For the last month and a half I have sort of stumbled upon/inadvertently taken a different path in regards to ski conditioning that I hadn't really considered much before, and it all came about because of my overly posted footbeds which I have subsequently tossed....
I realized that I am assymetrical from foot to head in regards to left and right joint RoM, muscle tightness, etc and that most of my issues in this regard stem from my feet, which have taken much abuse over the years with all of the backpacking, skiing, and constant on-my-feet back and forth at work. Combine that with the fact that I have always believed I should wear a very supportive shoe/boot with plenty of arch support as well. Boy was I wrong. Long story short, I have basically unintentionally weakend my feet and therefore caused misalignments further up my kinetic chain...
Ergo, my first priority as I've said, is loosening the foot/ankle, knee/hip/spine with various methods to include using roller massage balls on all of the relevant muscle groups associated with these key areas...add in stretches after the muscles have been mashed loose. I can already feel a HUGE difference in RoM, e.g. more dorsi/plantarflexion, increased ability to abbduct/adduct, etc. Also balancing on one foot on a pvc pipe has become quite easy whereas before I would struggle (especially with my right side) due to weak feet and misalignment.
I feel that if the feet (which have 33 joints per foot!) can't articulate properly, the rest of the groups up the chain will have to compensate for this deficiency and will also have to try and make fine tune adjustments in balancing, which they are not primarily designed to do.
Theses thoughts also tie in nicely I think with the "ski from the feet up" mantra that some of us endorse....
A work in progress!!!!
zenny
