Modifying Skate Fit and Balance:
Equalize Pressure
It is highly desirable to approximately equalize pressure over all parts of your foot,
This helps you effectively control the boot, and therefore the edge.
If there is a gap or low pressure point between part of your foot and the boot,
you will have trouble exerting pressure there, or there may be times when the boot is
not under control as you switch from one edge to the other, or change your lean.
As mentioned earlier, low pressure points are also places where the boot can slide
against your foot or sock (if you use one), causing blisters, calluses and corns.
Equalizing pressure will also help prevent overuse injuries of muscles and
ligaments that bear the asymmetric load on your feet.
We have already discussed relieving pain & excess
pressure points here.
Pressure equalization at low pressure
points can be accomplished on the bottom of the foot by sticking athletic tape under the
insole, where required. (Don't forget that when you flip the insole
over, you reverse left and right! I.e., to better support the inside of the foot,
flip the insole over, and tape the outside, then flip the insole back and re-insert it
into the boot. Likewise, to better support the outside of the foot,
flip the insole and tape the outside.) You can alternately tape the surface of the boot.
(If you remove the insole completely, you may also want to cover exposed threads, so you
don't indent the foot there.) I recommend that you do not create strong sudden
transitions in the shape of the insole, but keep the modifications smooth.
Near other parts of the foot, you can apply tape to
the leather on the inside of the boot, but it will tend to come off. Moleskin sticks
better to the sides of the boot than athletic tape. Or apply adhesive felt.
It is equally important to recognize that selective
unequal pressure can be useful.
I have believed that footwear of all types should leave
"room to wiggle your toes", and that the front and sides of your toes shouldn't touch.
But a podiatrist told me that isn't neccessary for most people. In fact, many people
claim both are needed for optimal control, and that toe pressure helps you jump. But
excessive pressure on the sides or front of the toes leads to various medical problems,
including a variety of issues termed "hallux valgus". E.g., excessive pressure there
can create foot deformations. Excessive pressure on the front of the toes, that causes
them to bend, can lead to problems like "hammer toes" or "mallet toes". Excessive
pressure on the sides of the toes can produce problems like corns, bunions and crossed
toes.
Common Skating Injuries And
What To Do About Them says that if the boots press against the tendons on the
outsides of the lower legs at the top of the boots too strongly the tendons
could rupture on high jumps. E.g., many skaters rupture Achilles tendons at the back
of the leg, during jumps. Perhaps this is because the back of the skate digs into the
back of the foot when you strongly point for jumps. So it may be a good idea
to make sure skates are well padded at the top, and are somewhat looser fit on the
back inside, above the ankle.
Ice dancers prefer boots that are cut lower in the
back. In addition, many skaters, including many high level freestyle skaters, prefer to
leave open space in front and in back of the foot, above the ankle bones. In addition,
many people prefer boots that do not have a sharp edge at the top of the boots, so they
don't cut against the legs. These things also makes it easier to jump and land, by
making it easier to point their toes, especially with the very stiff boots that
high level freestyle skaters use. They still need pressure from the sides of the
boot, including at ankle level, to provide safe support for jumps or deep edges. As
stated in the previous page, with that style fit, there will be a reduced boot lifetime
(e.g., 3 - 6 months instead of 2 - 10 years) because there is room for a breakdown
crease to form, but many people think it worth it. You should also use stiffer
boots to slow that breakdown, but if you are a high level freestyle skater, you
probably need that anyway. Again, as described in the previous page, they also need to
cover parts of the skin against which motion can occur because of loose contact
with silicone pads (or adhesive strips, or sports wrap), to avoid bruising and/or
blisters.
Flat Feet, Pronation and Supination
We introduced these medical issues
here. They are in theory best diagnosed, evaluated and treated by
medically trained experts, which I am not. A skater with medical issues might reasonably
consult with an appropriate medical expert, or imitate while customizing their insole
the types of foot support an orthotic provided by a medical expert creates. The best you
can do without expert diagnosis is to experiment with many techniques
until you find one that works, but that may not achieve all the right medical goals.
Some people need some extra pressure at specific
points to be comfortable and healthy. For example, if you have an over-extended tendon,
such as in "flat feet", that occurs when your arch collapses, you may need to a bump
under your arch to avoid tendonitis (inflammation of a tendon, which is an end of a
muscle). E.g., that might occur if a ligament in your foot that would otherwise stop the
collapse is longer than the muscle. A very few people need the sides of their
feet to be pinched together near the arch, too, to immobilize the affected joints.
In pronation, a foot edges inwards, placing
weight on the inside of the foot, as when skating an inside edge, and/or an ankle or
knee bends inwards. In supination, a foot edges outwards, placing weight on the
outside of the foot, as when skating an outside edge, and/or an ankle or knee bends
outwards. Pronation and supination are used in different medical contexts to refer to a
variety of problems, as well as to motions in somewhat different directions, by
different medical specialties. For example, podiatrists refer to "excess pronation" and
"excess supination" when the motion or position goes beyond normal healthy
bounds, and they refer to side-to-side motions. Whereas orthopedists commonly use
pronation and supination to refer to injuries that require treatment, and they often use
them to refer to motions which combine a flexed foot with an outwards edge, or a pointed
foot with an inwards edge, i.e., to motion along a somewhat different axis of motion. In
addition, pronation and supination may refer to issues that occur because of the foot
shape, or to motions of the ankle, some other part of the foot, the knee and/or hip.
Both feet may or may not do the same thing (e.g., in swizzles, both feet pronate or
supinate at the same time, whereas in slalom skating patterns, one foot pronates while
the other supinates.) Likewise, two feet may or may not have the same medical
issues.
As best I understand, when typical people walk, some
pronation and supination, by podiatrist definitions, are normal. The heel strikes approximately in its center (or not quite in the center), ahead
of the body. As the foot rolls forwards, muscles roll it outwards to place the weight on
the outside of the foot, into supination. The foot continues to roll forwards.
About mid-gait, muscles push the foot outwards and roll it inwards, rocking over
into pronation, placing the weight on the inside of the foot. The foot eventually loses
contact with the ground behind the body, near the big toe. One source claims that most
of the energy creating propulsion comes from muscles creating the sideways rolls, rather
than from muscles creating backwards to forwards roll. Claims have
been made the this typical gait is specific to people who wear shoes which
both cushion heel bone strikes and have a raised heel, and that long-term barefoot
walkers walk differently. Running is also a little different from walking. Regardless,
the actual point of rock over varies from person to person, and not everyone contacts
with the heel, or has approximately equal supination and pronation phases. By one
definition, you supinate (walk bow-legged) if you mostly walk in a supinated position,
with your feet, knees or ankles slanted to the outside, and you pronate if you mostly
walk in the opposite pronated position. Neither is considered healthy for the knee or
hip, and doctors strive to correct them.
But "good skaters" don't move like normal people walking.
Figure skaters who wish to be rated well, especially
ice dancers, are frequently expected to skate in arcs of constant radius that stay on
deep inside edges (very pronated), or that stay on deep outside edges (very supinated).
And especially in ice dance, we generally push diagonally back on an inside edge when
skating forwards, and diagonally out then in and forwards on an inside edge when skating
backwards. In short, on many moves we lose the extra force obtained through edge changes. Figure skating is a form of dance, and is not always an optimally efficient
form of locomotion, though I think it should mostly look graceful and unforced.
Speed skaters exaggerate the rock over, and often
eliminate or reverse the forwards roll of the foot. They usually push straight out, and
I'm told the best push diagonally somewhat forwards, so both feet are moving forwards
all the time. (So do inline skaters, and skate skiers, but the best inline skaters
sometimes do one power pull after the diagonal push outwards and forwards, and pull in
before lifting the foot.)
Hockey skaters skate mostly on inside edges (pronated), or on two feet at once,
for stability.
Skater athletic training hopefully makes what would
otherwise be pathological motions and poses reasonably healthy. E.g., we strengthen and
stretch appropriate muscles, and possibly ligaments (and other connective
tissue), so we can safely support the positions, and extend the ranges of safe
motion.
But there are some types of excess supination and
pronation that skaters seek to prevent. If an arch collapses onto the inside or outside,
due to anatomic problems, you can over-extend a tendon, just as with flat feet. An
appropriately placed bump in the insole can eliminate that problem.
An easy to deal with form of supination or pronation
is when the overall left-to-right slant of the bottom of a foot doesn't match the slant
at the bottom of the boot. This can cause an imbalance, because your foot presses
down on one side the boot bottom more than the other. It can makes your foot and/or
muscles sore, because one side of your foot supports most of the weight, and you may
try to use continuous muscle strength to maintain proper posture. Tape under the
appropriate portion of the insole can fill the extra space and equalize the pressure, as
discussed on the next page in connection with balance. I had this problem, due to poorly fit boots.
Likewise, the side of the boot may not match the
shape of your foot either, so that it presses on one side more than the other, and
causes you to edge the foot outwards. This is again discussed on the next page in
connection with balance, and is solved by placing moleskin on the in side of the boot at
appropriate points, to fill and equalize space.
You should avoid letting your ankles bend to the
inside or outside most of the time, for safe weight support and perhaps other
health reasons, and in figure skating because it looks wrong. (Maybe it is particularly dangerous in jump take-offs and landings, because it tends to overstretch ligaments.)
Except that deep ankle
bends are often used to initiate deep ice dance edges. (In particular, I was told by
one ice dance coach to use sideways ankle bend on the underpush foot in crossovers and progressives so that the top of the boot would brush against the ice.) To a large extent you can correct this through athletic training. But you can also straighten ankles somewhat, on average, by applying pressure in ways that are impossible on most
shoes, because skates reach a little above the ankle, and fit tightly. Employ
differential pressure in three sideways zones, below, at and above the ankle. For
example, if your ankle pronates (bends inwards, towards the other foot), you can apply a
little extra inwards pressure above and below the ankle, and a little extra outwards
pressure at the ankle joint. That combination tends to push the joint straight. This
method makes complete sense from a physics perspective, though I have not heard of
medical experts employing this technique, perhaps because it is impossible in lower and
looser fit shoes. I don't need to use this technique, but some do.
One complication to any attempt to limit ankle
motion is that the "ankle" comprises several joints, and "ankle motion" involves
motion throughout the lower foot, knee, hip and higher. It is hard for untrained
individuals to figure out what is going on.
Lauren Downes (PT) warns that many people pronate due to motion in the forefoot,
which may not be compensatable using pressures inside the boot.
Sometimes knees bend to the inside or outside. This
is both unhealthy, and looks bad in figure skating. In some cases the source of the
problem lies in pronation or supination of the foot or ankle, which can be corrected in
the boot. Either way, if you can't train it away, consult with a medical expert.
Medically trained experts know how to employ unequal
pressure in other places - e.g., see
this
discussion by Lauren Downs as well. She has many useful articles for the skater
here.
If you have had an orthotic created for you previously,
for other shoes or for when your feet were a different size, you might consider
imitating the effect of that orthotic in your skating boots. Or get another custom
orthotic made for your skates by a sports podiatrist or orthotist familiar with
ice skating issues. Some people pay an expert for custom orthotics, but find they must
modify them themselves to be more effective or comfortable. To some extent they have
wasted several hundred dollars for the custom orthotic, but even an imperfect expert
treatment provides many people with a good starting point and the impetus to apply their
own ideas.
Heel Height
I have a very incomplete understanding of the issues
involving heel height. Most hockey and speed skates have little or no heel elevation.
And many of us feel quite comfortable barefoot, or in shoes that have no elevated heel.
But as I said earlier, we generally use a bend at the ball of the foot to prevent the
foot from sliding forwards inside the boot, which creates an elevated heel. Figure skaters are expected to not roll their skates onto their toe picks except when needed. I think an elevated heel is meant to let us keep our feet in a reasonable position, but
effectively pushes the back of the blade down and the toe pick up, so this should keep
us off our toe picks. To some extent, the same goal can be attained by increasing the
thickness of the insole at the back. At least that is the theory. In my case, I think
a significantly elevated heel puts me off-balance, and I would be better off with a
much lower heel than I have.
Since ice dancers don't need to jump much, but do need to perform many movements in
which the free leg touches down and glides in front of the main skating leg, a position
in which it is hard to keep the toe pick from touching, they usually prefer
1/4" to 1/2" (.6 - 1.25 mm) higher heels. I think the elevated heel is also an
appearance thing, based on the fact that the exterior shape of many boots makes the heel
look more elevated than it actually is.
If, when skating in proper form, you feel more
pressure on the back of the bottom of your foot than on the front,
or if you have trouble staying off your toe picks, or have trouble pushing through
your heels, during those strokes when that is required, or if you cannot achieve the
apparent flexed ankle position (toe pulled back towards your upper leg) some poses
require, a higher heel would have helped. Or achieve the same effect, by putting tape
under the insole, in the back ("fearfoot posting").
Likewise, if you place most of your pressure on your
heel, or have trouble using your toe picks when you want to, or cannot achieve the
apparent pointed toe position some poses require, put tape under the front of the insole
("forefoot posting")
However, this is complicated by the fact that
pushing the toe or heel too far up or down may push the foot into unintended
pronation or supination, for some people. I don't understand the issues, and cannot
recommend a fix. It is possible to place the tape on the inside or outside
of the heel or front portion of the insole, but I'm not sure whether that solves
everything.
In addition, if your heel is too elevated, you may
get an inflammation of the connective tissue at the
bottom of the foot called Plantar fasciitis, resulting in symptoms like heel pain,
and sometimes associated with knee and back pain.