Help Needed: A-Frames and Bump Skiing

[MissySki]

So I have an A-frame, and always have. There was one pair of boots that we corrected for it with a lift and sole canting years ago. My pictures and video looked so pretty without the A frame.. but I had some other problems in that boot and ended up with really bad knee strain by the end of the season. I wasn't sure if fiddling with the canting was part of the knee strain issue, and it ended up deterring me from wanting to do it again with the next pairs of boots I went into. Fast forward to now, and I have generally been told over the years that I ski with matching angles on my skis and have just adapted to compensating for my knock knees when skiing.

Recently I skied with an instructor I haven't skied with for years, he is very race background oriented and is the person who pushed me to deal with my alignment issues way back when. He once again told me that I obviously have managed to compensate for my knees in my skiing and do it well, I tend to stick one knee behind the other in my turns to allow the room necessary to feel and adjust my edging on the downhill ski. Without doing that my knees likely would just get in each other's way and hit before I could get as high on edge as I want to. I don't consciously do this, but looking at some of my instructor recorded video from Taos, that's exactly what it does look like. His message was basically that he thinks I would benefit from revisiting the alignment work, even if it's just trying out some temporary solutions to see how it goes, because even though I can compensate for my knees it will never allow me to ski as efficiently as if I didn't have to use those extra movement patterns.

It has gotten me also thinking about bumps over the years and my struggles to improve there. And I wonder.. could this be an issue that has slowed the speed of which I'm able to progress there? I'm thinking about steeper tighter bumps where you want your feet a bit closer together and you are using faster movements.. how could it not cause more of a struggle if my knees are kind of fighting for space in tighter quarters? Or maybe it doesn't make as much of a difference since you also aren't trying to edge as much there anyway?

I'm just curious if anyone else has thought about this stuff with an A-frame and how it does or doesn't inhibit one's skiing in different terrain types. And also, if you have had canting done for an A-frame are you happy with it? What process was used to determine how much canting to do? Was it all measurements with your bootfitter, or did you do a bunch of trial and error with shims or tape etc. on your bindings on snow to start? Thinking about making permanent modifications to my boot soles gives me a bunch of anxiety.. but I also would love to rid myself of the A-frame issue so it's not a variable I have to think about or subconsciously make inefficient adjustments for.

 

[WaterGirl]

@MissySki First you are very fortunate to have an instructor that is able to work with you on your boot set up! Just a few quick thoughts after spending the majority of this season working with several different boot fitters in an attempt to find my boot nirvana and you probably know most of this - but imho ......

Start inside the boot first. How is your footbed? is it supporting your specific issues? honestly different manufactures of custom footbeds come in different thickness and I notice even a slight ramp angle if the heel is thicker than the toe. Not being correctly supported can create or exacerbate any imbalances. (Note: before you cant a boot externally make sure you are happy with your footbed. if you change your foot bed after canting your boot it may change the alignment. Ask me how I know). Some fitters believe in extra support inside (so called internal canting) the boot some don't. YMMV.

Cuff alignment. Your Mach 1s have the capability of being aligned at the cuff for either knock kneed or bow legged. Maybe you already have this done? There is debate about doing this wile in the the liner or with just the footbed on the boot board. My DD A frames and this simple adjustment is enough to correct it to a point where it's not so discernible. Lange has a nice visual. You will need some one to do this for/with you -- its a visual while you are in the boots and they need to adjust while you stand.





The next would be externally canting the boot and I believe that Cantology shims are made for your boot so that is also something that could be fairly easy to do. But before you do any external canting I would make sure that your fore / aft alignment is correct. And I would play around with canting strips to get an idea of what is needed at the fitters on the boot bench and then experiment out on the hill with temporary shims before you do any external work. Since you have the instructor he will be able to really help dial in what is working and what isn't.

And your point about the your knees possibly bugging you because of the prior shims is a valid one. We are all built a certain way and just because it's perfect on the boot bench doesn't mean it's always right for us. Your body may have to adjust to the different angles. At this point in my journey my advice is to err on the lesser side -- and not try to achieve "perfection" as your body will always be adapting. Sometimes 'perfect' is too much.

 

[edelweissmaedl]

Somewhat repeating @WaterGirl....
Have you thought about a varus wedge to address the issue? I pursued some adjustments to my boots in January and the recommended bootfitter prefers trying to correct the issue inside the boot before moving to the outside (canting). The wedges were placed on top of heel lifts I already had on my boot boards. They would be much easier to take on/off or adjust the size of before considering sole canting, which could be removed but takes more effort to reverse again.

Since I don't know what issues your other boots caused it's hard to say what the priority should be, but I also learned that more forward lean causes most people's knees to track inward. (ie. it turns out I'm not knock-kneed or only very slightly). I ended up pulling the trigger on new boots in Taos after my instructor also mentioned the A-frame. Instantly reduced my knee pain and the instructor was a fan of the change in boots the whole week. Also, in the the vein of perfection....I am debating going back to see if I should do the wedges again or if I should just ski as is with the general improvement and happier knees.

Good luck deciding how much adjusting to pursue!

 

[TiffAlt]

I also would love to rid myself of the A-frame issue so it's not a variable I have to think about or subconsciously make inefficient adjustments for.

I have been told I am slightly knock kneed when skiing and it primarily shows up when I execute a turn. I am working on consciously doing what I've termed "fortifying the knee" to make sure the knee of my inside leg is pointing forward to where I want to turn and not inwards. I figured this out when my instructor positioned me to show me what I was doing in the turn versus what he wanted to see.

I am not sure if that is an issue you are seeing, but my instructor seems pretty happy with my fix and it could be an alternative to canting your boots.

 

[MissySki]

@MissySki First you are very fortunate to have an instructor that is able to work with you on your boot set up! Just a few quick thoughts after spending the majority of this season working with several different boot fitters in an attempt to find my boot nirvana and you probably know most of this - but imho ......

Start inside the boot first. How is your footbed? is it supporting your specific issues? honestly different manufactures of custom footbeds come in different thickness and I notice even a slight ramp angle if the heel is thicker than the toe. Not being correctly supported can create or exacerbate any imbalances. (Note: before you cant a boot externally make sure you are happy with your footbed. if you change your foot bed after canting your boot it may change the alignment. Ask me how I know). Some fitters believe in extra support inside (so called internal canting) the boot some don't. YMMV.

Cuff alignment. Your Mach 1s have the capability of being aligned at the cuff for either knock kneed or bow legged. Maybe you already have this done? There is debate about doing this wile in the the liner or with just the footbed on the boot board. My DD A frames and this simple adjustment is enough to correct it to a point where it's not so discernible. Lange has a nice visual. You will need some one to do this for/with you -- its a visual while you are in the boots and they need to adjust while you stand.


View attachment 20835


The next would be externally canting the boot and I believe that Cantology shims are made for your boot so that is also something that could be fairly easy to do. But before you do any external canting I would make sure that your fore / aft alignment is correct. And I would play around with canting strips to get an idea of what is needed at the fitters on the boot bench and then experiment out on the hill with temporary shims before you do any external work. Since you have the instructor he will be able to really help dial in what is working and what isn't.

And your point about the your knees possibly bugging you because of the prior shims is a valid one. We are all built a certain way and just because it's perfect on the boot bench doesn't mean it's always right for us. Your body may have to adjust to the different angles. At this point in my journey my advice is to err on the lesser side -- and not try to achieve "perfection" as your body will always be adapting. Sometimes 'perfect' is too much.

Yes, it is cool that this particular instructor is also a bootfitter. Well, I don't think he is actually doing bootfitting currently, but definitely brings this knowledge to the equation which is great!

When I got these boots with my actual bootfitter and we looked at my alignment, he had said he could kind of go either way based on the analysis he made, with making more adjustments for my knees. But that my right knee especially was a bit "wonky" with how it tracked. He also said that he'd like to see me ski to see what my knees did on snow. I just hadn't gotten around to sending him a video since I didn't have one of me skiing in these boots. We did do the cuff adjustments, I believe I was on the footbeds in just the shell when he did that.

When I go see him, which likely won't be until either late spring at this point (he's in Vermont and I ski in Maine, but may go to Vermont after my home mountain closes for the season) or in the fall, I will definitely ask about the potential for any modifications to the footbed first. I don't believe that anything is currently done to them with this piece in mind or if anything there would make sense for my situation.

The boots that I did have canting done on also added a lift on one of them because that past bootfitter believed that my issue was stemming from one leg being shorter than the other too. The problem with those boots was the overall position they put me in had my knees sooooooooo far over my toes.. which might have also been a big contributor to my knee pain. I couldn't ever get off of my quads in those boots and it was EXHAUSTING. So it might not be all that fair to blame the knee strain on the canting because there were other likely culprits or at least contributors in the situation.

My instructor was mentioning temporary shims to play with. I do like the idea that if we went that route I could potentially ski with him and get his immediate feedback in the process. Maybe I can at least go ask in the shop about those if it's something I could purchase from them. I don't actually want to make any alterations to my boots without my regular bootfitter doing the work, but I'm game to play around and experiment!

One other question, how does one analyze for the fore aft alignment as well? I'm not sure if that has ever been done specifically.

 

[sorcamc]

So I have an A-frame, and always have. There was one pair of boots that we corrected for it with a lift and sole canting years ago. My pictures and video looked so pretty without the A frame.. but I had some other problems in that boot and ended up with really bad knee strain by the end of the season. I wasn't sure if fiddling with the canting was part of the knee strain issue, and it ended up deterring me from wanting to do it again with the next pairs of boots I went into. Fast forward to now, and I have generally been told over the years that I ski with matching angles on my skis and have just adapted to compensating for my knock knees when skiing.

Recently I skied with an instructor I haven't skied with for years, he is very race background oriented and is the person who pushed me to deal with my alignment issues way back when. He once again told me that I obviously have managed to compensate for my knees in my skiing and do it well, I tend to stick one knee behind the other in my turns to allow the room necessary to feel and adjust my edging on the downhill ski. Without doing that my knees likely would just get in each other's way and hit before I could get as high on edge as I want to. I don't consciously do this, but looking at some of my instructor recorded video from Taos, that's exactly what it does look like. His message was basically that he thinks I would benefit from revisiting the alignment work, even if it's just trying out some temporary solutions to see how it goes, because even though I can compensate for my knees it will never allow me to ski as efficiently as if I didn't have to use those extra movement patterns.

It has gotten me also thinking about bumps over the years and my struggles to improve there. And I wonder.. could this be an issue that has slowed the speed of which I'm able to progress there? I'm thinking about steeper tighter bumps where you want your feet a bit closer together and you are using faster movements.. how could it not cause more of a struggle if my knees are kind of fighting for space in tighter quarters? Or maybe it doesn't make as much of a difference since you also aren't trying to edge as much there anyway?

I'm just curious if anyone else has thought about this stuff with an A-frame and how it does or doesn't inhibit one's skiing in different terrain types. And also, if you have had canting done for an A-frame are you happy with it? What process was used to determine how much canting to do? Was it all measurements with your bootfitter, or did you do a bunch of trial and error with shims or tape etc. on your bindings on snow to start? Thinking about making permanent modifications to my boot soles gives me a bunch of anxiety.. but I also would love to rid myself of the A-frame issue so it's not a variable I have to think about or subconsciously make inefficient adjustments for.

this is all so relatable to me. Remember I posted recently my tails are coming together and I wondered if its because my last boots had work done on them? They had the same sole canting. I think my brain adapted to not having to roll my edges so much because I kind of had a "cheat" that adapted of my body's natural alignment. Well, like you, I am anxious to change/alter my NEW boots because 1) id like to learn to correct my mechanics on my own because I was skiing well before I had that change made..the boot fitter asked me my concerns and then thought it would help me trust my little toe edge more and 2) it stresses me out to make to many changes when things seem to be working ok. My plan is to get CARV app and see if getting feedback can help me. If I cant take the feedback and improve, THEN I will look into canting/shaving/rebuilding the soles again. I def A frame my right leg though

 

[Pequenita]

I've had one boot sole canted after almost an entire season of "inexplicably" tip crossing while turning left and double ejecting at really, really inconvenient times. To the point where everyone who was skiing with me, along with myself, were often like "wtf just happened? you were just skiing along and then all of the sudden you were out of your skis!"

The weird thing with me is that the knee on my bowed leg actually lines up with the ankle/foot, and it's the non-bowed leg where my uncorrected alignment is a little knock-kneed/in...so I guess half an A-frame? Without the canting, my right ski would tip faster than the left when turning left, and I kept double ejecting. Honestly, if I didn't crash so much and so consistently when turning in a particular direction, I don't think I would have done anything. It's a 1.5º cant. My process was that I figured I'd already had well over 100 days in the boots, so messing with them wasn't as fraught as it is with new skis. It was just measurements with the bootfitter (Phil, actually), and then he stuck the cants into the soles. No trial and error testing with shims or duct table. It's been good. No double ejects since, which I think was 2018.

 

[Pequenita]

* oops - I meant not as fraught "as it is with new boots"

 

[SarahXC]

I have the in the boot wedges built up under my footbeds. It corrects some of my alignment issues, my right knee still aligns 2ish cm inside my ankle, it was about 4cm before. My bootfitter (also a PSIA Examiner so excellent grasp of skiing mechanics) definitely thinks we could go to the boot sole mods but was of the ski it and see before we do something permanent mentality. The posting/wedges in the boot feel like enough for me right now. Instantly could get the right pinky toe edge I had been struggling with for years before I had the footbed work done.

Edited to add: for fore-aft he marked on my hips (can’t remember the exact anatomical landmark) and ran the laser level to look for the alignment from the side the same as he did with the knee sharpie marks from the front.

 

[WaterGirl]

One other question, how does one analyze for the fore aft alignment as well? I'm not sure if that has ever been done specifically.

While clicked into your skis look down at your toes. Can you see them? B/c if you have too much forward lean with your set up you will be over your toes and you won't .... your instructor would be able to check for your on the hill set up in skis. Remember all that delta in the binding also affects the F/A balance esp the smaller BSLs. There are also other ways to check as @SarahXC said the boot fitter could use a laser or in my case a goniometer (device with two arms that measures angles) to see how changes in the boot board/shimming the toe affects the angle of the knee. For most people with average dorsiflexion normal boot set ups should work. When you are on the extreme of either lack of or excessive dorsiflexion you will need to address the F/A balance to achieve the best stance. I now know there is no off the shelf boot set up that will ever put me in the correct stance with out major modifications.


FWIW I think this is the best tutorial with visuals

Forward Lean and Ramp Angle

If you have ever had difficulties with your balance while skiing? It could be due to your boots not having the right amount of forward lean or ramp angle. Ramp angleThat’s the angle you are standing on top of that’s created mainly by the boot board under your feet. Forward leanThis is the angle...

patriotfootbeds.com

 

[WaterGirl]

@MissySki I reread your old post -- there is some great advice in that thread especially the first page:

How to get rid of a one legged A- frame

Curious especially from instructors here what they recommend for A frame remediation. I have always had some sort of an A frame, though it has come and gone in different severities depending on the boots I’m in. My right knee drops inward, that can be an issue for turn initiation on that side...

www.theskidiva.com

 

[AJM]

As a fellow A Framer I hear ya.
I had the canting plates put into my Tecnica Mach 1's to try and fix my A Framing issue and yes it fixed it but at a huge cost to my knees so I for one will be avoiding them in my next ski boots and I'll just live with the A Frame.

 

[shadoj]

My lay(wo)man's perspective: I have mobile joints. Soft tissue tension and/or laxity absolutely affects alignment and tracking. The ultimate goal is to get stable, efficient, direct power transmission between your feet/skis and COM. Seems like some cases may warrant mechanical (external) correction, while others are more efficient in an adapted stance. Play with your stretching & strengthening routine to work out asymmetry (I need IT band, inner thigh, hamstring, various others...)

Also, @MissySki, you ski beautifully! Soft leading lower/inner knee in bumps and on steeps... yeah, perfection goals ;)