tarsal tunnel syndrome

RossF
Yes it does give my knees a bit of grief - but if there is no technical reason for my awkward posture/gait getting in the way of the craving I'll be as happy as a *** in ****. Thanks for the support.

PAUL CNG wrote:Superduke_Chris
The skiboots I have had made for me, almost (90%)remove the problem of numb feet so I'm hoping to avoid steroids and eventual surgery.

I had no idea that Profeet could manufacture a skiboot from scratch. Until now I'd thought it was only Daleboot or Strolz that could build a boot to manage medical problems on an individual basis.

bandit
Apologies - Profeet modified a pair of boots for me. Previous to having these made, I had tried every make and many sizes of boots supplied by the Intersport in Zell where I first tried to ski 4 years ago. All these boots (with forward lean angles of approx 15 -20 degrees) made my feet numb within 5 - 15 mins of putting them on. I payed around 3 grand for the ski hol (with my wife and daughter)and spent the majority of the week up and down the ski lifts to try on more boots. The chap in the shop took to hiding in the tech area towards the end of the week (can't blame him).
All's fine with the boots now - I just wan't to get better.

PAUL CNG, Thanks for clarifying that, no worries, glad your boots are sorted for you. Perhaps a pair of Strolz next time round?

Paul CNG, also look at cems post as he gives probably the best suggestion in the whole thread!!

Paul Cng. Good luck to you mate!!
I thought I had problems with my right boot after 2-3 hours!!
I am not even going to even try and discuss the physics and chemistry as to why you or may not be able to affect meaningful and deliberate carving!!

I am a mature good intermediate skier nothing more, but have recieved no formal instruction in over 20 years, in other words since carvers came on the scene. Started again 5 years ago and basically made it up as I went along. Desperate to try and improve I stumbled across the link I mentioned in the thread shown below
Skiing techniques- Carving Tution- It has to be seen

Have a look and see if you can see any reason why your condition wont allow you to adapt it to carving.

It seemed to make things simply explained and as a result I bought the DVD- SOFA SKI SCHOOL from Blue to Black Diamond.

One of the Chapters it discusses is carving as shown on the link. I found the whole DVD very worthwhile and would recommend it to anyone from intermediate to that breed of us who are good intermediates but have inherited some bad habits which make it hard for us to perfect our art as well as we would like on the steeps.

This is only a suggestion there are alot more qualified than me that use this forum.

What ever the outcome, enjoy yourself!!

People have mentioned raising the heel to allow some application of forward pressure, that will help to some degree but a more central binding position would help a lot too. What about moving the bindings to a more central position where applying forward pressure is less of an issue?

A fully symetrical park ski centrally mounted would be a lot easier for you to ski on - as your centre of gravity is already over the middle of the ski there would be less need to be pressuring the fronts of your boots - with a little heel lift you'd be able to achieve a relaxed knees bent stance and wouldn't have to worry about keeping your weight over the skis point of balance as your centre of gravity would already be over the POB without having to press forward into the boot at all.

A good tech who has tuned race skis could do a proper POB central mounting on a pair of park skis that would help you out a lot - that combined with a modest heel lift and you should be fine. I'd be a matter of finding how far back from central you would need to mount up to accommodate the heel lift you need for a comfortable stance - a heel lift will enable a better stance but will shift your weight forward a bit - you would need to mount slightly behind centre to allow for this - a good tech should be able to figure out exactly how far back would be right if you show him how much heel lift you're working with.

Essentially the central mounting would remove the need to get your weight forward - the heel lift would simply facilitate a comfortable skiing stance. You'd be 100% able to carve perfect arcs with really good style.

the problem is not getting weight forward, it is the availability of range of motion at the ankle or at least the entrapment of a nerve at the ankle when the ankle is flexed forward, in this kind of case the solutions are to raise the heel a little to increase the available range of motion at the ankle, making the cuff of the boot more vertical will further increase this available range, stiffening the cuff will give resistance when the skier bends the ankle, the resitance allows pressure transmission to the ski before the range of motion that is available is used up

heel lift is an interesting thing, most people assume that it will get weight forward, often times it will induce the opposite effect, if the ramp angle inside the boot, combinded with the binding delta angle is too great for the available range of motion at the ankle, the skier will drop the hip back to comensate....lifting the toe of the boot either by adding a race plate to the boot sole or a lifter under the toe piece of the binding can aften have a much more dramatic effect at getting the weight forward......or at least allowing the skier to pressurise the front of the ski, it opens all the joints in the lower kinetic chain and allows a much more progressive and dynamic flex....on a side note rental bindings tend to have a massive amout of delta angle with exasserbates the problem

people may have already guessed that the key to this is AVAILABLE range of motion and overall set up