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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Ski Boots Really Can Fit Custom Insoles Do A Lot To Halt Unnecessary Pain

John Miller Correspondent

Throughout the course of civilization, mankind has seen its share of lovely torture instruments.

The rack was nice. Getting burned at the stake did wonders for Joan of Arc’s reputation. The bed of nails, while somewhat primitive, wasn’t without its peculiar charm.

Enter plastic ski boots, the 20th century’s version of the iron maiden. Since their inception three decades ago, people having been cramming their feet into these painful contraptions, all for the sake of ripping it up on the slopes.

According to Spokane bootfitters, all this suffering is just plain unnecessary.

“Within reasonable parameters, there’s no reason why people have to ski in an uncomfortable pair of boots,” said Karl Boldt, who has been putting people in boots at LouLou’s ski shop for nearly 20 years.

OK, so you bought new ski boots this year, and now they’re killing you. Your feet are always cold, and there’s a bump growing on your arch the size of a small child.

Don’t panic - chances are you won’t have to buy new boots.

“The biggest problem most people have is the boot is just too narrow,” Boldt said. “Most people pick up a cramping sensation in their arch. It’s very painful.”

That’s a difficult problem for a skier to solve by himself, but Boldt says it’s relatively easy for a ski shop equipped with a boot stretcher to remedy your pain.

“A good bootfitter is like a sculptor,” Boldt said. “Just by looking inside a boot, he can mold it to the shape of your foot.”

Herb Genteman, who has been in the ski boot business since 1968 at the Spokane Valley’s Sports Creel, said 80 percent of the boot problems he sees have to do with “taking up space.” People have bought their ski boots too big.

“That’s where a custom insole comes in,” Genteman said.

Custom insoles, or footbeds, are molded to the shape of the skier’s foot, supporting high arches, flat feet, or other foot-related inconsistencies.

These custom jobs, depending on the brand you choose, aren’t cheap. In Spokane, a good footbed runs anywhere from $70 to $125. But they make a lot of difference.

“Custom footbeds can make your boots fit better without ever tightening the buckles,” Genteman said.

People who think their ski boots are too small also can benefit from a custom footbed. By preventing the foot from dispersing beyond the limits of the flimsy footbed that comes with the boot, a custom footbed eliminates pinching pain.

Jeff Spray has fit boots at Wintersport in Spokane for six years. He says ski boots that feel perfect in the store begin to “pack out” almost immediately, often becoming too roomy for occupying feet.

“Everybody starts clamping the boot down as tightly as possible to hold their foot in place, creating pressure points and cutting off their circulation,” Spray said.

To correct this, a boot fitter can place shims underneath a boot liner.

Many folks come to Spray with the non-specific complaint that “my feet are cold and my boots hurt.” In addition to fitting people in their boots, Spray passes along lifestyle advice he picked up at a boot-fitting clinic in Seattle last October.

“Stop smoking. Smoking hurts circulation,” he said. “And wear a hat. Not wearing a hat, your body is going to start pulling heat from your extremities to keep warm. That’s when your feet start to get cold.”

Spray admits he occasionally sees feet that defy biological explanation. Bunions as big as blimps. Calcium deposits, compliments of the ghosts of ski boots past, grow to resemble Mt. Vesuvius.

“If I see people with really messed up feet, I always recommend a doctor,” he said.

Dr. Stuart Brim, a skier and foot specialist at Medical Foot Center, said doctors can work in conjunction with a bootfitter to tailor a pair of footbeds to a skier’s feet.

Brim does not recommend using the orthotics from your street shoes in your downhill ski boots. These rigid orthotics can take up too much space and are designed for heel-to-toe action - as opposed to a ski boot’s rigid nature.

As an alternative, people with problem feet should bring the casts from their orthotics to a bootfitter. These casts are not only molded to the foot, but also place the foot in its neutral position, where it can move normally and absorb shock most-effectively. A bootfitter can use the mold to make the custom footbed.

In addition, Brim said a foot specialist can surgically remove bunions, calcium deposits, and alleviate hammer toe caused by ill-fitting boots if they’re too painful.

Don’t torture yourself. Even Joan of Arc wouldn’t have gone the boot route to become a martyr to skiing.

Follow this advice - if your boots hurt, take ‘em to a bootfitter. Amid all this wonderful snow, sun and plunging temperatures that promise to preserve Spokane-area slopes well into spring, nobody should endure the discomfort of painful feet.

MEMO: These 2 sidebars appeared with the story:

1. BOOT TIPS Pull out your boot liners at night, or use a boot dryer to dry them. When you store your boots, keep them loosely buckled to preserve the boot liner’s shape. Wear just one pair of ski socks, and make certain they’re ski socks. Also, put your ski socks on after you get to the mountain, first using a towel to dry sweat from your feet. Never store your ski boots inside your car overnight - frozen boots aren’t fun. A final note: LouLou’s employee Jerred Wolff tells of a skier next to him in the lift line at Schweitzer who complained he’d never had a worse fitting pair of boots in his life. “I looked down and saw the buckles on the inside,” Wolff remembers. “I told him if he’d put them on the correct feet, they’d probably feel a lot better.”

2. THANKS TO FOOTBEDS, NORDIC BOOTS DON’T HAVE TO BE SO UNCOMFORTABLE Compared with their downhill counterparts, Nordic ski boots with their soft uppers and tennis shoe-like-feel seem like a slice of heaven. However, cross country boots can be devils. But have no fear - local boot experts offer plenty of advice for poor soles. “A lot of people think orthotics are only for city shoes, for work or for running,” said Nadine Tempelman-Kluit, a salesperson at Fitness Fanatics. “But they work just fine in Nordic boots.” In this case, an orthotic is a rigid footbed designed by a foot doctor to help correct foot problems. Doctors say they aren’t appropriate for downhill ski boots, but in Nordic boots, which duplicate the heel-to-toe action of street shoes, they work nicely. Fitness Fanatic’s Robin DeRuwe said another problem many people complain about with Nordic boots is too much room in the heels, often resulting in painful blisters. In more expensive racing boots, there is often a Velcro strap behind the heel to take up slack. Such straps don’t exist in touring boots, the kind most recreational skiers own. To remedy the problem in these, DeRuwe recommends using a better footbed. “What will happen, the arch support in the insole will hold the foot in a neutral position so it’s not flattening out and moving forward,” she said. Just like in downhill boots, Nordic skiers can pamper themselves with formable custom footbeds, personalized to the shape of hard-to-fit feet, said Mountain Gear’s Bob Clark. Also, boots that are too small can be stretched at painful pressure points, both along the length and width of the boot. If your boots don’t fit quite right, chances are you won’t have to buy new ones, Clark said. Just take them back to where you bought them and let bootfitters have a go. “There are definitely things that can be done to work with the foot, as long as it’s a close fit,” Clark said. John Miller

These 2 sidebars appeared with the story:

1. BOOT TIPS Pull out your boot liners at night, or use a boot dryer to dry them. When you store your boots, keep them loosely buckled to preserve the boot liner’s shape. Wear just one pair of ski socks, and make certain they’re ski socks. Also, put your ski socks on after you get to the mountain, first using a towel to dry sweat from your feet. Never store your ski boots inside your car overnight - frozen boots aren’t fun. A final note: LouLou’s employee Jerred Wolff tells of a skier next to him in the lift line at Schweitzer who complained he’d never had a worse fitting pair of boots in his life. “I looked down and saw the buckles on the inside,” Wolff remembers. “I told him if he’d put them on the correct feet, they’d probably feel a lot better.”

2. THANKS TO FOOTBEDS, NORDIC BOOTS DON’T HAVE TO BE SO UNCOMFORTABLE Compared with their downhill counterparts, Nordic ski boots with their soft uppers and tennis shoe-like-feel seem like a slice of heaven. However, cross country boots can be devils. But have no fear - local boot experts offer plenty of advice for poor soles. “A lot of people think orthotics are only for city shoes, for work or for running,” said Nadine Tempelman-Kluit, a salesperson at Fitness Fanatics. “But they work just fine in Nordic boots.” In this case, an orthotic is a rigid footbed designed by a foot doctor to help correct foot problems. Doctors say they aren’t appropriate for downhill ski boots, but in Nordic boots, which duplicate the heel-to-toe action of street shoes, they work nicely. Fitness Fanatic’s Robin DeRuwe said another problem many people complain about with Nordic boots is too much room in the heels, often resulting in painful blisters. In more expensive racing boots, there is often a Velcro strap behind the heel to take up slack. Such straps don’t exist in touring boots, the kind most recreational skiers own. To remedy the problem in these, DeRuwe recommends using a better footbed. “What will happen, the arch support in the insole will hold the foot in a neutral position so it’s not flattening out and moving forward,” she said. Just like in downhill boots, Nordic skiers can pamper themselves with formable custom footbeds, personalized to the shape of hard-to-fit feet, said Mountain Gear’s Bob Clark. Also, boots that are too small can be stretched at painful pressure points, both along the length and width of the boot. If your boots don’t fit quite right, chances are you won’t have to buy new ones, Clark said. Just take them back to where you bought them and let bootfitters have a go. “There are definitely things that can be done to work with the foot, as long as it’s a close fit,” Clark said. John Miller