Am I just too big for the skates?

[Christy]

I recently posted about trying a smaller boot / blade combo (blade is 9, previous was 9.25, boot is 10mm shorter) and having problems with gliding. After resharpening the blades I gave them another try and whilst they do glide a bit better they are not as good as the longer ones, plus I'm noticing that I feel very unstable, especially with right foot which seems to wobble a lot, and I'm also having major problems holding a right outside edge.
Whilst the boot is a better fit I just wonder if I'm just too big (180lbs) or too tall (5'7") or the combination of both, for either a 9" blade and / or a 240mm boot?

[amy1984]

It depends on your foot size, not your height.  I have tall friends with smaller feet who skate in a shorter blade.  That said, when I switched sizes (down, also), I had a tough time adjusting.  If it hasn't been much time, I'd just be patient a bit longer and see if you adjust.

[Query]

BTW I'm not a doctor. I look at this from an intuitive physics perspective, plus personal experience.

I've put all this on my web page, but here is a partial summary:

1. Maybe your screws are loose. Make sure you are using permanent mount (round) holes in the mounting plates of the blade, not just the oblong holes. Then make sure the screws are screwed in tight. If the blade moves with respect to the bottom of the boot, that could create a wobble. Be very careful when tightening the screws, as you can strip the threads in the hole - in which case you need to use a different hole, and/or fill the hole with something like Shoe Goo, and wait for it to completely set (72 hours - less if you use a hair drier or heat gun). (You can also hammer in a sanded down dowel rod, or rolled up leather piece, to fill the hole first, and make a new one, but that takes practice.) If you make a new hole, be sure to drill a small pilot hole first, so the screw goes in straight.

2. If you don't glide as well as you used to, go back to your old blades. Despite claims to the contrary, there is no need for the blade length to be set by the boot outsole length. Nor should the blade forward/back mounting position to be set by the front or back of the outsole. While it is very common in the skate tech community, using the boot outsole length and position to pick length and mounting position is just plain silly, since the boot outsole does not touch either your foot or the ice, so has no effect on skating.

You want these to match your foot and body anatomy. Note that one of the most important position determinants is that you want the most bendable part of your foot - the ball - to be over top, or slightly behind, the "sweet spot" of your blade - where the longitudinal blade curvature changes from the less curved main rocker, to the front spin rocker. That gives you optimal control over turns and spins. A good starting point is to pick your blade length and mounting position this way. Unfortunately, this also affects how easy it is to reach your toe pick, how stable and fast you are at the back of the blade, and whether your tails cross, causing you to lose control or fall. Which is why you need a blade shape that meets your needs. To some extent, a GOOD sharpener can adjust blade shape to reposition the sweet spot to make these still be good. You want the toe pick position to be such that you can skate comfortably without the toe pick touching the ice, but it is still easy enough to use your toe pick (the toe pick mostly just interferes with skating, but as you learn to do jumps, you want it to be easier to use your toe pick - and you may also use it for some types of turn, so this relationship may change as you advance, as well as when you change blade types). You want the back of the tail to be as long as you reasonably can, for speed, and so that you don't fall backwards off the tail, but not so far back that you cross your blades. (In Ice Dance, it is often considered good to have the free blade start on the ice just behind the back of the boot - "neat feet" - so shorter blades help avoiding crossing tails in that pose.)

3. If you still wobble, that means that there is a lack or weakness of contact between your boot and foot somewhere, or that there is an imbalance.

4. If the following things are all done right, you should be able to skate stably forwards or backwards, on inside or outside edges, balanced on one foot, without using any more muscles on one side of the body other, and without getting sore. You should also be able to take off and land jumps without your foot jerking to one side or the other. Test these things now.

5. If the boots can be heat molded, that's a good starting point. Try that, and see if it helps.

6. If that isn't enough, you need to analyze carefully the way each foot interacts with its boot.

7. Lack or weakness of contact somewhere: For example, if one side of the bottom of your foot, or one side of the upper foot, doesn't touch as hard on the boot as the other side. So the boot can rock from side to side, without your control. How awful! Remember that boots should be much tighter than shoes - a snug fit all over (except the sides of the toes) creates control. You can use tape or adhesive foam (e.g., moleskin) on the bottom of the insole to tighten things up inside the boot and make the foot have more or less uniform pressure everywhere. (Except it is generally considered unhealthy to have much pressure on the sides of your toes.)

8. Blade Imbalance: Maybe when you place your foot on the ice a jump, or land, the initial shock, interacting with the blade mount position causes your ankle to bend to the left or right. Medical books say there is supposed to be a "principle longitudinal arch" (running on some people from the center of the heel to the second toe, or a little closer to the big toe), which can support your whole weight. But that doesn't seem to work in skates for many people. You may need to offset your blade mount position to the left or right. (Note that the lateral mount position need not be the same for the front and back of the boot. But that alignment also affects the direction in which you skate, relative to your body.)

9. Muscle/ligament imbalance: When you put your bare foot down on the floor, then put your full weight on it, standing on one foot. does it collapse asymmetrically? I.e., does it bend to the left or right? How about when you take off or land a jump? The muscles and/or ligaments may be weaker or longer on one side of the foot. In order to hold your initial edge, it helps to make it collapse more symmetrically. This is almost the same as the two cases as above, and can be dealt with the same ways - though you may now need unequal pressure left and right on the foot. Most people find that if you collapse towards the inside (pronation), you need more pressure against the inside part of the foot, underneath, and/or to the side. Which makes sense, since physics says the force should drive your foot away from the force. Likewise for the bends to the outside. However, some people say they need pressure to the opposite side. I'm not sure why - I have theorized that if the muscles or ligaments are too loose, a extreme solution, that these people may be using, is to deliberately push the contact pressure from the boot strongly against the weak side until it distorts the shape of the foot enough that it can go no further (which might possibly be unhealthy, but may "work") - but a boot fitter on a discussion board claimed that wasn't possible.

10. Once you are done, and are happy with the shape of your insole, you can create a warmer insole, if your feet get cold, by tracing around the old insole onto closed cell carpet foam, cutting the foam to match, then trimming the bottom of this new insole until the profile matches your taped insole shape. If you have practice, you don't need to use tape to get things right, and can start with the traced carpet foam. Then make small changes, if needed, to make everything work right, as discussed in the various sections above. The closed cell foam will also absorb impacts. I have cold feet. I've decided this is the only type of insole I will ever use.

Some people have excessively warm sweaty feet instead of cold feet, and might do better with an open cell carpet foam.

Caution: I'm not certain any highly compressible foam insole will work for high jumping freestyle skaters - maybe the downwards motion of the foot inside the boot would cause you to lose control of the landing edge. I'm not a good enough jumper to test this, and it may depend on your anatomy and technique. I also don't know whether any compressible insoles - which should give you an advantage by reducing impact force and therefore foot injuries, and which should also store energy,  reducing effort and making jumps higher - might be barred under the rules of competitive figure skating. I haven't been able to find any rules against "mechanical aids", but they may exist.

11. Blade tilt imbalance: Once you have finished playing with all the things above you may find that when you place your boot down on the ice, the blade is tilted left or right - i.e., not aligned along the lower leg. That won't create a wobble. But it will mean that you inside or outside edges will slip, even if the blade is sharp. "Shim" the blade: Unmount the blade (trace the old mount position first, so you can re-use it), stick something, like athletic tape, between one side of the mounting plate and the outsole of the boot, and remount, being careful tightening screws as above. Make sure that tape is placed so that pressure does not warp the blade: when the blade mounting plates just barely touches the boot, they should touch evenly all over, when the boot is in the desired mounting position.

12. Don't be surprised if you need to iterate between steps 4 - 11 to make everything perfect.

Good luck.

[sarahspins]

I'm noticing that I feel very unstable, especially with right foot which seems to wobble a lot, and I'm also having major problems holding a right outside edge.

This sounds like the blades are just not aligned well for you.  The other possibility is that you need better footbed support.

[Christy]

The blades look like they are positioned very similarly to those on my other boots, however I do have a different footbed which could well be less supportive. I'll need to try to find a new one to see if that helps.

It just seems strange as over the last few years I've reduced blade size several times and this is the first time I've had a problem. The boots are Ice Fly and don't feel very supportive - it's not the first pair I've had so it's not like I'm having to get used to something totally different.

[davincisop]

My new blades were placed exactly where my old ones were, but they're a different brand. I still had to get my right one adjusted because it wasn't aligned with my foot. You might want to check it out because it could just be a matter of shifting it ever so slightly.

[sarahspins]

Often TINY blade adjustments can have HUGE impacts on your skating... I would really suspect that over anything else at this point.

I just swapped out blades on my boots (same exact model) and it almost feels like figuring out how to skate all over again... and it's all just due to subtle changes in the rocker over time.

[Christy]

Well, this would be the first time ever that the rocker is where it's supposed to be 
I've had one blade moved slightly and it did help with gliding, but the biggest problem is I really do feel top heavy. I think it's just a case of getting used to it, but it's going to take a long time.........