Boot adjustments for skinny legs

[VON]

Problem: When the boot fits your forefoot, instep and ankle perfectly but the upper section is too roomy.

The reason this is a problem that absolutely needs fixing is: if your leg is moving too freely up top, you will not be able to put instant pressure on the cuff of your boot in all situations and therefore you are not giving/getting optimal response from your boot (and by extension, your skis). I imagine I am not the only one who has faced this problem at one point or another.

The boots in question for me are the Lange RX 120's. I have a very wide forefoot, a high arch, a very skinny ankle, heel and calf. While I recognized the room up top was not ideal to begin with, I managed to make them work for a season by just cranking hard on my top two buckles and booster straps. But as the not-so-plush lange boot tongue has started to pack out, the problem has gotten worse and I need to address it.

Option #1 - Buy New Liners:
The Intuition Power Wrap or Power Wrap+ come to mind. Anybody used these? My impression is that they have a lot padding in the shin/calf area and could really help me fill up the excess space in the Lange shell that my skinny legs do not. Does anybody have any experience using aftermarket liners like Intuitions or Zipfits to solve the skinny leg problem? One concern for me is that I already have a good tight fit on my foot area, so if I buy a liner with a lot of padding, it might solve the problem up top but create a new one down below.

Option #2 - Buy New Boots:
This would mean that there's no version of option #1 that will solve the skinny leg problem. The reason I'm keen to try option #1 is cost savings, but if option #1 doesn't solve the problem, I accept option #2.

For someone with my foot characteristics (high instep, narrow ankle), most bootfitters seem to grab either Technica's or Lange's. While the Technica's were marginally more narrow around my leg, the fit around my foot was not as good with the Lange's, so I went with the Lange's.

As I have begun to realize how much response I am losing by not having a very snug hold on my leg up top, I am beginning to think Technica's Mach 1 LV (low volume) boot may be the way to go as it will likely have the right fit up top and Technica shell can worked on a good amount around the foot area. Aka buy a pair of boots that are good everywhere that can't be modified, and then modify the areas that actually can be modified. From what I understand, the Lange shells cannot be worked on as much as the Technica's.

Just as an experiment, my boot fitter took out a pair of Salomon X Max boots because he said they had by far the snuggest fit above the ankle and he wanted to show me how things should feel up there. He was certainly right. While Salomon's are generally for lower instep feet and therefore this was not the right solution for me, I figured I'd share this piece of information for any of my peers with skinny legs and lower insteps!

 

[crgildart]

I have chicken leg calves. Some boots just need better Booster Straps!

 

[WheatKing]

I've got the same issues.. I just keep cranking down the buckles and straps.. I finally have a boot that fits my forefoot... but the ankle is loosening up some.. as well as the tongue packing out..

I've used various thicknesses of stick-on felt between the shell and the liner to reduce the volume in critical areas in the past with other boots.. and I might add some this year. You could always cut the foot off a really thick pair of socks and use them as ankle leggings.. LOL

I've also removed some of the overlapping plastic as it hampers the ability to really cinch it down..

*shrug*

learn to ski with loose ankles ;-)

 

[KingGrump]

learn to ski with loose ankles ;-)

Better yet, learn to stand on your feet.
The video is pretty clear.

https://forum.pugski.com/threads/all-things-ankles.5940/

 

[Philpug]

A tongue shim will help hold your heel in the pocket. Usually made of a neoprene and is 4-6mm thick.

 

[ted]

Eliminator tongues
https://store.masterfitinc.com/catalog/product/view/id/29
Cut off lower part and bevel to fit.

 

[Uncle-A]

1. Get the wire bale for the first toe buckle and replace the top wire bale with the shorter toe bale. It is a small improvement but it worked when I skied Lange boots.

2. Get very tall socks and fold the top down over the calf to double the thickness at the boot top, it also will add padding for the Lange tongue.

3. Add foam pads between the shell top and the back of the liner, although it will increase the forward lean.

 

[Philpug]

Remember too, for every action, there is a reaction. When you bring the cuff in around the leg shaft, you are also squeezing the top of the clog (boot lower). When you flex into the boot now you are getting more friction an a better chance of blockage of the upper cuff into the lower. A remedy is to trim the third buckle scrap allowing the cuff to flex more freely..

 

[VON]

Phil, Ted, Uncle _A - very useful info, thanks.

So my impression from all this is that shims are a better solution than getting an after market liner to fill up the extra room created up top by the skinny leg problem.

 

[DanoT]

When I took my Tecnica Cochise Pro 130 boots to get punched, the first thing the boot fitter did was remove the forward lean wedges. He said that the trend these days is to less forward lean and more upright stance and the wedges are best suited for those with skinny calves. As for me: I don't have calves, I have cows.

 

[crgildart]

Good booster straps, the ones I posted are way better than the ones that came on your boots.. and they work best UNDER the shell directly in top of the loners, not outside of the shell. If you've tried then that way then other shims, tongue is the next thing to try.

 

[Slim]

I got the Intuition powerwrap liners for that exact reason. It works great, on my skinny legs they are overlapped a bit less than halfway around, which is a lot thicker than the tongue style liner that was stock.

The lower foot should be no problem, as they are very heat moldable, and if that wasn't sufficient you could always punch the forefoot area of the shell if needed.

Additional benefit: you have new, comfy, warm liners!

One issue is that doing this will decrease forward lean, but whether that is a problem for you?

The other issue is they will stiffen the forward flex a bit, but again, is that a problem for you.

 

[PTskier]

I use the Eliminator brand Tongue Shims. They work very well for me. They hold my heel back in the heel pocket without any bulky padding on the sides of the liner, and they fill the gap around my skinny ankles and lower legs.
http://www.tognar.com/the-eliminator-custom-tongue-shims/

About heel lifts---they're for a few, not all. It depends (from bottom up) on the binding delta (heel higher than toe) the boot's boot board ramp angle (inside bottom of the boot heel higher than toe), boot shaft angle, skier's range of dorsiflexion (angle flexibility), skier's body dimensions (calf size, leg to body proportion, lower leg to upper leg proportion, weight distribution--big belly, or big butt, or big shoulders, or skinny all over). The goal is correct weight balance over the skis, and heel lifts can be one part of the solution--or part of the problem.

 

[MRT]

Skinny legs should need a spoiler (depending on the boots amount of forward lean) to move the knees forward, so as to orient your center of mass just behind your met heads when you have your ankles extended and your hips over your knees (provided you are tightening the cuff). The boot cuff should hold you in this position or ----- most of us will be standing on our heels, skiing the back of the ski---not good!

Fore/aft balance can be just as big a problem for skinny legs as it is for large calves.

mike

 

[VON]

Gotcha. Yeah I can get my knees well ahead of my toes, but I wouldn't attribute this entirely to my ability to flex the boot. I think it's also attributable to too much room in the cuff, which allows my natural stance to be quite far forward BEFORE I even start applying real pressure to the cuff!

We'll see how much an eliminator / power wrap straightens up my stance in the boot, but I don't think that (or additional stiffness) will be a problem in my case.

 

[VON]

Learn to ski with loose ankles ;-)

Haha yeah I've become quite proficient

But it only took one cliff + slightly off balance landing + shin bang for me to realize I really need to deal with this. As you can see in my pictures, it's not thattttt much space, but it's enough to cause problems..

 

[Brian Finch]

Skinny legs should need a spoiler (depending on the boots amount of forward lean) to move the knees forward, so as to orient your center of mass just behind your met heads when you have your ankles extended and your hips over your knees (provided you are tightening the cuff). The boot cuff should hold you in this position or ----- most of us will be standing on our heels, skiing the back of the ski---not good!

Fore/aft balance can be just as big a problem for skinny legs as it is for large calves.

mike

What Mike said. I've found that ensuring that (for me) I have a spoiler on the cuff & another on the liner (& they are aligned to compliment each other).

 

[ScottB]

I can appreciate your issues. I have long, narrow feet, and pretty skinny calves to match. I ski Lange RS140 boots (Blue ones). Here are my thoughts listed in the order of simplest to most expensive:

1. Put the forward lean shim in the boot, mine velcro to the back of my liners.
2. Move your upper two bail hooks to the hole which closes the boot the most, see phil pug's pic. My boots have 3 positions, I use the tightest or the middle. Drill a new hole if needed.
3. Cut back some plastic overlap of the cuff if needed, which I think you said you did, so it can close fully.
4. Install the highest stiffness Booster Strap, this has 3 pads in front which are very thick. Make sure they are between your tongue and your boot front cuff. In other words inside the shell, between the shell and the tongue. Cinch this down tight, but don't cut off your circulation. I find this takes up all the play for me. All boots should have a Booster strap to remove play, in my opinion. A real Booster Strap works much better than the Velcro strap that comes on most boots.
5. If you still have too much play, you need either a new, thicker tongue, tongue inserts as shown above, or the Intuition liners. You can buy aftermarket tongues for boots that are less $$ than the whole liner. The tongue insert is probably the first move and go from there.
6. Lastly, try another boot (maybe a woman's model if you have small feet) and have them fitted with the Intuition liners right from the store.

Good luck, and hopefully your issue is solved by step 4.

 

[SpikeDog]

One word for you - shintronics

http://www.manoove.com/shintronic.pp

You can use them on any boot. I bought these because of a pressure point at the top of the boot caused by an Intuition wrap. The wrap created a sharp contact point at the shinbone instead of a tongue which spreads out the shin pressure. If you have skinny calves you are also likely to have prominent shinbones. The shintronics fixed the pressure point and also allowed me to not crank the boot buckles so tightly. I think when you get the top 2 boot buckles cranked all the way it messes up the boot performance. The shintronics tend to work their way up my leg as the day goes on, but it's not a showstopper. The company is based in the Netherlands, but I had no problem with getting them sent to the US.

 

[VladSki]

Another thin calves, huge instep case here - just my $0.02:

Intuition liners: Been skiing in wraparound liners for the past 5 seasons (Full Tilts, then Dalbello Fusions). These eventually pack out (usually happens after ~50 days) and, while they continue to work well around the lower foot area, my ankles would be getting some shin bang, especially in the variable conditions off the groomed. So I went on and bought...

Eliminator tongues: A little bit of a remedy, but not a 100% cure. I believe than these were designed to work primarily with tongue liners.

I got Booster straps to try on for the next season, but the most important related piece of advice I found on the web was about learning NOT to go backseat when skiing off-piste, as this posture sets off the boot bang mechanism. Can't wait until the season start to get some practice.