Absolutely everything!How the Racers Ski

The late iconic super-coach Warren Witherell was first to quip that the average skier can improve more by having boots aligned than through an entire season of private lessons. Warren doesn’t malign lessons—quite the contrary—but his wry observation remains right on the money.

Many skiers are better skiers than they even suspect. Handicapped by out-of- balance boots, which is to say straight-jacket-like boots that prevent skis from resting flat on the snow, skiers blame themselves, thinking, “I just don’t have the athletic talent to do this!

They resign themselves to self-anointed “terminal intermediate” status.

This is unfortunate. 99% of skiers improve immediately once even minor alignment issues are corrected.                                     bow leg

The problem: many people have natural anatomical alignment that, when coupled with rigid plastic boots, forces them to stand not neutrally, but on outside edges, as in the picture at right of a bow legged skier. This makes it nearly impossible to release edges efficiently at the start of the turn. The hapless skier can experience this as “railing.”
knock knee

Knock-kneed skiers have the opposite problem. They tend to stand on inside edges. As you might expect, this has the opposite effect and these skiers have trouble engaging edges and must compensate with exaggerated unweighting and weighted ski steering. Result—poor edge hold, skidding, abstem and, in extreme cases, even crossed tips.

 

 

neutral

The objective is to balance the boot, which in turn balances the skier in neutral position, allowing maximum athletic, physiological and balance efficiency. Some fortunate few, about 20% of the adult population, are blessed with a naturally neutral stance. Everyone else can be aligned to achieve the ideal result.

 

Making the footbed

The process starts with a hand-crafted custom foot bed to support and align the foot in the boot for maximum balance, strength, endurance, circulation and weight-bearing capacity.

 

 

Once footbed, inner boot and shell are assembled stance alignment machineand modified to the individual, the entire system is checked with sophisticated stance measuring equipment.

 

 

 

Head for the hill and ski like you’ve never skied before, while staying warmer, becoming less fatigued and improving snow feel many-fold.

Alignment is some of the best insurance you can get for wringing the most fun out of every other dollar you’ll spend on skiing!

D-I-Y alignment diagnosis

skiers