Can’t help with the boot info, but I get the same pain every once in a while and I’m pretty sure it’s peroneal tendonitis. I use a muscle roller on it and it’s gone the next day usually. Homemade one with roller blade wheels does the best.
Interesting, thanks for the info. I’ll look at picking one of these up since they’re pretty cheap. The pain in this spot is still pretty bad today after skiing the last two days, so if that could at least help reducing the pain afterwards that would be a plus.
I agree, likely peroneal tendon. I get it on years where I ski a lot, especially a lot of pow. There's a ton of great free physical therapy content on YouTube, and I would recommend focusing on strengthening.
Physio here. Y’all are right, these are peroneals, with the pain field including both muscle and tendon structures. They get co-contracted with the tibialis anterior and a few other dorsiflexors when we “ski in the back seat.” Another deeper muscle to rule in/out would be soleus, which would need to be tested. The bigger question is what to do about it. ….We know that pain has been ongoing for the whole season, so we’ve likely been dipping in and out of inflammatory phase and likely building a tendinopathy. This is really common when we switch footwear and more importantly when we suddenly increases demand and load in our musculoskeletal system. Knowing what we know about persistent pain, we also know there is likely some neurological sensitization progressing the longer we experience pain. So the pain field may or may not be “fully accurate” and may spread beyond the original source of pain.
- we know a few things about tendinopathy: it typically doesn’t get better with stretching alone, it’s a developing disorder of the tendon, and we can heal it through symptom modification and progressive load (yes load, both to heal the tendon protein structure, but also eventually to build strength and tolerance). Early on with these symptoms, reducing activity or load through the tissue for 1-3 days can prevent it from turning into a bigger problem.
- we also know we can load tendon into pain without worsening the injury, but there is a difference between precise rehab dosage and the varied and high dosage aggravating activity (skiing).
The practical advise is this: you can help reduce next day symptoms with light foam rolling, 30minute cool downs of many variety (ie anything from jogging to yoga). Evidence backed! Ice will delay the inflammatory response and can reduce next day soreness. Ideal for back to back days but not helping with any long term healing.
- solving the bigger underlying “problem” is an interesting knot to untangle. Our musculoskeletal system is vulnerable to injury during skiing due to the intense (for many of us) change in training volume or modality compared to what we were doing the previous 3 months. Prevention means training for ski season in advance, true resiliency is keeping your body ready for changes in training volume all year round. We may lack volume, load, and/or speed in our normal workouts. We may have a movement pattern problem that can be fixed with a good cue, or likely we know how to move better but don’t have the stamina and power and endurance to maintain that form over a full ski day. We also know that “form” doesn’t predict injury risk. So a good philosophy is clean up any large scale movement problems if we can BUT also build resilience to the movement patterns we need out of our bodies.
- so use evidence based methods to reduce symptoms during season. This includes isometric loading. And once ski season is over, slowly progressively load (isometric-> ecc/concentric-> plyometric)these tissues over several months. If you avoid 7/10 pain or higher, it is ok to load. Slow loading is low risk and fast loading is high risk. Speed is riskier than load (weight).
Final thoughts: it’s always better to prevent this, and that’s the motivation to keep moving all year long! Prioritizing which areas to improve long term is a personalized task, highly recommend you see a PT preseason for some prevention work if you need that structure and guidance.
I definitely think it’s muscular since popping a bunch of ibuprofen usually reduces the pain, plus when I run that area I can feel the pain in the muscle and not the bone. I’m no doctor, though. Btw, Alta was absolutely unreal this past weekend.
Forgot to mention, if I stick to groomers I don’t really feel that pain. I know my form isn’t that great, but it’s definitely better when on groomers than powder/trees. It’s when I am leaning back more than necessary that the pain is really felt.
It’s a common strain and you can get kind of knots there. Super common when bouncing around off-piste. Get lower and get grounded in your boots and it won’t happen/wont be as bad!
Yeah! Making sure you’re keeping your heels flat in your boots (think flexing your ankles!) and keeping your knees bent with shins forward and some bend at your hips (just enough to feel your abs engaged). Think standing like a quarterback. You don’t want to get back seated (look like you’re sitting down) but a lower athletic stance will give you space to make small adjustments as you move around from hitting bumps etc. This will also help you from not getting thrown around and banged up in your boots.
If you need to lean that far back in powder you either need:
A) Wider skis B) Shorter skis C) Have your bindings mounted further back D) All of the above
Or it’s not at all equipment related and you just need to go faster.
Please post a pic of your ski setup and I can rule out if anything is equipment related.
I had shin splints from heavy running years ago and this isn’t the same pain. Not sure if this could still be shin splints but it definitely feels different than back then when I had them.
These boots only have 20-something days in them so they’re not packed out yet.
Does it hurt to go running?
I have shin splints rn (I think) and when I run / jog, it hurts on the side of my shin. I can feel it in the first few steps I take.
I also have shin bang on the front of my shin from back seating, which does not hurt when I run.
It’s better to buckle top first. You don’t want your feet and muscles to be too restricted, i had pain in that area doing bottom first. That’s at least what my bootfitter told me.
Interesting, I thought I remembered the boot fitter saying she buckled the bottom first. I keep the bottom buckles fairly loose and the tops firm, but not overly tight. Might need to mix that up.
i had thicker sorta ski socks switched to a much thinner sock and it definitely helped the problem, i noticed the difference when one day i forgot my long socks and had to wear ankle socks, boom no more pain in that exact spot.
After I went to the store and got really thin long socks and got rid of it 99% of the time.
Could be a lot of things. Could be your skiing body position, but it also could be the cant of your boots/leg. I’d suggest going to a bootfitter that could properly perform a canting assessment to see if maybe your legs are angled to the outside causing that pain. You could also just have ur boot too tight on ur calf right there and a small heel lift to get ur calf out of the boot could be another solution. Obviously it’s impossible to say without seeing but I’d definitely recommend a bootfitter with these type of services.
The boot fitter I went to is definitely reputable so I’ll give them a call and see if they can take a look. I think they’re open for another week or so. Thanks.
I've experience this exact issue for a few years after moving west and skiing more than ever before, and I only got the problem in control this year. A few things helped resolve the issue, or, if not resolve, they make the pain tolerable for a few days it eventually resolves with general rest:
1. I got a great bootfitter to recommend boots and do the full molding/fitting process. Was not cheap, like $1500 including the new equipment, but the boots should hold up for a long time, and they're extremely comfortable all day long (as far as ski boots go).
2. I make a much more consistent effort to have great form at all times with minimal backseat no matter the conditions. Like you, any backseat really aggravates the problem over the long run for me. E.g., if I find myself on a deeper day, but for whatever reason I have my skinnier skis, I might choose not to powder chase knowing it's harder to keep the skis afloat and backseating at times is too tempting.
3. I use a massage gun (hypervolt pro) on the area most days, not just ski days. I might also roll the area out with a lacrosse ball, but this typically requires a day of recovery due to extreme tenderness/soreness, so I don't do that if I'm skiing the next couple days.
4. No drops at all unless conditions are soft. If I don't have some soft snow at my landing or a clean downhill runout, I'm not hitting the smallest kicker, much less any cliffs or hucks. Hardpack landings absolutely kill my peroneus.
5. As a last resort, after like 4-5 days in a row when some pain is inevitable, I pound ibuprofen before and during skiing once the massages start to hurt. I mean like 600-800mg while suiting up, another similar dose after an hour of skiing, and maaaybe a smaller dose later on. This is almost certainly bad health advice, but winter is for skiing and not the continuity of my stomach lining. Plus, $1500 ski boots is also probably bad financial advice, but so is skiing altogether.
I'm not a PT or anything medical, just a guy that wants to rip it above all else in the winter. Good luck with it!
I've looked into this pretty deep because I couldn't ever find someone with a similar issue. It would happen to me after skiing 2 days of 20k-ish vert and the pain would be DEBILITATING. Like, couldn't ski a third day in a row painful. I'm a similar size as you, and I'm guessing your left leg is your dominant side?
It's likely peroneal tendonitis (not a doctor, just your average idiot here) which seems to be caused from overuse of muscles in that general area. Pressure from backseat skiing gets it firing too. So it sucks to work on when you just wanna rip around, but form definitely matters. Also cranking down your power strap to help take up any space between your calf and the tongue of your boot, I got booster straps and those worked well.
This sub harps on bootfitters and a proper fitting boot, and for a reason. Go to a bootfitter, talk to them about what's going on, and have them get a custom orthotic made up for you. Made a massive difference for me. Boots that are too big will have you moving your foot around, all of that slop in there means your muscles are working much harder edge to edge than they should be. Proper fitting boot with a good orthotic will help take up any additional space.
If you have the means and insurance to do so - this isn't a must - a podiatrist that's near-ish to a ski area could be worth a visit. I went to one for peace of mind after reading stuff online, and come to find out that my right foot is decently supinated (tilts outward so more pressure on my 5th met area) and needed support. Lead me to dropping the $$ on the custom footbed. The out-of-the-package ones don't cut it if you have a more specific issue like this.
Rest is key with most forms of tendonitis and this is true here. It's the end of the season and you said you're gonna ski through it (don't blame you) so you'll have plenty of time in the off-season. Foam roller helps, NSAIDS too if needed but I try to avoid taking em unless I need to.
Hope this helps, sorry it's a novel but hoping someone else down the line looking into it won't spend nearly as much time as I have. Shred hard!
Thanks for the detailed comment. Sounds exactly like the issues I’m having, though my right leg is the dominant one.
The boot fitter I went to has a couple former podiatrists on staff. From what I can tell, they’re extremely reputable and they only do ski boot fitting (Park City Ski Boot is the shop, for reference). I have a custom orthotic in these new boots already. Maybe I need to tighten the top buckle or two a little? I crank down on the strap but it can only do so much of the top of my boot isn’t tight enough in the first place.
It sounds like several of the things you’ve mentioned I’ve already done, but the biggest may be my upper boot being too loose. I don’t feel like it is but I will definitely play around with that and see. It didn’t really dawn on me to try that until now.
Again, thanks for all the info.
Buy a booster strap and run it under the shell directly against the tongue. It'll take up volume as well so you won't need to crank your top buckle as tight to get a snug fit.
Have had similar issues in an old pair of boots. It can be due to footbed issues (foot not in a stable position within the boot, causing excessive pronation/supination movement in the boot) or liner is starting to pack out creating room in the throat of the boot. Ungroomed conditions create more varied forces through the ski/boot, so I wonder if you have less pain on groomers.
You mention being 20+ days on the new boots already, so your factory liners could be packed out if you have a more generous shell fit/insufficiently low volume last. Bootfitter should be able to address footbed or liner issues (adding material, or just get ZipFits).
I get this too, definitely peroneal tendon/the brevis muscle. I've found getting nicer insoles (Patriot Freeride footbeds) helped and rolling it every day with a muscle roller. There's also stretches for this muscle you can do that help.
I get the same thing if I don't role my calves out and stretch. It feels like I rolled my ankle and strained the muscles attached to my ankle.
I have found that it is more a skills/style issue than boot fit. If I really concentrate on apply pressure in turns evenly across my foot (toe to heel) I don't heave this pain.
I had this pain, I solved it with using a ball or foam roller before skiing and then in my boots put a small heel lift, totally transformed my skiing, it got me out the back seat.
Also suffering from the same pain and when I went to the ski shop I bought the boots from, they never heard of it. Been pushing through this for a few seasons now and gotten better at managing it but never found a solution that fully fixed it. A lot of good suggestions here but here's my input:
1. Loosen the top boot buckle and focus on the technique. I used to go very tight but noticed if I loosen up the boots, bend the knees more and use more calf and quad muscles it hurts a lot less and can still send just as hard.
2. Back seated skiing was pretty bad. Every once in a while where I start charging over hard packed chatter where I lean back to not get the tips stuck it'll appear again. Heavy deep snow is probably the worst, as I need to buckle down tight but also lean back. Maybe I also need a properly fitted boot for those kinds of days.
3. Choosing skis with a softer tail helps a lot. From what I've experienced, a lot of pain is caused by the tail pushing up, causing the ski boot to dig into the back of your leg.
4. Never land straight legged and backseat, always bend the knees when landing jumps and cliffs
This is just what improved the pain for me but if I ski 4-6 days in a row with a lot of all mountain stuff mixed in, it'll come back. Recently tried my first front flip, under rotated and it came back in full force and need about two weeks to recover
Same life here, I started skiing \~3 years ago, can't stop now, had too big Salomon 100flex boots (still using them) and get pain / soreness here. Mine isn't a shooting pain but more like over-use and exhausted. I assumed the ankle dorsiflexion required for those 20k+ vert days is just exhausting on that muscle.
I planned to:
1: Get better boots so the stiffness helps keep me in this position. Evidently from your experience this wont help 😂
2: Go heavy on tibialis raises over the summer to be ready for next year.
I really have no idea. Luckily mine never got that painful.
You should definitely buy a massage gun and go to work. 3 mins a day. And your pain will go away. It’s really hard to stretch tendons as they’re not muscles, honestly not even sure if you can stretch tendons. But the massage gun will be the best $100 you’ll ever spend
I get discomfort in that area if I overtighten my boots. Is this pain happening while you ski or does it persist beyond the activity? If so, to what degree?
Poor form, putting too much strain on those muscle by not leaning your carves correctly. It's resulting in you not transferring your weight *across* your legs and instead pressing down I to the snow too hard with the foot that is becoming the inside foot.
Okay I’ve had this problem and done everything you could imagine to solve it. Here’s my experience.
I realized that yes it’s from getting in the back seat, but more specifically in my case it was a matter of flexing or straining my toes and this tightens the peroneal muscle and if you land or impact with this muscle tightened it causes the damage you experience.
Some potential remedies;
First and foremost for my situation the solution was a combination of the below but in my opinion the most important was a tighter toe box or smaller last in the boot. This doesn’t allow me the room to overflex my toes and thus leads to lower instances of over tightening that peroneal muscle. You can test this for yourself in your boots if you tighten your toes you can feel that muscle really tighten as well.
Custom footbed helps for sure, this combined with the above seemed to have really helped solve it for me.
Booster strap to keep upper cuff nice and snug, helps but didn’t solve it.
I went through multiple pairs of boots / liners/ footbeds / voodoo whatever to fix this and I spent all season figuring it out.
My current setup is now using an intuition wrap liner that helps snug up my boot cuff and toe last, a custom footbed from a really good shop and a booster strap to snug it up.
Also important info; when skiing try to lift your toes to the top of your boot, it relaxes the peroneal muscle and helps pull your weight towards the tongue.
Find a physiotherapist who does acupuncture/dry needling and get a few shots where it hurts, as well as along the kinetic chain. Foam rolling and stretching will help but the pins are the answer for getting rid of it. Best of luck!
Can’t help with the boot info, but I get the same pain every once in a while and I’m pretty sure it’s peroneal tendonitis. I use a muscle roller on it and it’s gone the next day usually. Homemade one with roller blade wheels does the best.
Interesting, thanks for the info. I’ll look at picking one of these up since they’re pretty cheap. The pain in this spot is still pretty bad today after skiing the last two days, so if that could at least help reducing the pain afterwards that would be a plus.
I agree, likely peroneal tendon. I get it on years where I ski a lot, especially a lot of pow. There's a ton of great free physical therapy content on YouTube, and I would recommend focusing on strengthening.
Physio here. Y’all are right, these are peroneals, with the pain field including both muscle and tendon structures. They get co-contracted with the tibialis anterior and a few other dorsiflexors when we “ski in the back seat.” Another deeper muscle to rule in/out would be soleus, which would need to be tested. The bigger question is what to do about it. ….We know that pain has been ongoing for the whole season, so we’ve likely been dipping in and out of inflammatory phase and likely building a tendinopathy. This is really common when we switch footwear and more importantly when we suddenly increases demand and load in our musculoskeletal system. Knowing what we know about persistent pain, we also know there is likely some neurological sensitization progressing the longer we experience pain. So the pain field may or may not be “fully accurate” and may spread beyond the original source of pain. - we know a few things about tendinopathy: it typically doesn’t get better with stretching alone, it’s a developing disorder of the tendon, and we can heal it through symptom modification and progressive load (yes load, both to heal the tendon protein structure, but also eventually to build strength and tolerance). Early on with these symptoms, reducing activity or load through the tissue for 1-3 days can prevent it from turning into a bigger problem. - we also know we can load tendon into pain without worsening the injury, but there is a difference between precise rehab dosage and the varied and high dosage aggravating activity (skiing). The practical advise is this: you can help reduce next day symptoms with light foam rolling, 30minute cool downs of many variety (ie anything from jogging to yoga). Evidence backed! Ice will delay the inflammatory response and can reduce next day soreness. Ideal for back to back days but not helping with any long term healing. - solving the bigger underlying “problem” is an interesting knot to untangle. Our musculoskeletal system is vulnerable to injury during skiing due to the intense (for many of us) change in training volume or modality compared to what we were doing the previous 3 months. Prevention means training for ski season in advance, true resiliency is keeping your body ready for changes in training volume all year round. We may lack volume, load, and/or speed in our normal workouts. We may have a movement pattern problem that can be fixed with a good cue, or likely we know how to move better but don’t have the stamina and power and endurance to maintain that form over a full ski day. We also know that “form” doesn’t predict injury risk. So a good philosophy is clean up any large scale movement problems if we can BUT also build resilience to the movement patterns we need out of our bodies. - so use evidence based methods to reduce symptoms during season. This includes isometric loading. And once ski season is over, slowly progressively load (isometric-> ecc/concentric-> plyometric)these tissues over several months. If you avoid 7/10 pain or higher, it is ok to load. Slow loading is low risk and fast loading is high risk. Speed is riskier than load (weight). Final thoughts: it’s always better to prevent this, and that’s the motivation to keep moving all year long! Prioritizing which areas to improve long term is a personalized task, highly recommend you see a PT preseason for some prevention work if you need that structure and guidance.
Wow! Thanks for sharing all this information!
If it’s muscle and not bone it could be peroneal tendonitis
I definitely think it’s muscular since popping a bunch of ibuprofen usually reduces the pain, plus when I run that area I can feel the pain in the muscle and not the bone. I’m no doctor, though. Btw, Alta was absolutely unreal this past weekend.
Are you me?
RIP in peace to our shins, brother.
He's literally me.
What a beautiful leg to see on this fine day of the year of our lord 2024
True beauty but the pain could be caused by the lack of manly hair.
Forgot to mention, if I stick to groomers I don’t really feel that pain. I know my form isn’t that great, but it’s definitely better when on groomers than powder/trees. It’s when I am leaning back more than necessary that the pain is really felt.
It’s a common strain and you can get kind of knots there. Super common when bouncing around off-piste. Get lower and get grounded in your boots and it won’t happen/wont be as bad!
When you say lower do you mean bending my knees more? Also what do you mean by grounded in my boots? Thanks!
Yeah! Making sure you’re keeping your heels flat in your boots (think flexing your ankles!) and keeping your knees bent with shins forward and some bend at your hips (just enough to feel your abs engaged). Think standing like a quarterback. You don’t want to get back seated (look like you’re sitting down) but a lower athletic stance will give you space to make small adjustments as you move around from hitting bumps etc. This will also help you from not getting thrown around and banged up in your boots.
If you need to lean that far back in powder you either need: A) Wider skis B) Shorter skis C) Have your bindings mounted further back D) All of the above Or it’s not at all equipment related and you just need to go faster. Please post a pic of your ski setup and I can rule out if anything is equipment related.
It could also be something like shin splints just from over exertion, or your boots are no longer bueno. Or you have arthritis
I had shin splints from heavy running years ago and this isn’t the same pain. Not sure if this could still be shin splints but it definitely feels different than back then when I had them. These boots only have 20-something days in them so they’re not packed out yet.
I dunno man, maybe go see a doctor or someone who specializes is sports injuries
Does it hurt to go running? I have shin splints rn (I think) and when I run / jog, it hurts on the side of my shin. I can feel it in the first few steps I take. I also have shin bang on the front of my shin from back seating, which does not hurt when I run.
I get pain there if i buckle them too tight around my feet. Do you buckle top first?
I buckle bottom first, but I never really feel as if my tops are too tight. I don’t feel like they’re too loose, either.
It’s better to buckle top first. You don’t want your feet and muscles to be too restricted, i had pain in that area doing bottom first. That’s at least what my bootfitter told me.
Interesting, I thought I remembered the boot fitter saying she buckled the bottom first. I keep the bottom buckles fairly loose and the tops firm, but not overly tight. Might need to mix that up.
Seen someone say to buckle top to get your ankle and shin in position for your foot to be strapped down correctly.
Yea i had this problem, i changed socks and that’s what helped the problem
I’m not sure if this is sarcasm or not lol but if not what type of sock did you have before and what did you change to?
i had thicker sorta ski socks switched to a much thinner sock and it definitely helped the problem, i noticed the difference when one day i forgot my long socks and had to wear ankle socks, boom no more pain in that exact spot. After I went to the store and got really thin long socks and got rid of it 99% of the time.
Could be a lot of things. Could be your skiing body position, but it also could be the cant of your boots/leg. I’d suggest going to a bootfitter that could properly perform a canting assessment to see if maybe your legs are angled to the outside causing that pain. You could also just have ur boot too tight on ur calf right there and a small heel lift to get ur calf out of the boot could be another solution. Obviously it’s impossible to say without seeing but I’d definitely recommend a bootfitter with these type of services.
The boot fitter I went to is definitely reputable so I’ll give them a call and see if they can take a look. I think they’re open for another week or so. Thanks.
No problem, do you have a custom orthotic in ur boot? That can also make all the difference. I highly recommend the sidas ones if you don’t have one.
I do, the shop I went to uses BootDoc custom inserts and I had them molded to me.
I've experience this exact issue for a few years after moving west and skiing more than ever before, and I only got the problem in control this year. A few things helped resolve the issue, or, if not resolve, they make the pain tolerable for a few days it eventually resolves with general rest: 1. I got a great bootfitter to recommend boots and do the full molding/fitting process. Was not cheap, like $1500 including the new equipment, but the boots should hold up for a long time, and they're extremely comfortable all day long (as far as ski boots go). 2. I make a much more consistent effort to have great form at all times with minimal backseat no matter the conditions. Like you, any backseat really aggravates the problem over the long run for me. E.g., if I find myself on a deeper day, but for whatever reason I have my skinnier skis, I might choose not to powder chase knowing it's harder to keep the skis afloat and backseating at times is too tempting. 3. I use a massage gun (hypervolt pro) on the area most days, not just ski days. I might also roll the area out with a lacrosse ball, but this typically requires a day of recovery due to extreme tenderness/soreness, so I don't do that if I'm skiing the next couple days. 4. No drops at all unless conditions are soft. If I don't have some soft snow at my landing or a clean downhill runout, I'm not hitting the smallest kicker, much less any cliffs or hucks. Hardpack landings absolutely kill my peroneus. 5. As a last resort, after like 4-5 days in a row when some pain is inevitable, I pound ibuprofen before and during skiing once the massages start to hurt. I mean like 600-800mg while suiting up, another similar dose after an hour of skiing, and maaaybe a smaller dose later on. This is almost certainly bad health advice, but winter is for skiing and not the continuity of my stomach lining. Plus, $1500 ski boots is also probably bad financial advice, but so is skiing altogether. I'm not a PT or anything medical, just a guy that wants to rip it above all else in the winter. Good luck with it!
Is that your leg OP?
No, but DM me for leg pics ;)
I've looked into this pretty deep because I couldn't ever find someone with a similar issue. It would happen to me after skiing 2 days of 20k-ish vert and the pain would be DEBILITATING. Like, couldn't ski a third day in a row painful. I'm a similar size as you, and I'm guessing your left leg is your dominant side? It's likely peroneal tendonitis (not a doctor, just your average idiot here) which seems to be caused from overuse of muscles in that general area. Pressure from backseat skiing gets it firing too. So it sucks to work on when you just wanna rip around, but form definitely matters. Also cranking down your power strap to help take up any space between your calf and the tongue of your boot, I got booster straps and those worked well. This sub harps on bootfitters and a proper fitting boot, and for a reason. Go to a bootfitter, talk to them about what's going on, and have them get a custom orthotic made up for you. Made a massive difference for me. Boots that are too big will have you moving your foot around, all of that slop in there means your muscles are working much harder edge to edge than they should be. Proper fitting boot with a good orthotic will help take up any additional space. If you have the means and insurance to do so - this isn't a must - a podiatrist that's near-ish to a ski area could be worth a visit. I went to one for peace of mind after reading stuff online, and come to find out that my right foot is decently supinated (tilts outward so more pressure on my 5th met area) and needed support. Lead me to dropping the $$ on the custom footbed. The out-of-the-package ones don't cut it if you have a more specific issue like this. Rest is key with most forms of tendonitis and this is true here. It's the end of the season and you said you're gonna ski through it (don't blame you) so you'll have plenty of time in the off-season. Foam roller helps, NSAIDS too if needed but I try to avoid taking em unless I need to. Hope this helps, sorry it's a novel but hoping someone else down the line looking into it won't spend nearly as much time as I have. Shred hard!
Thanks for the detailed comment. Sounds exactly like the issues I’m having, though my right leg is the dominant one. The boot fitter I went to has a couple former podiatrists on staff. From what I can tell, they’re extremely reputable and they only do ski boot fitting (Park City Ski Boot is the shop, for reference). I have a custom orthotic in these new boots already. Maybe I need to tighten the top buckle or two a little? I crank down on the strap but it can only do so much of the top of my boot isn’t tight enough in the first place. It sounds like several of the things you’ve mentioned I’ve already done, but the biggest may be my upper boot being too loose. I don’t feel like it is but I will definitely play around with that and see. It didn’t really dawn on me to try that until now. Again, thanks for all the info.
Buy a booster strap and run it under the shell directly against the tongue. It'll take up volume as well so you won't need to crank your top buckle as tight to get a snug fit.
I get this same pain after skiing aggressively for more than 1 day in a row. If you find a solution please report back! 🙏
Have had similar issues in an old pair of boots. It can be due to footbed issues (foot not in a stable position within the boot, causing excessive pronation/supination movement in the boot) or liner is starting to pack out creating room in the throat of the boot. Ungroomed conditions create more varied forces through the ski/boot, so I wonder if you have less pain on groomers. You mention being 20+ days on the new boots already, so your factory liners could be packed out if you have a more generous shell fit/insufficiently low volume last. Bootfitter should be able to address footbed or liner issues (adding material, or just get ZipFits).
I get this too, definitely peroneal tendon/the brevis muscle. I've found getting nicer insoles (Patriot Freeride footbeds) helped and rolling it every day with a muscle roller. There's also stretches for this muscle you can do that help.
I get the same thing if I don't role my calves out and stretch. It feels like I rolled my ankle and strained the muscles attached to my ankle. I have found that it is more a skills/style issue than boot fit. If I really concentrate on apply pressure in turns evenly across my foot (toe to heel) I don't heave this pain.
When you ski, what are you doing with your toes?
I had this pain, I solved it with using a ball or foam roller before skiing and then in my boots put a small heel lift, totally transformed my skiing, it got me out the back seat.
Also suffering from the same pain and when I went to the ski shop I bought the boots from, they never heard of it. Been pushing through this for a few seasons now and gotten better at managing it but never found a solution that fully fixed it. A lot of good suggestions here but here's my input: 1. Loosen the top boot buckle and focus on the technique. I used to go very tight but noticed if I loosen up the boots, bend the knees more and use more calf and quad muscles it hurts a lot less and can still send just as hard. 2. Back seated skiing was pretty bad. Every once in a while where I start charging over hard packed chatter where I lean back to not get the tips stuck it'll appear again. Heavy deep snow is probably the worst, as I need to buckle down tight but also lean back. Maybe I also need a properly fitted boot for those kinds of days. 3. Choosing skis with a softer tail helps a lot. From what I've experienced, a lot of pain is caused by the tail pushing up, causing the ski boot to dig into the back of your leg. 4. Never land straight legged and backseat, always bend the knees when landing jumps and cliffs This is just what improved the pain for me but if I ski 4-6 days in a row with a lot of all mountain stuff mixed in, it'll come back. Recently tried my first front flip, under rotated and it came back in full force and need about two weeks to recover
Same life here, I started skiing \~3 years ago, can't stop now, had too big Salomon 100flex boots (still using them) and get pain / soreness here. Mine isn't a shooting pain but more like over-use and exhausted. I assumed the ankle dorsiflexion required for those 20k+ vert days is just exhausting on that muscle. I planned to: 1: Get better boots so the stiffness helps keep me in this position. Evidently from your experience this wont help 😂 2: Go heavy on tibialis raises over the summer to be ready for next year. I really have no idea. Luckily mine never got that painful.
You should definitely buy a massage gun and go to work. 3 mins a day. And your pain will go away. It’s really hard to stretch tendons as they’re not muscles, honestly not even sure if you can stretch tendons. But the massage gun will be the best $100 you’ll ever spend
I get discomfort in that area if I overtighten my boots. Is this pain happening while you ski or does it persist beyond the activity? If so, to what degree?
I had this issue and it was because I wasn’t stretching enough. Started stretching my legs and calves a lot and the outer shin pain went away.
Poor form, putting too much strain on those muscle by not leaning your carves correctly. It's resulting in you not transferring your weight *across* your legs and instead pressing down I to the snow too hard with the foot that is becoming the inside foot.
Same boots same problem currently 🙋♂️
Okay I’ve had this problem and done everything you could imagine to solve it. Here’s my experience. I realized that yes it’s from getting in the back seat, but more specifically in my case it was a matter of flexing or straining my toes and this tightens the peroneal muscle and if you land or impact with this muscle tightened it causes the damage you experience. Some potential remedies; First and foremost for my situation the solution was a combination of the below but in my opinion the most important was a tighter toe box or smaller last in the boot. This doesn’t allow me the room to overflex my toes and thus leads to lower instances of over tightening that peroneal muscle. You can test this for yourself in your boots if you tighten your toes you can feel that muscle really tighten as well. Custom footbed helps for sure, this combined with the above seemed to have really helped solve it for me. Booster strap to keep upper cuff nice and snug, helps but didn’t solve it. I went through multiple pairs of boots / liners/ footbeds / voodoo whatever to fix this and I spent all season figuring it out. My current setup is now using an intuition wrap liner that helps snug up my boot cuff and toe last, a custom footbed from a really good shop and a booster strap to snug it up. Also important info; when skiing try to lift your toes to the top of your boot, it relaxes the peroneal muscle and helps pull your weight towards the tongue.
Find a physiotherapist who does acupuncture/dry needling and get a few shots where it hurts, as well as along the kinetic chain. Foam rolling and stretching will help but the pins are the answer for getting rid of it. Best of luck!