The Voice from the Pacific Northwest Newsletter
Frame Positioning..continued
By Glenn Koshi
Side-to-side adjustment of your frames – this is always a long subject of debate. I believe that it all boils down to personal preference. Unfortunately, it's trial and error to find the sweet spot. There are going to be a lot of people that disagree with this. I've also heard people (including Pro skaters) give out frame positioning advice that seemed completely incorrect for that person.
Here's my take on it (and I've adjusted hundreds of skaters' frames): a large percentage of the skaters out there pronate, which means their ankles collapse towards their arches. This is easily corrected by moving the frame in towards the arch, which stands the foot up. A lot of people will tell you to move the toe end in, and not the heel. Unless you are extremely "toed out", or the opposite of pigeon toed (don't know a name for it - duck footed?), I believe you need to move the heel end in too. The reason: if you only move the toe end in, you will be changing the frame angle in relation to the direction of travel. You will have to compensate for it by toeing out even further on the set-down. This of course may not apply to indoor skating, or even double-pushing.
Supination, the opposite of pronation, is a better of two evils, because you want to set the wheels down on their outside edges anyway. Correcting too much supination is just a matter of moving the frames outwards, away from the arches.
I like to make the first frame adjustment drastic. This will speed up the trial and error process. A drastic frame placement move is about ¼”. If you pronate, move the frame ¼” towards your arches, and skate. If you now supinate to a point of a lack of balance, start moving the frames back, 1/16” at a time. I prefer to set frames to favor supination, to help in the set-down (just a bit). To help speed the adjustment process up, you can leave the second and fourth wheels out (of a five wheeled frame), skate and adjust.
Remember that the frame position can also move, alleviate or create pressure points on your foot and ankle. This is important to remember if you are about to have your boot stretched to relieve a spot that’s causing you discomfort. Make sure your frames are where you like them first, before stretching a boot, or you may be stretching it unnecessarily. If it's the top boot cuff digging into the ankle bone, this is normally a result of pronation or supination, and boot stretching is almost undoubtedly not the right thing to do. This problem is almost always alleviated by moving your frames. If it's pronation, move your frames towards your arches, both the toe and heel end. If it's supination, move them away from the arch. Picture this: you're pronating on your boots. Look down, and see where the cuff will pressure your ankle? On the top, above the outside ankle bone. This is the most common pressure problem of speed boots. Now remember, if the boots are stretched there unnecessarily, be cause you didn't move the frames in, then that part of the boot will become a source of instability. Nearly every customer who comes to me with boot pain in the upper part of the outside (or inside) ankle and makes these frame placement adjustments has written back, telling me that the different frame position alleviated the pain.
These are just my suggestions. I don’t believe there is any one solid answer on frame positioning for everyone. Ultimately, listen to your body.
Happy Skating
Glenn
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