Modifying Skate Fit and Balance
for Health, Longevity and Performance
I claim:
- A remarkably large number of skaters live with the consequences of ill-fitting
skate boots. Even some of the world's top skaters, using boots custom made for them
by the best boot makers, suffer foot injuries as a result of ill fit boots. In
addition, their boots and blades do not last as long as they should, and they may
have problems performing as well as they should because of these issues.
- Your feet should almost never be in pain as a result of exercise. If they are,
one possible explanation is poorly fitting shoes or boots. I've seen excellent
skaters, even coaches, whose feet are extremely unhealthy, in ways that are
obviously due to bad skate fit. Most people should not develop blisters, corns,
calluses, scars, bunions, hammer toes, inflammation, bone spurs and fragments, or
other visible or felt signs of excess or insufficient pressure or abrasion. Totally
unnecessary, unless you have certain rare medical conditions. Proper fit can also
reduce the frequency of other injuries like bone fractures, ligament sprains,
muscle strains, and back pains, because the pressure and tension created by you
weight and inertia will be born on the correct body parts.
- I believe that most people can modify their boots to fix most of these
problems. The high cost of skates makes this highly desirable.
- Proper fit leads to superior athletic performance, because there is no
slipping, shifting or rocking within the boots, nor will you need to waste energy
compensating for poor balance.
- Proper maintenance and fit often makes your boots last several times longer
than otherwise.
Caution I am not a certified expert, and
have no medical training. This treatise is based on my own and other's experience,
together with the basic principles of physics, chemistry and biology. Boot fitting
is more art than science. People use variant techniques to fit and modify boots.
People vary substantially in sensitivity to boot fitting problems and to the
chemicals contained in the leather, the amount and composition of sweat, skating
styles and disciplines, the amount of reinforcement and motion they expect from
their boots on various parts of their feet, the frequency with which they skate,
and the weather and climate in which their boots are stored. There are very
knowledgeable people who disagree with anything and everything I say here.
Further, skating boots, especially figure skating
boots (because you will switch between balancing on the inside and outside of the
foot), should fit much more tightly than is considered healthy in normal footwear,
to achieve better blade control. This means you will have a lot more problems with
skate boot fit than you have with ordinary shoes.
Summary and Introduction
Let's start with a brief summary of the theory
techniques discussed in the following pages.
Summary and Introduction: Steps to Take
- Most people can make do with rental skates at first. Though, to be honest,
rental skates at most ice rinks aren't stiff enough if you get serious about
skating, beyond your first few weeks, and you will be much happier with boots that
fit you better, either because they are customized, or because you modify them
yourself, as described here. Also, beginner blades make it hard to reach your
toepicks when you want to.
- As a person who has both taught entry level skaters (though I'm not certified)
and worked as a rink guard, I can safely say that somewhere between 98% and 99% of people who have trouble with basic skating have just chosen skates that are too
large and/or haven't laced their boots tight enough. This is because skates place
your feet higher off the ground than regular shoes, like stilts, and you must
balance across a narrow edge - much like walking on stilts.
- For rental skates, at a first guess, many people should pick a half-to-full
size (American style sizes - e.g., 1,2,3... 15) smaller size boots than normal
shoes. (About 1 - 2 mm length smaller in metric sizing.) Unfortunately, most rental
boots are sized for men, so if you are a lady, and are using American sized rental
skates, drop down a size or two to get the equivalent lady's size. (That does not
apply to the tot size range, which are the same for boys and girls.) If the result
is too large or too small, ask for smaller or larger skates. If your feet are
different sizes, some rental counters let you pick different size for each
foot.
- If buying your own skates, if possible, find the best skate fitter you can
(ask the best skaters and coaches you can find to find them), and have him or her
measure your feet.
More on boot experts in a later section.
More on boot (and blade) sizes in a later section.
- Make sure you received one left boot and one right boot. At rental counters,
where people work very fast, people make mistakes.
- If your feet hurt when you first put a skate on, and the pain is on the sides
of your feet. Perhaps your foot is too wide at some point. If you are using rental,
you must pick bigger boots. A few people can't help but hurt in stock boots, for
reasons discussed above & later, and should if possible order their own custom
boots.
- BUT: Feet that hurt on the sides after you have been skating for a while
probably usually have the opposite problem. If they are too large, or too loose,
they rub against your foot (and can eventually produce a blister), which causes
pain. (The rental boots I have seen are made fairly wide for their length, so this
is not unusual.)
- For rental boots, wear socks, to avoid getting other people's diseases. Make
sure they come above the boot. Unless your boots fit very well, bare feet will
cause problems. Even if they do, most people prefer to wear socks, to reduce boot
stink, and to extend boot lifetime.
- If your feet hurt on the bottom, check that there is nothing in the bottom of
your boot that is causing the problem. If not, there is probably a mismatch between
the shape of the bottom of your foot, and the top of the footbed + insole.
For example, if your medial arch (the place where your foot rises, on the inside of
the foot) is higher or flatter than the boot design assumes, your foot is being
forced into an awkward configuration that probably over-stretches muscles or
ligaments, or other tissue.
If it is a rental skate, you can insert an orthotic (if you have one) inside the
boot - though most orthotics are too wide for skates. Or insert paper towels,
toilet paper, or whatever you can find, under the insole where the foot is being
forced too low. Be sure to remove it when you leave. You may need a larger boot to
accommodate the extra space.
For you own skates, you can do something more permanent. More on this in later
sections.
- You probably want to lace as tight as you can stand without cutting off your
circulation or making you numb. (Exception: if your boot is relatively soft, extreme tension can prevent your ankle from bending enough.) Start at the bottom, pull inwards (not upwards!) at the holes and hooks, and tie the bow tie and double
knot as close to the boot as you can. I like about 15-20 pounds of tension in every
part of the lace. (Because the toe secton of my boots is too tight, I don't use the
bottom lace holes.) To avoid cutting into your fingers, avoid twisting the lace,
and wrap the lace around your hand before you pull. Don't let the lace slip back as
you work your way up. If you can work a finger under any part of the lace and the
end, it is much too loose.
- However, you can tighten the laces different amounts different places, to make
the boot fit better, by seperating different heights of the boots using a double-
overhand lace lock. E.g., see
trailsense.enwild.com/lacing-techniques-for-better-fit.
- Most of you should just fix your boot size and lace tightness, and you
won't need to read the rest of these pages!
- Every few skating days, or if has been a long while since you skated, make sure
your blade mounting screws are tight. If the blade moves with respect to the bottom
of the boot, that could create a wobble, or injure you. (This problem doesn't occur
if your blades are attached by rivets instead of screws - as is true on hockey
boots and some cheap figure skates.) Do this by trying to move the blade left and
right, in the front and in the back. Make sure you are using permanent mount
(round) holes in the mounting plates of the blade, not just the oblong ("sliding")
holes, which don't hold the blade in place as well. Then make sure the screws
are screwed in tight. But don't overtighten screws, as you can strip the
threads in the hole - in which case you need to use a different hole, a wider screw, and/or fill the hole with
something. (Most people don't initially realize how soft leather is, and do make this mistake at least once.
- If you still wobble, that means that there is a lack or weakness of contact
between your boot and foot somewhere, or that there is an imbalance.
- If the boots can be heat molded, do it!
- Now analyze carefully the way each foot interacts with its boot:
- Check for lack or lightness of contact anywhere: For example, if one side of
the bottom of your foot, or one side of the upper foot, doesn't touch as hard on
the boot as the other side, so the boot can rock from side to side, without your
control. How awful! Remember that boots should be much tighter than shoes - a snug
fit all over (though you may want a little space in front of and behind the foot
above ankle height to allow your foot to flex and extend) creates control. (I used
to claim you shouldn't have much pressure in front of or to the sides of your toes,
to avoid hammertoes and bunions - but a podiatrist corrected me - a normal amount
of pressure there is OK for most people.) You can use tape or adhesive foam (e.g.,
moleskin) on the bottom of the insole to tighten things up inside the boot and make
the foot have more or less uniform pressure everywhere. Or make your own insole to
suit. More on balance and insoles in a later
section.
- Check for blade offset and alignment: Maybe when you place your foot on the ice a jump, or
land, the initial shock, interacting with the blade mount position causes your
ankle to bend to the left or right. Medical books say there is supposed to be a
"principle longitudinal arch" (running on some people from the center of the heel
to the second toe, or a little closer to the big toe), which can support your whole
weight. But that doesn't seem to work in skates for many people. You may need to
offset your blade mount position to the left or right. (Note that the sideways
mount position need not be the same for the front and back of the boot. But that
alignment difference also affects the direction in which you skate, relative to
your body, so take that into account too.) More on blade offset and alignment in
a later section.
- Check for muscle/ligament imbalance: When you put your bare foot down on the
floor, then put your full weight on it, standing on one foot. does it collapse
asymmetrically? I.e., does it bend to the left or right? How about when you take
off or land a jump? The muscles and/or ligaments may be weaker or longer on one
side of the foot. In order to hold your initial edge, it helps to make it collapse
more symmetrically. This is almost the same as the two cases as above, and can be
dealt with the same ways - though you may now need unequal pressure left and right
on the foot. Most people find that if you collapse towards the inside (pronation),
you need more pressure against the inside part of the foot, underneath, and/or to
the side. Which makes sense, since physics says the force should drive your foot
away from the force. Likewise for the bends to the outside. However, some people
say they need pressure to the opposite side. I'm not sure why - I have theorized that if the muscles or ligaments are too loose, a extreme solution, that
these people may be using, is to deliberately impose excess pressure on one side of
the lower part of the boot until it distorts the shape of the foot enough that it
cannot distort any further (which might possibly be unhealthy, but may "work") -
though one skate fitter on a discussion board claimed that never happens. More on
this in a later section.
- Once you are done, and are happy with the shape of your insole, you can create
a warmer insole, if your feet get cold, by tracing around the old insole onto foam
from a closed cell foam camping mat. (I used to suggest urethane carpet foam
padding, but it seems too fragile to last long.) Then you cut the foam
to match, leaving some extra around the sides to take up space if the original
didn't fit well, then trimming the bottom of this new insole until the profile
matches your taped insole shape, and trimming the sides until it
fits all around the sides of the foot. If you have practice, you don't need
to use tape to get things right, and can start with the traced foam. Then make
small changes, if needed, to make everything work right, as discussed in
various sections above. The closed cell foam will also absorb impacts. I have cold
feet. I've decided this is the only type of insole I will ever use.
Some people have excessively warm sweaty feet instead of cold feet, and might do
better with an open cell foam.
Caution: I'm not certain any highly compressible foam insole will work for high
jumping freestyle skaters - maybe the downwards motion of the foot inside the boot
would cause you to lose control of the landing edge. I'm not a good enough jumper
to test this, and it may depend on your anatomy and technique. I also don't know
whether any compressible insoles - which should give you an advantage by reducing
impact force and therefore foot injuries, and which should also store energy,
reducing effort and making jumps higher - might be barred under the rules of
competitive figure skating. I haven't been able to find any rules against
"mechanical aids", but they may exist.
- Check for blade tilt imbalance: Once you have finished playing with all the
things above you may find that when you place your boot down on the ice, the blade
is tilted left or right - i.e., not aligned along the lower leg. That won't create
a wobble. But it will mean that you inside or outside edges will slip, even if the
blade is sharp. "Shim" the blade: Unmount the blade (trace the old mount position
first, so you can re-use it), stick something, like athletic tape, between one side
of the mounting plate and the outsole of the boot, and remount, being careful
tightening screws as above. Make sure that tape is placed so that pressure does not
warp the blade: when the blade mounting plates just barely touches the boot without
pressure, they should touch evenly all over, when the boot is in the desired
mounting position. More on mounting blades in a later
section.
- If the preceding steps were are all done right, and you are a good enough
skater to use all your edges, you should be able to skate stably forwards or
backwards, on inside or outside edges, balanced on one foot, without using
any more muscles on one side of the body other, and without getting sore. If you
know how to jump on figure skates, you should also be able to take off and land
jumps without your foot jerking to one side or the other. And you shouldn't skid
when you don't want to. Test these things now.
- Don't be surprised if you need to iterate between the the preceding steps
to make everything right.
- If you don't glide, turn, spin, or jump as well as you would like, or you skid
instead of gliding on an edge, you may need to play with your blade length, shape
or mounting position:
- There is no need for the blade length to be set by the boot outsole length. (See here.) Nor should the blade forward/back mounting
position to be set by the front or back of the outsole. While it is very common in
the skate tech community, and they often view doing otherwise as a sign of
incompetence, using the boot outsole length and position to pick length
and mounting position is just plain silly, since the boot outsole does not touch
either your foot or the ice, so has no effect on skating.
- A blade shape that works well for your coach might not work well for you.
E.g., I was told the front (spin rocker & toepick) portion of most blades is
not scaled for blade length, foot or body size - hence works quite
differently for different size people, or people with different anatomical
proportions, such as different ratios of the lengths of the toes to the lengths
of the rest of the foot.
- Instead, you want blade length, mounting position and shape to match your foot
and body anatomy, as well as your skating level and desired moves.
The main blade mount position determinants are:
- The most bendable part of the front part of your main foot - the ball -
should be over top, or slightly behind (though a few people say slightly ahead of), the "sweet spot" of your blade - where the
longitudinal blade curvature changes from the less curved main rocker, to the front
spin rocker. That gives you optimal control over turns and spins. A good starting
point is to pick your blade length and mounting position this way.
Unfortunately, this also affects how easy it is to reach your toe pick, how stable
and fast you are at the back of the blade, and whether your tails cross, causing
you to lose control or fall. Which is why you need a blade shape that meets your
needs. To some extent, a GOOD sharpener can adjust blade shape to reposition the
sweet spot to make these still be good.
- You want the toe pick position to be such that you can skate comfortably
without the toe pick touching the ice, but it is still easy enough to use your toe
pick (the toe pick mostly just interferes with skating, but as you learn to do
jumps, and possibly turns and spins, you will want it to be easy to use your toe
pick - so the desird relationship will change as you advance in skill, as
well as when you change blade types).
- You want the back (tail) of the blade to be as far back as you reasonably
can, for speed (because the back edge scrapes on the ice), and so that you don't
fall backwards off the tail, but not so far back that you cross your blades. (In
Ice Dance, it is often considered good form to touch the free foot boot behind the
back of the skating boot - "neat feet" - so shorter blades help avoiding crossing
tails when you touch the free foot down from that pose.)