Help please - cannot even stand straight

[shousa]

Hi....this is my first post here...

I have been taking ice skating lessons (group) for about 8 months.

I have one leg about 2.5 cm shorter than the other and use orthodics in my normal shoes.

Anyway I now have had orthodics made for my ice-skates (figure skates) and I still cannot even stand so the blades are straight. This is the case even if I am leaning on the barrier and concentrating on getting at least one blade straight (when skating I look like this / \ ).

I believe the problem is not my orthodics or leg length but the way my "balance is". I seem to be putting a lot of weight on my toes rather than my heels as well.

I am so unhappy I cannot skate well enough because my wife and I want to learn figure skating together (dancing).

Please can anyone tell me - it would mean a lot:
1) How to fix this problem
2) If ice skates can be adjusted so I can stand straight.

Thanks for reading.

[Isk8NYC]

Welcome to skatingforums.com, shousa!

What brand/model skates are you using?

I wonder if the orthotics only raised your heels, and now you're pitched forward onto the front of the skate? Make sure to "kick" your heel all the way back into your skate before lacing. The ball of your foot should be balanced right over the rocker of the blade - the curved spot behind the toe pick before the blade becomes more flat.

I know that custom skates are an option for people with the one-leg-shorter option. A friend's 5-yr old daughter's left leg was almost 5" shorter than the right, and her feet were different sizes. (She is still undergoing "stretching surgeries" to lengthen the one leg.) Don Klingbeil said they build the adjustment into the skate and balance the skates' weights to make them equal. They could certainly help her.

Eventually, my friend just bought a pair of stock skates ($400 customs for a 5-year old "try me" was too much $$$) and had a good pro shop adjust the height somehow - they added blocks between the sole and blade as well as a thicker insole. My friend was very happy with the result and the price.

Can you stand on the skates off-ice? Check that out first, walking in the skates for a few minutes to see if you can switch feet/shift weight easily and balance on one foot. If you can't, and this isn't a problem in shoes, then it's the skates.

It's possible that the orthotic has messed up the balance in the skates. When I had my current skates' insoles remade to match my orthotics, it took about 6 hours of skating to get used to the new alignment. I eventually ended up moving the blade to get the proper alignment with the new insoles.

Ask the instructors for the name of a good figure skating pro shop person.
There are a number of things they can do to adjust balance and/or alignment.

[shousa]

Thanks a lot...I am printing your answer and taking it to the ice rink.

You have given me hope.:bow:

My skates are Risport RF3.

I now believe, after testing at home, that my orthotics have me pitched forward as well.

In addition I have found the following:
- Note that my left leg is shorter than my right by 2.4 cms
- without any orthotics my right foot blade is straight!
- balancing on my left with right foot in the air it is not stable
- I am now thinking I only need to adjust the blade on my left foot.

Could you please tell me also how your blade was adjusted? I mean was both the front and back moved to the inside more or just either the front or back position moved? (not easy for me to explain...hope you understand).

[flippet]

Could you please tell me also how your blade was adjusted? I mean was both the front and back moved to the inside more or just either the front or back position moved? (not easy for me to explain...hope you understand).


For you, this will depend on your own individual needs, and you really need a professional to look at your skates, and how you're standing in them.

But the entire blade can be moved, or just the part you need (although if you need the front or back moved more than a miniscule amount, probably the whole blade will need to be shifted, to avoid torquing it).

Ideally, when blades are first mounted, screws are only put into the holes that are 'slots', and maybe a couple of other holes, but not all of them, so that the blades can more easily be adjusted to the individual before permanent mounting. Hopefully, not all of your screw holes are used, so you won't have to deal with filling/re-screwing a bunch of holes.

I've also heard of people with shims between the sole and blade, to make adjustments, but I'd think that you'd only use that kind of thing as a last resort--work with the interior orthotics as much as possible first. Just my guessing opinion.

Good luck! Adjusting skates can be a royal pain sometimes, especially when you're not experienced enough to have a good grasp of how it's *supposed* to feel in the first place! Trial and error, but hopefully not a lot of it!

[Isk8NYC]

So, how'd it go?

[Query]

I'm not a podiatrist, but as near as I can tell, most orthotics take advantage of the fact that the portion of the sole that touches the ground flattens and constrains the shoe to be in that plane. Also, they are designed to aide a rockover, shifting pressure from the outside of the foot during heel strike, to the inside as you come off your big toe. Some are designed for arch support. Many orthotics are rigid underneath (I'm talking about orthotics that are _inside_ the boot).

All you have is a curved blade underneath (this is for ice skaters, not for quad roller skaters), so you have just one point of contact, so there is no such constraint, and you can only put pressure there - so the normal orthotic often doesn't work right. Also, a rigid orthotic bottom (applys to most commercially sold moldable orthotics, including Superfeet) can rock and create major problems, even if the top molds.

Because the orthotic cannot do as much to orient your body parts, part of learning to skate is muscle strengthening, training and learning to orient your ankles, legs, knees, hips, spine, neck, and other body parts to support your weight correctly. A coach can help.

The footbeds and insoles of skates are usually incompressible and are meant to fit the foot bottom perfectly so the arches hardly collapse at all, so nothing shifts as the foot shape changes. (Some arch support orthotics apply extra sideways pressure at the arches, to prevent arch collapse. That works, but must be uncomfortable.)

A few podiatrists and good bootfitters (ask around) specialize in skating boots, and are more likely to do it right. Some coaches know a lot too. Some of the most widely referenced podiatry web sites don't take the above differences into account, and neither does the USFSA site, so most podiatrists can't be expected to guess right. The most widely referenced podiatry site says skaters always have the leg and foot vertical, whereas good skaters use all possible positions. _Some_ coaches say to pronate and supinate to lead into and smooth out strokes, and all use toe and heel points, and knee bends, to help control balance and initiate moves.

Most of the time figure skaters are on one foot - so you may not have to compensate as much for leg lengths as for normal shoes.

If you have a lot of pressure on one or both ankle bones (the bumps on the bones just above both sides of both ankles), or anywhere else on the boot other than the footbed, you should first have the leather punched out. I have directions on at http://www.geocities.com/grunes/falling.html#bootmod but I've learned some things since then and it needs work.

What an orthotic - made by a competent expert, or by yourself, out of layers of first aid tape, inside the boot, possibly under the insole - can do, is approximately equalize the pressure you feel on each part of the foot while you balance on it, over the blade center (exact point on blade may vary skating style and by coach's advice, and is completely different for hockey and speed skating).

If you have high pressure points, they will hurt and do damage. If you have low or no pressure points, you will lose control when you want to control the boot at that point, and you may get blisters. (But: the tips of your toes should not touch, nor should they be pushed up, down, or sideways.) Do it by feel, unless your feet are insensitive. A good skate bootfitter and a good coach can help too. When you are balanced this way, you probably want the leg to be oriented so the weight is born straight up the tibia, the inside lower leg bone, which is designed to bear weight, with little or no pronation or supination (side-to-side twist at the sub-talar joint between the foot and ankle), so you minimize bending moment on your bones and overuse of your muscles and ligaments. (Balanced this way, you ideally do not feel you are using any muscle, or at least everthing is symmetrical.)

In that orientation, you also want your blade to be vertical, and you want to be balanced somewhere near the center of your blades (again, statement may vary a bit by skating style and coach). As another said, that can be done by putting tape or other shims under the blade mounting plates, but not in such a way as to put a torque on the plates that makes the blade twist. An all-over shim can raise the shorter leg.

You may need a thinner insole, or none, to make room for your own corrections, or a thicker if the boot is too loose.

In ordinary skating strokes, if you have refit your boot right, the boot should never hurt you, should in fact be snugly comfortable all over, nor should your feet bear any signs of damage.

Make these changes iteratively, until everything is right.

This all sounds complicated. I hope it made sense. I hope to fix my web page to explain it all more clearly soon.

Good luck. I hope you have fun skating.

[dooobedooo]

My advice is, just be patient.

Just enjoy being on the ice, and make sure that you do actually move around the ice a bit, rather than sitting out having a coffee or whatever. Your legs, ankles and knees will gradually grow stronger and you will be able to hold positions better.

Skating does take a while to learn, and often beginners do not realise this because the experts make it look so easy.

As long as you enjoy the ice, atmosphere and the sport, you will find yourself making steady progress.