Tips To Make Your Ski Boots Fit Better

I don't think people spend enough time tinkering with their ski boots. This pair of boots right here, I've probably put in maybe 24, 30 hours of time and work. So using my own stretching tools, grinder, modifying the liner, all sorts of things. And the boots that came before this, there was so many hours put into those too. In this podcast, I speak with master boot fitter Brent Armsbury about this whole process. What he would like to get out of it is that you take the same approach. So if you go see a professional like Brent, you're more informed, you can inform them even better and help them understand what you want out of your boots. So rather than coming in and saying, hey, fix my boots, and not really knowing what that means or where he can start, you come in instead and say, hey Brent, I've been out and I've played with some spoilers on the inside edge of my cuff at the back, and it actually felt a lot better. I'm not sure if I'm on the right track or not, but can you help me make this an even better solution, a really nice finish to the, to the job. And that's how you can work with a boot fitter better. So in this episode, you're going to find out some tips and tricks from one of the best boot fitters I know in the world, and you're going to be able to then use information, start being an experimenter, a tinkerer of boots yourself, and probably make your current pair of boots a whole lot better and your skiing as a result a whole lot more fun to enjoy. So I hope you enjoy this podcast episode. Let's get into it.

Ran it's Partway through the ski season 2026, people walk into your shop. What is one of the most common things they say that you wish they had what is going to be inside this podcast info so they actually maybe came in with a better question?

Some of the most common questions we'll get or concerns are that they're not feeling very connected with their boot anymore. You know, when you get a new boot for the season or even a boot that's 2 years old, when you put it on in the fall, it felt pretty good. It didn't hurt you. You went out, started skiing on it, boots starting to feel like it's lagging, right? It's— you put some inputs in it and something— things aren't happening at the same speed they were a month ago. And we even get instructors who come in and their clinician will say, hey, I was told, you know, they told me to go have my boots checked out. Nothing specific, but the clinician can see that something's not connecting, something's not being driven into the ski. And though your boots may be comfortable, they may not be really providing everything that they did a month ago or even 2 months ago.

Yeah, I think a lot of people like, um, maybe I need new boots, or I bought the wrong boots to start out with. However, you're like, we want to suggest some other strategies that you can try and, and try yourself, DIY things, because one, you might find the solution, and then two, like, it was a bit like learning to ski. You really want to learn if you're going to be into skiing. You should really start learning a little bit more about what makes your own fit instead of just palming off your boots to someone and be like, make these good. Would you agree with that statement?

Yeah, I completely agree with it because I think every skier should have some sort of integral involvement in their fitting process because boot fitters, we're not mind readers, right? And we're not in there in that boot with you. We have to take your feedback. Okay.. And if you come in with really vague feedback, which is just like, hey, something's not right, you fix it. It— we're just playing guessing games, right? And this is kind of how I got started in boot fitting was I was, I was always fussing with my boots, right? I would read an old ski magazine. And they used to do self-help tips. And it would be like, oh, you know, put a pad, a C-pad here and put something there. And do this and buckle like that. And, you know, inevitably I was just always trying to figure my own stuff out. And it actually really, really helped because if I would go to a boot fitter or somebody who, you know, I was, you know, in a shop with, I could then express what I needed more directly, right? If I took some padding and I put it over my ankle, And I said, wow, that really helped, but I don't know how to stick it to the liner. Can you help me do that? You know, somebody with more knowledge would be like, yeah, no problem. You need— how much do you need? Well, this much, right? And it goes right here. And they'd be like, great, I can do that for you. And that, I think it, it helps all the way around. You become more efficient in the process of getting a good fit when you have some idea what you want out of that fit, as opposed to 'Nah, I have no idea, just fix it for me.' Well, where do I begin?

Let's start with these, uh, these things that we maybe we're going to help guide people to start feeling and pay attention to. And maybe we start— I kind of want to start with edging, um, and maybe you can share some things you guide people to feel for. So it's not just in the shop, like these ones may be hard to feel in the shop, it's more once you're out on snow. And it might even be why you brought up the My clinician said I need to get my boots checked. So why don't you go first, and I'll add some things I feel are helpful for people to pay attention to, to help fine-tune their edging, uh, sort of setup in their boots.

Yeah, um, I'm gonna just kind of speak out of my own personal knowledge with my own boots. So when the liner starts to pack in and I know I've got X amount of days on it 20, 30 days, there's an instability that can start to show up. Let's say if I'm going to flex forward and start to roll on the edge, if the boot isn't really well connected along the shin line, around that tongue and in the throat, there's an inherent inability to roll it up on the edge consistently. 'Cause as soon as you go to roll and you flex and you go to roll onto that edge, and there's an open gap in that boot, it's going to feel like you just sort of fall off a cliff and you don't really have that modulation to, to get the edge where you want it to go.

So you're referring to the cuff sort of upper area more, right?

So than the lower tongue, right? That tongue. And then as you go down the tongue, all right, is your— here's a liner as you're going down this tongue. Right here and you're flexing this, this forward, right, right through this throat area is a really common area because your heel's going back and that material in there is getting crushed. That stuff basically kind of breaks down after a while, especially along the tongue line, because you're smashing on it, you're pushing it on it every time you go to turn, you're on the front of that boot. And as a fitter, I see you know, I know what that tongue looked like. I know the thickness of this tongue when it was brand new. And then I see the skier come back in 3 months later and it's half the thickness. It's mashed down and now it's mashed down all the way down inside. So if, if that diameter is getting bigger inside, down at your lower leg and you go to flex, then your ankle will start to wobble, right? You'll get this instability feel. Before you can get really up on the edge and get your foot— your feet away from you. Yeah.

And I'll point out here, like, a lot of people, there's a certain extent where buckling more, like, can take up some of that diameter. But then, as you've mentioned in other podcasts, you can run into, like, not having a smooth flex because you get this stiction thing going on. So what you're pointing out here is sometimes if it started out really well, the diameter of the, of the shell is probably quite nice, and you don't necessarily want to mess with that. So what's your solution if the tongue is packing? And I think you've mentioned in other ones before, it may have to do with one of my other favorite sports— neoprene wetsuits, surfing.

Yeah. And this, this goes with me. These little guys go with me all over the world. They're little neoprene, 4mm, 5mm neoprene shims, and you make them into a tongue shape. And I'll carry a half dozen of these on any trip I do. And they're always in my bag because I can easily stuff them down the tongue line, right? I can just lay it into the tongue. And they don't even have to be glued. You just put your boot on and lay it into the lay it into the tongue. Right, just lay it down inside, buckle around it. And all of a sudden you feel that leg shaft get more secure quicker. And you can even feel the heel move further back into the pocket as soon as that second buckle gets tension. And it's great because all of a sudden you feel this new leg shaft stability that you didn't feel before.

Yeah, and I know in my mind that's also just bringing up like So one way, tighten the boots to take up the volume. Second way is what you're saying is almost like the brand new boot, just adding a little bit more cushion back in there. I kind of like that because I feel when— one thing I like about my ZipFit liners is it's got quite a thick tongue, and I feel like it gives me a little bit of travel without it being like hard brick wall, hard brick wall. And if you're having to cinch it all up. So there's less of this kind of like mountain bike travel in your, through your liner, you are going to get a really reactive ride.

Yeah. I mean, it really, it really, really immediately helps. And the tongue of any boot, that tongue is probably where you put more pressure. If you're skiing, right, you're putting more pressure there repetitively than any other part of the boot. Okay. And hence it's going to compact down. I mean, I've seen instructors and good skiers come in with liners they've used for 2, 3 years and the tongue is so thin, like the— like when I poke at it, I just feel hard plastic. It's so smashed down. And then they go, yeah, this boot's getting loose. And I'm like, yeah, it's probably really loose. And they just use really high amounts of buckling, right? They're on the end of the ladders and there's like, you know, they're complaining like, yeah, something's not right. And it's clearly to me what's not right is that you don't have that cushioning, you don't have the suspension anymore because really that foam is like a suspension on your shin all the way down to where that transition is that's keeping that heel back in the pocket.. And if you got no suspension there anymore, then things can kind of jump out, right?

Your leg can literally jump forward in the boot, and that's not a good feeling. That was maybe more— if maybe we categorize that one's probably more of a fore and aft. It's going to affect edging, but maybe fore and aft diagnosis, check-in, and feel, and, and a simple solution to start trying to make that, um, feel better, more cushioned, more travel. Any other in— why don't we stick to the fore and aft plane then? Uh, there, that tends to be an easy one or something that people can pay attention to and adjust. We've just kind of mentioned in the past maybe to do with like the angle of forward lean. I'll just say like I see a lot of people like on my community forum, they're like, I see you doing these, like, you know, you get, you get down low in the stance and my stance doesn't quite look the same, or I feel like I'm really in my heels, they post a photo from side on and they're flexing and their knee is just not even close to being over their toe. And we've kind of discussed it before, like that trend of boots being quite upright. So what experiments, what things can people do if they've just got their current boot for, um, yeah, adjusting and feeling if that gives them a better position, home base position in their stance for forward lane?

I mean, you know, probably every good skier should have a few sets of spoilers, right? And the spoiler can be used in multiple ways. You, you don't have to use it like, okay, so it was Velcroed to the back of the liner. And everybody thinks that's home base. But guess what, if you don't have to, right, you could actually Velcro to the tongue and Velcro to the back. Okay. And you've taken up a whole lot of volume. You actually increase your forward lean, but you've increased your shin contact as well. And so experimenting with that can be really helpful as well. Not just, oh, I'm going to stick it back here. No, wait a minute. You can actually get those little, those Velcro pieces, the opposites to the— Yep. Just like a self-adhesive. Yeah. So 3M, right? You can get it at your craft store. You can stick it there and then Velcro to the tongue., and all of a sudden you've taken up space, but you've also taken up space behind the leg shaft, and you've done this more forward lean and more contact on the shin as well.

Do you think this is a more— like, for people listening, if you think you have a little bit less of an athletic calf shape, skinnier legs, this is a great option? Yeah, for you. Because I think we should also say, like, so that's if you're listening, this is a good one for you. On the other end of the spectrum, like um, a friend Matt who came in and you helped him out, and he's, he's, he's got big calves. So another thing, you can be overflexed and be stuck. Like, I would say when I see this in a skier, it just looks like their outside leg can never really straighten. They just look like they're kind of squatted and their knees are bent the whole time. And you tell them to straighten their leg, they try and straighten it, just doesn't straighten. So like, I was thinking, I was thinking like with the because you can't adjust the back of the boot. Like, say for Matt, right, you, you adjusted because he's got bigger calves. I suppose you could actually put a spoiler in and go even more the wrong way, which is taking this idea of experimenting and going, oh well, yeah, so it definitely is too much in that direction, I need to go the other way. There is a solution, and this is where you could be like, hey, I tested— you came into you, Brent, and said, I tested with more forward lean with a spoiler. And it felt really bad. I think I need you to help me, give me more room for the back. Yeah, yeah, like there's the American going the wrong way further.

Yeah, um, oddly enough, that's rare. It's rare when people put too much forward lean and notice it. It's kind of— it's more like they feel more positive when you do add forward lean.

Yeah, I would say the only negative I feel is I just can't— for my carve turns, I can't get a long leg. And that's what I saw with Matt, and that's why I said go in and, and see Brent, because he was kind of just stuck squatted and his leg wouldn't— he couldn't get his hip forward enough because his knee couldn't extend as much. And it was not much, it's like, you know, sure. 2 or 3 degrees and you just opened the, lowered the back of the boot so his calf could just, just come back a little bit. He could still get forward.

Yeah, I think in those cases, those are, to me, those are obvious cases when I see so much calf and muffin topping, right? We almost obviously, to me, it's just so obvious when somebody comes in and their calf is so bound up in the back of the boot. And the thing is, it's like they already know. I don't, I don't get too many people who are just kind of the mystery, because they just feel, you know, that's just simple questions like, do your quads get really tired? And they always say yes, like, and I can't get full extension. And it's a very, you know, and it's just when they're even in the boot, they're so raked forward and bent at the knee.

They often don't feel their heel very much, do they? They like can't get any because they're kind of just jammed forward.

Well, their heel pops up quickly because when they do move forward, they're out of range. They're out of the— the tendon's already stretched so far that if they push any further forward, the heel has to pop up. Yep. Um, I think when it comes to you know, people kind of self-diagnosing on their boots is, you know, you got to have a bit of a toolkit going on. You've got to have some neoprene, some pads, you know, some duct tape, you know, to, to try different things in different areas where they're feeling a little hollow and start filling in those voids. Even if it's kind of ugly, right? It's not pretty and it's hard to get the liner in and out with all this duct tape on it. But it'll wake you up and you, you go, oh, that was cool. But now it's a little too tight. Now I got to take one of those pads off because it was— it's a little too much. And then maybe you cut it down to half its size the next day and put it back on and go try it again. But the important thing to me is that, that people should be trying different things. Through, through a process of elimination.

Yeah, with it, I guess, to think about is if you, you look inside your shell, whatever it is, and you're like, all your line is there, and you look at your leg without a sock or anything on, and you look back and you look at your leg and you go, where, where is this space that I could see is not really filled by anything? And you could start by going going there. And I remember I would buy like a square— I remember off you I bought square stick-on bit of foam, and I just took scissors and like with my telemark boots back when I was telemarking. And, and you said just go try this in some different places. And that's how I fixed— because I couldn't cuff a line in my telemark boots, I had to put dense foam on the medial side. Yeah, of the liner, the inner side. And then I suddenly got better edge grip and better angles in my knee.

I mean, when you like, if we're just going to talk about like the most common places, right? You know, we talked about the tongue and getting that to get so mashed down that relining it helps a lot. It reduces that diameter. But, you know, at the bottom, at the transition, this is an area that tends to open up. Adding a little padding down each one of these sides is a good way to close that down and get more feel. There's a tendency to, you know, people go, well, my heel's loose, so I got to squeeze back here. And they'll get some J-pads. And the first thing they do is they do this, right? Start putting these J-pads. Now, that's fine. But at the same time, it'll tend to shove you forward in the boot. And if you squeeze too hard, you make your feet go numb. Because there's a lot of nerve lines there. So my thoughts are always start in the front, start on the tongue, move down to this transition point, then move over the top of the ankle, and then work your way back. Front to back.

Front to back, not back to front. I've actually felt that it definitely ring true when with my ZipFit, just adding more cork into the tongue and then I'm seating better over that part. And then of course that's holding my foot down and I'm not getting the, the, you know, like this better. And then I don't have to worry about this being held down as much because this is, this is the best place to hold it down, right?

Right there. Yeah, that transition is the ideal place to start pushing you down and back into the pocket.. And as soon as you start way back, I mean, there's already contours in the boot down there. And if you just only add these to around your Achilles, you're kind of doubling up on the contours of the shell. And they can easily actually push you forward and out and then make you numb at the same time. So when we start from the tongue line and we start at the transition point and then work back up over the ankles, we're kind of building this foundation that's always pushing you further and further back in the foot.

I like that idea. That's a real— that's a really easy sort of principle that people could take and, and, uh, and work on. Um, other things you've then helped people this season, little checks and, and things— we've talked about the, the front, the kind of the throat and over the instep sort of area. Sides, have you found some people have just had some really great success just like padding like the inner and outer part of the leg?

Yeah, for sure. You know, some people have more of a curvature to their tibia at the base, and so padding just up the side here, you know, spoilers are kind of hard and firm. If you have a soft one, you could literally just fill that void with, with a spoiler, even though it's hard and kind of maybe wouldn't be very comfortable. But you can immediately feel that it's taken up that, that gap in the edging. Engagement becomes much stronger and more precise. You know, leg shaft for sure. If you have more narrow legs, building up more padding around the leg shaft, you do have to be careful. A little goes a long way. Yeah, putting a big chunk, it doesn't work very well. Just starting off with like 3 or 4 or 5 millimeters of that foam padding there is a good place to start before you add more. But also we get a lot of comments about the top over the toes. You know, this liner feels good in the beginning, but then it starts to expand here and people start saying, hey, you know, you're getting that feeling that the ball of your foot can't seem to stay down. Especially when you're skiing more bumpy terrain, powder skiing, even on groomers, you know, as you flex back and forth through the ball of the foot. So even taking some padding and just running it, I mean, you don't want to run it over the top of your toes, that's no good, but just running it right over the ball of your foot, little duct tape, some 5mm padding, you'd be surprised at how much more contact and feel you see, you feel at the ball of the foot. When you just add, you know, some padding over the top. And some people's feet are much thinner, right? And over, they don't have these thick ball of feet, and they're the ones that seem to suffer the most, is that they feel like they're floating, right? They go to flex and all of a sudden it feels like the ball of the foot kind of pops off the bottom. And just adding a little foam like that, and it doesn't have to go down the sides, it just goes right over the ball of the foot. Can increase that security again. And that toe buckle all of a sudden has some effectiveness. And even these Boa boots where you got the lower dial, the cables don't— the way the cable closes down, it closes down more from your middle of your foot back. And but the ball of the foot doesn't get— Yeah. So if you pre-pad it, put it in there and the roof has already come down on there, the little bit of bow adjustment you get goes a long way into holding the ball of your foot down.

Yep. On the camps that we've done, Jason Demelza and I, we do a little boot sort of setup thing on the day, the night before. The most common thing we've found, like global helpful recommendation, is actually a volume reducer for like those people, people with just generally a little bit small.

Yeah, exactly.

So the, the store up the road, he, he knows when we're coming and he just bulk buys those and, uh, knows people are going to come in. Because yeah, that's so much of the time is, yeah, if it's a global not feeling much on the top of your foot, you don't have to feel the top, you can come from the bottom and, and just lift you up into the, into the, the cavern and the top of the boot. And yeah, it's amazing that the difference, you know, bring the ankle joint up to a better spot to line up with the pivot point of the boot. And, and again, like, is it like part of what this podcast is about is just go try this. This may be— you might do it and go, whoa, that was really bad. At least you know. Um, and then, you know, for future boots as well, you know when you start experiencing, oh, I've had a boot that's doing this too much, or, or the opposite too much, and it ends up giving me numb feet or a blister, or I can't get forward.

Yeah, I mean, I, I can't say— I mean, this is something that also goes in my travel kit. You know, the tongue shim was— is one of the— one of the things for sure. But these are also just as important as that 2.5mm, 3mm volume shim because it can make all the difference in the world. And you don't have to always use it full length, right? Yeah. I mean, if you've got a little knife or some scissors and your toes, you're always worried about your toes, you just cut the toe part off. Right. Or you can even just cut off, you know, the ball of the foot's tight, but you want to make your midfoot and your rear foot a little snugger. You just cut, you just cut away what you don't need. Yep. You know, and you can put it in the liner and it makes the liner snugger, or you can just do a little duct tape down to your boot board, you know, and put it in that way. Right. There's, there's no right or wrong way technically to use these things. Um, you know, the tendency is like, oh, I can only use it like this. No, you can cut it, you can trim it, you can put it in the liner, you can put it outside the liner.

Um, they come in really handy. I agree that, yeah, so, so useful, so useful. Um, cool. Any final ideas on, on little DIY, get your boots partway through the season feeling better before dropping a motor on a new pair?

Well, I mean, there's so many things that you can play with in the toolkit, you know, and it's, you know, even heel lifts, right? Um, those can come in handy.

Um, you know, a little bit— can I pause you on that one? On heel lifts? Yeah, on heel lifts. I would say that the people I've found the most success with those are the long-legged, tall people. That sort of always— they're like, I'm trying to get forward and my knees are killing me and my quads are killing me. And, and maybe the— like, their, their boot board is just really flat because they're in like a 30.5 or a 29.5 or something, and they're doing their best. And you just give them a little heel lift and suddenly now it's like the weightlifting shoe effect. And, and they got such a long foot, it doesn't overthrow them forward like maybe someone with a really short foot.

What's your thoughts on, on that? The thing is with the heel lift is a little goes a long way. So if you look at this one here, the highest point of it's about 6 millimeters and it tapers down to like half underneath your heels, only about 4 or 5. So it doesn't take much to generate change. A lot of the heel lifts that you can find, like, oh, I ordered some heel lifts and they're quarter inch. Or 3/8 of an inch thick, that they tend to overshoot. Right. And so you get this thick heel lift in there. And it's got great intention. But you've gone too far. I mean, and even if you can't find them thinner, you can just make them out of this type of stock or even out of cardboard. You can make them from duct tape and some cardboard and you can cut and make your own You listen, you know, if you start with cardboard, it's only 2, maybe 3 millimeters thick before it's kind of crushed. Or yeah, you can build your own and kind of figure out exactly how much you need, um, as you go, right?

Yeah, that's a great, great pointer right there. Yeah, because otherwise you're just gonna be like, oh no, it doesn't work at all because you've gone too far. Yeah, and I think you're One point I'll say, you're sorry, clearly you're making here is like, don't let a bit of a dodgy home sort of not permanent setup is just like get something happening tomorrow instead of waiting for like the perfect thing or, oh, I don't have that so I won't do it. You just need to get something in there to get an inkling of a feeling and then you can go, oh yeah, that definitely is worth investigating further.

I agree. You can be creative. You— if you don't have access to like the professionally made heel lifts, right, and these type of things, you can build things out of cardboard or you can build things out of old wetsuits, even basic foam. You just have to start cutting and pasting and putting things around and coming and kind of mocking things up. And there's no wrong, wrong, right? If it may not be 100% comfortable, but if you generate a response and it was a positive response, then you can walk in to a fitter and say, here's, it's a little crude, but this, this, and this really helped. And then how do we make this more elegant and then something that lasts a long time or through the rest of the season and into the next?

That's it. That's the message. That is the, that is the message right here.

And it's also really a lot more efficient, right? You can, like, there's no guessing here. It's like, oh great, you know, I, I like it when somebody comes in, they kind of got those things mocked up, and I go boom, I know exactly what to do. 20 minutes later it's all done and off you go.

It's just a lot more efficient. Yeah. Yeah, excellent. Any, any final words, Brent, before we, um, before we wrap this one up?

Um, I, I think that, you know, as you're getting into the middle of the season, um, it's worth trying things and coming up with, you know, your, your own ideas of what's working and what's not working for you.

And, uh, you know, it'll, it'll get you through the season and on to the next one. Yeah, awesome. Thanks very much. And yeah, I know I've had some great reports from people coming in from the other side of the country sometimes, uh, to see you and, and have been really happy with the results. So I'm going to give a shout out to Brent too, that once you've done your experimenting, you've kind of found a bit of a way, an avenue you want to go, then, uh, yeah, Brent's a great person to go and see to, to then get the refined product done, the the, the real slick result. So thanks for continuing to look after my customers, Brent. No problem. Thanks for sending them. Yeah, you're welcome. Hey, I'll, uh, look forward to catching up soon on another boot discussion, Brent, and I hope you guys get some more snow in Utah. I really, I really do.

You guys need it.

Yeah, we're hoping for that storm to hit tonight. Excellent. Okay, catch you next time.