your skiing – visit a specialty shop which features the Shim Balance System®. Visit www.footfoundation.com for a complete list.

To interview Eric Ward, or receive more information about The Foot Foundation, contact:

Eric Ward, Foot Foundation, (970) 948-6218; eric.ward@footfoundation.com

Steven Threndyle, Media Tent Productions, (250) 764-2143; sthrendy@shaw.ca

PRESS SKI PRESS MAGAZINE. JUNE 22, 2004
Foot Foundation Founder Says Alignment Starts with One Foot

by Peter Kray. As Published in Ski Press Magazine. June 22, 2004

Aspen, Colo. (Ski Press)-In a two-footed sport like skiing, finding true alignment is an especially tricky art – especially since those two feet are constantly in motion. So is the body’s posture, and the angle at which a skier’s feet…

Aspen, Colo. (Ski Press)-In a two-footed sport like skiing, finding true alignment is an especially tricky art – especially since those two feet are constantly in motion. So is the body’s posture, and the angle at which a skier’s feet and ankles are positioned in relation to the snow throughout the turn.

All those variables, combined with the different schools of thought concerning canting, boot-grinding and the manufacture of footbeds have coalesced to give finding true alignment the same scientifically-based, hit-or-miss feel of weather forecasting.

But now along comes Aspen’s Eric Ward, founder of the Foot Foundation. Ward, quite simply asserts that to find the balance between two feet, you have to start with one.

“If you believe that skiing is in fact a dynamic sport, then any attempt to analyze it should be through that lens,” said Ward. “And to me, being dynamic means that you’re constantly making movements or adjustments to continue balancing.”

“When someone stands on one foot,” Ward continues, “they make those balancing adjustments. With two neutral feet to deal with, that bias never becomes apparent. You have to find in each foot where to work individually before you can come up with a solution for both of them.”

Ward, whose father, Al, raced alongside the likes of Billy Kidd, has spent his life in the ski industry as a ski instructor in Vermont and Aspen, and as a student of the dynamics of the sport at the University of Maine in Farmington. A background measuring ski instructor’s body posture and muscle balance in relation to workmen’s compensation claims for a company called Biosymmetrics, as well an alignment study program for The Performance Center at Sugarloaf, eventually led Ward west, where he began making custom footbeds for his fellow instructors.

“The first year I ended up making one hundred footbeds,” Ward said. “The second year it was two hundred and fifty. At that point, I realized I could open a retail store specializing in alignment, or I could go into wholesale to work with the people who are already have that retail expertise. I chose the wholesale operation.”

With a growing network of specialty retail partners across the Rockies, as well as a new market that is presently gaining steam in New England, Ward outfits retailers with his Shim Balance System, consisting of an SBS balancing machine, as well as a set of shims.

Without the SBS, Ward says, a pronating ankle will cause the foot structure to collapse, causing muscles to divert their attention from physical performance to help alleviate the structural problem. With SBS, he says, the internal stress will be balanced out, and the body can focus on making crisp, clean turns.

Where Ward may seem radical, is in his declaration that two-footed balancing tests mask the true alignment problem.

“When you stand on one foot, the function of the skeleton changes drastically,” said Ward. “It changes the relation of the tib-fib and femur to gravity. It also sets into motion a chain reaction of tension because of the reduced capacity of the skeleton to provide structural strength or resistance. In an instant, instead of the skeleton providing the structural strength its role becomes leverage strength for the muscles to work against.”

While attempting this action, he says, “Most people would encounter the most basic of human condition: the collapse of the foot structure inside the ski boot. This is a normal function of the foot. And something that even custom foot beds do not fix. So there you are, sliding into terminal velocity on one foot and all of a sudden the ski begins to turn and you never asked it to.”

Getting your boot ground or your bindings canted adjusts the placement of the knee, when the problem is that the foot and ankle collapsing. Ward’s internal shims – which are placed inside the boot and can be easily adjusted without extensive work – are designed to support the structure of the foot, which in turn will better support the body above it: One foot at a time.

For more on Ward and the Foot Foundation, go to www.footfoundation.com.

PRESS >> THE TRUTH IS. © 2003
The Truth Is…

By Eric Ward. © 2003.

In skiing I have heard so many things that attempt to sum up skiing. Only one so far has really gotten my attention and helps bring all the others into focus. I have to give credit where credit is due. This nugget of wisdom comes from a wise young cannibal from NZ. Whare Heke, spoke the truth when he said “Everything in skiing is true, but no one thing is the truth”. This puts everything into perspective. With this rule as the backdrop you can say what ever you want to about the game without giving something more importance than it deserves. So, now with this rule in effect I give you another picture of skiing that was painted very eloquently for me by another wise man of the mountains, describing skiing as a symphony. I see this orchestra with all its instruments having equal importance. If you were to have an orchestra without one section it would be a sound without balance and would be contrived to make up for its missing parts. With this in mind I would like to shine a light towards part of the orchestra that I feel has been missing and by including it to your ensemble your orchestra will make music that you might have thought impossible. The section that has been silent all these years was muscular alignment. Or maybe we could call it stance/balance, instead of simple skeletal alignment.

With most skiers have the percussion section down, and some of the basics of harmony going for them. But even some of the more addicted skiers lack something that the truly talented enjoy with little appreciation for it. The relaxedness of the truly athletic skiers. To be relaxed while producing incredibly powerful movement is something that inspires awe from those that are struggle to attain moments of perfection in any sport. Bodie Miller proves time and time again that you don’t always have to be perfect if you can be a little more relaxed while exploring the outer most limits. Everyone watches these performances with jaws to floor imagining being in those boots during some amazingly athletic recoveries. We would probably all agree that there is certainly an entire orchestra with the volume at 11 inside those boots.

If there is one obvious difference that I see among the gifted skiers it is not basic movement patterns it is in how relaxed the ones that are going the fastest look.

So many times, people can be found in lessons or in a learning situation. There is always the paralysis by analysis factor, but even when out practicing without the prying eyes of the examiners we fail to be relaxed is it because there is a movement that we can not do or could it be simpler than that?

I have been playing with this idea since 1996 when I started working with alignment. I was initially taught the classic alignment dogma, and why, and how it works. I practiced this theory for some time before becoming rather let down by it. It is not that it did not work at all. This is not the case, let’s just say that it failed to meet my expectations. I just never felt like it really fixed all the problems. So I began to question some aspects of the theory. When you don’t believe it is hard to just continue going to church anyway. It may make you a better person, or could just make you bitter.

At the time I had the privilege of working with some very talented people that came to teach at University of Maine at Farmington Ski Industry Program. Prof Gary Brown was teaching a class called “the applied science of ski racing”. Imagine earning college credit for a class like this? We learned more about muscles and anatomy and how it worked for ski racing specifically. Most of what we learned you could go to your grave and never need to repeat. The most important thing that this made me aware of was that, “center of knee mass testing failed to address one entire section of the body. The muscles, and what affect the skeletal positions were having on muscle tension. A huge part of the orchestra was sitting there with their instruments with no music to play. So when I realized this I then became aware that a whole new way of helping people work better with their equipment was at least a possibility.

The next step was to figure out a way to look at skiing through the lens of muscle tension and opposing muscle balance. My hope was that by doing this we could learn how to teach better and how to help

the stiff become more relaxed.

The first big shift in theory, if you time how much pressure is equally distributed you might find as I did that a ski turn is rarely equally weighted. If skiing is done predominantly one foot why do we test alignment while standing on two feet equally weighted?

This was the burning question that begged an answer that never was answered for me. Another thing happened when skis started becoming more shaped. I began to realize that the role of the foot and ankle were becoming much more important than ever before. I found myself actively pronating and supinating to engage the edges instead of pushing and twisting.

The shift toward the internal was another awakening. For ever I was told to never put anything under the foot bed. Like usual in my life I had to figure out for myself why. The result was surprisingly positive.

I became immediately aware that when I put tape on my bindings it did not have nearly as dramatic of an effect for me as when I put some tape on my foot bed. Soon there was the perpetual pile of duct tape fillings in front of my locker at Sugarloaf. I had a pair of Peterson foot beds that were not posted so I began to fill the gaps with layer upon layer of duct tape. I got to the point where I began to layer tape under the ball of my foot and WOW that was when I started to make real changes in how relaxed I could be on my skis. Although at the time I did not understand exactly why.

By the time I was nearing my retirement from Sugarloaf I learned of another part of the symphony that had been ignored by conventional wisdom. The proprioceptive ability of the body, The common thread that connected all of the parts of the band and made sense of it all for me. Just in case you don’t know about this part of your body, it is the body’s personal internet. It is the communication system. It is what lets the body know where it is in space, where is going, and hel