geometry head vs. rossi/lange vs. dalbello

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Re: geometry head vs. rossi/lange vs. dalbello

Postby jbotti » Sun Mar 22, 2015 5:06 pm

theorist wrote:
Max_501 wrote:Where did HH say that a skier should be able analyze their alignment needs based on feeling?


I don't remember whether it was on the forums or his blog, and I wasn't able to find it with 20 mins. of Google searching. What I do remember is he was discussing how Diana has an advantage in fine tuning her boots because she has developed the ability to sense for herself what adjustments are more or less likely to optimize them.


Diana is a very poor example. Not only is she a black level PMTS skier but she is also a trained PMTS alignment technician having worked with 100s (actually probably over 1000 people) on their alignment. What Diana can sense feel and understand about her own alignment is far beyond what the average PMTS student is able to do.
Balance: Essential in skiing and in life!
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Re: geometry head vs. rossi/lange vs. dalbello

Postby ToddW » Mon Mar 23, 2015 3:27 pm

The comment was about Diana's recent cuff adjustments. I was there for part of it. Harald would sneak a few quick seconds of video in for her. She'd look at a few frames during a break and see what was working. Her perceptions probably aided the search for optimality, but video was involved.

I know that Diana used one footed balance on a slant board as an early part of this cuff dial-in process, another case of not relying solely on perceptions. If the cuff is adjusted too strong (out too much), you start relying on big muscles to balance on the BTE and this is amplified since you don't have the length of a ski to balance over on the slant board.

Bottom line: even alignment gurus who are also black level coaches will take full advantage of external cues and observers to improve their own skiing.
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Re: geometry head vs. rossi/lange vs. dalbello

Postby BigE » Mon Mar 23, 2015 5:16 pm

How is varus in a boot any different from aligning the cuff of the boot to be bowlegged? My daughter uses a Head plug, and her bootfitter had to put shims under the outside edges of the heel of the liner to enable her knees to track straight when flexing.... they would otherwise bow outwards. Could this be due to the varus in the boot forcing the knee tracking?

If so, then given the geometries theorist has identified, it seems that the more neutral boot would be a more reasonable starting place, as opposed to cancelling varus and working against the boot.
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Re: geometry head vs. rossi/lange vs. dalbello

Postby theorist » Tue Mar 24, 2015 9:38 am

The varus my boot fitter pointed out is in the heel of the clog, and I believe would supinate the heel (the footboard itself is flat laterally). That would be different from cuff varus, though the one could certain affect the other.
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Re: geometry head vs. rossi/lange vs. dalbello

Postby h.harb » Tue Mar 24, 2015 2:36 pm

This is well beyond your pay grade and you are way off in the understanding; both of you, Big E and Theorist . You have to get educated and study first to even begin to understand the interrelationship between heel angle, fore foot , footbeds, boot design, cuff adjustments and alignment. Self medicating will only make it worst. You are only compounding one layer of mistakes with another layer of compensation for those mistakes.

There is a good formula for alignment procedures that we have developed and evolved. The manual for this is our "HSS Alignment Manual", we created it over the last 15 years. I'm very proud of that document, because it's the only one of it's kind. It has the value of Master's course in biomechanics. There is nothing in the ski industry that can rival it.

And that said, with knowledge and experience you can address each alignment session from many angles. And each alignment session is different, and individual. And each change or adjustment has consequences that you can't possibly understand. Mikaela Shiffrin's boot tech and her coaches could not figure out what was wrong with her skiing. Even at that level they don't understand. I had to call her mother to tell her what to do, they did it and the results are obvious.

As many of you know a footbed has to support the basic principals of movement and balance for the kinetic chain be functional. What we see 99% of the time in our shop is locked up feet due to bad footbeds or totally worthless soft footbeds that do nothing but take up space. In most cases, boot fitters don't even know how to place their own footbeds properly in the boot, we see this all the time.

So don't tell me your footbed expert made you a footbed and now you (he or she) are trying to fix your alignment based on it. The reason, because in 99% of the all cases, the footbed is flawed and you are just compounding what your boot tech didn't understand and what was wrong in the first place. You are adapting to an incorrect base of support. None of these boot fitters mentioned here or that we know across North America and Europe, the "so called alignment specialists", ski with their clients and can coach them. So they are basically shooting in the dark. Now, trying to fix it yourself, do it on your own, play around, makes no sense what so ever. So let's put a stop to this useless speculation. No one can possibly explain to you on a forum, all of the pre-mutations for disastrous alignment you are creating and causing.

Skiers think alignment is just throwing around a few shims and changing a cuff, if that was so easy the world cup techs would have all their set ups, right on. If you watch world cup skiing, how many times does Doug Lewis comment on their set up being off, even for the same skier from one race to the next. If it's a black art on the world cup, how do you expect your boot fitters and your tinkering is going to get it right????? We do this stuff for a living and we have decades of experience doing it right, based on the skiing outcome of our guests.

"The Harb Way", is not one way to do it. It's the only way, if you want it done right. I'm not bragging. It's not ego. It's fact, I have not seen anyone get alignment right and I've been doing this for the last 35 plus years.
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Re: geometry head vs. rossi/lange vs. dalbello

Postby Max_501 » Thu Apr 02, 2015 6:49 am

BigE wrote:My daughter uses a Head plug, and her bootfitter had to put shims under the outside edges of the heel of the liner to enable her knees to track straight when flexing.... they would otherwise bow outwards.


That sounds like an attempt to approach alignment inside the boot. Harald has talked about that approach in the past.

h.harb wrote:Shimming inside the boot is not only not the same, as alignment, but you might as well throw out the footbed, with the changes of in boot shimming it produces a dis-functional balance in the footbed, as well. That is of course if they actually had you in balance with the footbed to begin with.
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Re: geometry head vs. rossi/lange vs. dalbello

Postby BigE » Thu Apr 02, 2015 8:27 pm

Thanks Harald and Max.

I know my questions about this topic are totally rudimentary, and I'm not trying to become an expert at alignment ( that is a laughable idea).

I know the right thing is to fly down there and git'er done for me and her, but the expense prohibits the travel. It would cost at least $500 return to fly out of Buffalo, plus lodging and potentially new boots and footbeds for two. Add an on snow assessment and I'm sure we're close to $3K.

You have NO idea how much I want to do that.
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