Snowboarding problems (Feet)

I have a problem when boarding, i have been boarding about 10 times i cna get around but im still novice. My feet are holding me back and thats purely down to the pain im in when boarding, i have tried different boots, special inners but i still get pain, and its only when im going straightish on on heel edge for long periods of time,, if i keep turning the pain is minimal but seeing as all my mates fly on i have to make sure i keep turning so that my feet dont hurt,, the pain i get is incredible – it puts me to the ground for a few minutes until i can get up and go again.
I spoke to a guy at Snow & Rock, who said my feet are badly flat footed but once i had these custom insles i didnt think id get the pain anymore (i sometimes get it when biking on downhill).

Iv considered swapping Snowbaording for Skiing but i want to board, can anyone give any advice – suffered a similar problem?

Have you ever had lessons?

I suffered with foot pain for years. Changing my technique helped a lot.

I still get the odd pain now, especially on hard or icy pistes, but nowhere near as bad as I used to.

Yeh, i went through the lessons only the 3 needed to get me going

Have you considered some more lessons? I used to get a little bit of foot pain and a lot of heel lift when I was starting out and with time I figured out I wasn’t bending my knees enough and some of my intial board and binding setups weren’t ideal. A good instructor would spot this and help iron it out. I bit of an edge detune can help make your board easier to ride something like flat based (you shouldn’t have to hold either edge for a long time) on mellower slopes – which is where I guess you’re getting the issues?

Working on leg strength in the run up to your holiday can help too – you want to be controlling the board with the big muscles in your legs – not the little ones in your feet.

Might be worth looking at your everday shoes too – you’re more likely to correct your arches over the next couple of months with insoles than you are when you’re on a weeks holiday

Yeh, i went through the lessons only the 3 needed to get me going

It is possible that you are going but your technique is still causing you pain though.

I rode for probably about a decade with crap technique.

Reading the Neil McNab book really helped me out:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1405315741

Back to the drawing board then will get a lesson and see if someone can sort me out

which bit of your foot hurts?

It could be any number of reasons but this

Yeh, i went through the lessons only the 3 needed to get me going

is I’m afraid little more than macho posturing. Everyone needs more than three lessons to be able to board properly so that’s where I’d start as good advice re your stance and foot position will pay dividends. Oh and be prepared for the fact that it will take more than one as you’ll almost certainly have a load of bad habits to break before you can progress.

I had horrendous foot pain when i first started up ~12 years ago.
So did my wife when she started.

All fixed by improving technique.
Well, sort of, sorting out all the other problems we’d created trying to fix the poor technique finally sorted it, binding and boot related.

arches of my feet hurt, and also my shins

Outside of my lead for always hurts first few days, I put it down to knackered ligament damage.

I have a local dryslope where i could get my lessons in shropshire however i vowed never to go back as i falling down on a dry slop smashes yours knees badly!

However if im thinking its just to improve technique can i get away with it at a dry slope or must it be a snow centre,, tamworth or chill factore

Yeah, same as i had.

More lessons.

While skiing *might* help I’d have to say that any number of skiers will look at snowboarders boots with envy as you have far more comfortable footware!

Ski boots can be beasts.

I still get the odd pain now, especially on hard or icy pistes, but nowhere near as bad as I used to.

Not been boarding for 5 years but I got this and for me too it was much worse on harder pistes.

Tried loads of stuff: insoles, wider boots, tighter lacing, looser lacing. Nothing really worked. Never had lessons, just kind of picked it up as I went along – didn’t even consider technique would be the problem!

Any ideas as to what specifically might cause it technique-wise? Would like to get it sorted if I go again (would like to). With me the pain was kind of central right in the sole of the foot and felt like cramp.

I’d say a private lesson (maybe shared with a mate or two) in resort will be better than anything the snowdome or dryslope can offer – you won’t spend half as much time on draglifts for starters. Looking back I wish I’d booked lessons with a recommended school for my entire first holiday

Difficult to answer this without you in front of me but lets hear all the following.

How much do you weigh?

What is your stance width.

What angles are you riding (please tell me you’re not duck).

Are you putting your weight more on the front foot on the piste as opposed to rear in powder.

Are your knees bent sufficiently are you moving the weight impression toe to heel, rail to rail or just standing there letting it hppen?

Where exactly is the pain in your feet?

Lots for you to consider and echo getting someone good to ride with you, be worth going to chamonix and having a days guiding with neil (macnab)

Looking back I wish I’d booked lessons with a recommended school for my entire first holiday

Last holiday we took a relative beginner on we arranged a 90 minute lesson every morning, met them after that for a quick drink/snack at 11, then out on the slopes for the rest of the day.

5 lessons and she was sorted.

Her other half refused (grrrrr, i’m a man, i can snowboard based on my two lessons at the snowdome, and my kit bought from eBay) he spent his first morning on his arse and face, sometimes simultaneously, first afternoon refusing any hints or tips and the rest of the week hobbling between the medical centre, the bar and the chalet with a badly knackered knee.

My guess would be you are curling your toes up/lifting the front of your feet when you ride on your heel edge. That will definitely make you arches/shins ache. As others have said have a few lessons and get any wrinkles in your technique ironed out.

What angles are you riding (please tell me you’re not duck).

Go on then, I’ll bite. What is so bad about riding duck stance?

Duck isn’t fashionable. 😉

I used to get terrible foot pain, it was caused by over tightening my bindings, partly to compensate for badly fitting boots and also because I didn’t realise I didn’t need to have them that tight.

I have very narrow feet and all the boots I rented were too wide and I had to winch down the bindings to stop my foot moving inside the boot. Salomon boots fitted me well so I bought some and some salomon bindings. Having the bindings only just tight enough made all the difference, also really helped when I became more experienced and therefore more relaxed and not fighting the board all the time. I still have haem stains around my ankles from the bruising/burst vessels from the hire boots, years ago.

your shins are hurting because you’re over-using the muscles at the front of the shin. These muscles shouldn’t really be doing anything while you’re snowboarding.

(i get a similar thing riding flat pedals, my stupid feet try to ‘grip’ the pedals like a monkey, so flat pedals make my feet ache.)

relax, and use the backs of your bindings.

You can do what you like of course, there is no ‘should’. But maybe try adjusting the backs so you can’t stand up straight?

(this may or may not work, but the idea is to teach your body that you don’t load the heel edge by lifting your toes)

move around more on the board. this can help ease aches of over-use. Put simply, turn more. Basic turns, dynamic turns, mix it up.

Don’t discount the fact you are simply on your feet a lot over the course of a week…a lot more than for the other 51 weeks of the year. So some pain is to be expected even if you have good technique and well fitting boots. Sometimes you just have to suck it up. If you went walking for 8 hours early a day for a week you’d also have sore feet.

I found play around with my binding angles and width helped. Used to get massive pain in my arch like op.

Went from forward 18/6 to duck 15/-9 ( a touch wider). Have to use a slightly different technique of course but pain went away completely.

I’m a much better boarder with a forward stance so treat myself to a forward day every now and again but can’t last the whole day that way.

Difficult to answer this without you in front of me but lets hear all the following.

How much do you weigh? 15stone 10, 6ft 2.

What is your stance width. (not sure on this) I’m left foot forward

What angles are you riding (please tell me you’re not duck). All my friends ride both angled out however I like straight back and slight angle on the front

Are you putting your weight more on the front foot on the piste as opposed to rear in powder.

Are your knees bent sufficiently are you moving the weight impression toe to heel, rail to rail or just standing there letting it hppen?

Where exactly is the pain in your feet? Arches kill like crazy

Lots for you to consider and echo getting someone good to ride with you, be worth going to chamonix and having a days guiding with neil (macnab)

Iv tried to suck up the pain, but this is too much,, I’m not bad with pain at all – but this puts me down to the ground for a good 5 mins until my feet have settled down.

I do curl my toes up a fair bit

Lots for you to consider and echo getting someone good to ride with you, be worth going to chamonix and having a days guiding with neil (macnab)

Guiding is the LAST thing the OP needs. Lessons (guiding and lessons are not the same thing) the would be far more beneficial. Getting someone good to ride with is fairly pointless too if they aren’t going to be able to teach anything.

nothing wrong with duck stance – been riding that way for 20+ years!

footpaoin has many causes. i had serious issues when i changed my binding position and didnt slot the footbed in properly. i ride duck 12/12 mostly at the dmome nd 12/6 in the mountains.

I have experienced this problem. I tried a number of solutions but nothing worked.

Now however I found the solution! My calves were too tight which pull on Achilles and under the foot. I now stretch a lot more and the pain is mostly gone. It still resurfaces sometimes when I don’t stretch enough.

I now live in Austria and snowboard a lot. Improved technique also helps.

gonefishin – Neil McNab is apparently quite good at teaching. I think that’s what astura was suggesting.

And in addition to all of that, try loosening your boots a touch, too tight boots can lead to a constriction of blood flow and a build up of lactic acid.

I’ve also found it useful to do a warm-up before you lace your boots up – run up and down the stars a few times, jog round the car park, then stretch the achilles and the bottom of your feet, and give yourself a brief and firm foot massage, gets the blood flowing and warms the muscles up.

Duck produces a bad angulation on the knee in prolonged directional riding, best not to exceed zero zero, better to have a few degrees on the lead foot. Duck also encourages a bad stance in new comers, it’s easy to spot a Brit on the mountain, duck stance washing out his/her turns, weight on the heels, riding dry/friidge slope style, it’s no wonder feet hurt.

Trust me Neil Macnab wouldn’t ride duck.

Edit.. that previous post is also good advice, get circulation going, all that standing around in the lift, in the cable car, good stretch before take off does no harm at all.

best not to exceed zero zero

Whaaaaaat? Don’t think I’ve ever seen someone ride zero/zero.

best not to exceed zero zero

What on earth are you talking about?

On the pain:

Decent bindings with wide straps that spread the pressure can help. Get some advice from a shop on your setup

I think you I’ll find that almost everyone with good (current) technique will ride slightly duck but with unequal angles. It fits with the footsteering / quiet upper body technique McNair espouses. In fact if you are in the correct position you’re knee is in line with you foot and your shoulders remain parallel to the board at all to times. (That’s coming from Tammy esten who’s the girl in the book above)

Intermediate / advanced lessons are rarely taken by people but make a massive difference. It’s hard to get properly good technique without them and believe me 80% of snowboarders who consider themselves quite good have crap technique, even some who are quite good in the park.

Couple of points on top of the above:

Tightening your bindings down too hard can cause foot pain

You should never spend that much time on one edge (especially your heel edge) unless you are traversing. Watch a properly good rider and even when they appear to be straight lining they are usually subtlety on an edge.

Oh and I’ve “boarded” ( hate that term) for 23 years and an three separate techniques for riding come and go over that time so I do know what I’m talking about.

So, I missed your answer back there arches aching is due to toe curling, toe curling is to much reliance on the heel edge, I note your riding 0 on the back and some angulation on the lead foot which is OK.

You are probably going down the mountain using shallow angles travelling from side to side, a lot and edging your heel edge too much, so it’s a technique issue, riding deeper (more downhill) and checking rapidly side to side with more pressure forward and more toe pressure will relieve this.

Lessons, get behind somebody really good learn the correct stance 90 percent of brits that hit the alps have lousy technique, brought about by riding hard pack slopes where the rails are not brought to bear because it’s either dry slope or its a fridge where there is no depth to the snow, so hardly anyone gets to ‘carve’ their turns which enables more front side riding.

Or too much emphasis is placed on wannabee park style which is fine if all you ride is the park but if you want too free ride the entire mountain you need a different style. Honestly if Neil is teaching you won’t find a finer rider I thought he was guiding these days, but either way it would be a good investment, akin to taking a bike course with Jedi.

Trust me Neil Macnab wouldn’t ride duck.

That image I just posted is from Page 53 of his book.

Ps Tammy and the crew at Mint in avoriaz / morzine are excellent for everything from beginners to split board trips — you think you’re riding fast until Tammy overtakes you off piste, riding switch and talking on the phone…. In French!