Reflex Flexion Strap and Weight Shift

[DefectiveDave]

Today I was out on the lake working on some pullout and gate drills and I just could not get off my back foot. I would do a pullout with several different techniques including trailing arm load, leading arm load, countered hips, and just plane trying to stomp on my front foot. Nothing seemed to work without sticking my whole upper body out over the ski, and that's not good. This has been a persistent problem of mine the last few months and I've been trying to shake it with some free skiing.

 

I got back in the boat and tried to shift my weight in a slalom stance. I was not able, but I know that I have no trouble with this when playing with the stance at home. Then it hit me that I was still wearing the boot, earlier this year when I first got the reflex I notched down the flexion strap to prevent as much dorsiflexion in my front ankle as possible. My thought had been that it would prevent any extreme motions which could cause injury, but would still allow me to move on the ski. I'm now almost certain I was wrong. When I would shift my hips forward the strap would immediately tense and prevent the knee from moving any further forward.

 

I loosed up the flexion strap to the middle notch and it was like magic. I could readily get weight to the front of the ski and balance my stance. Looking at the video now it's pretty clear that my lower front leg was stuck at about an 90-80 (I'm totally guessing here) degree angle in the first set, and was able to clear around 80-70 degrees in the second with the boot adjustment. Without being able to move my knee slightly forward of the foot, I don't believe I was able to clear my hips and ship my weight more forward. It now makes more sense why this problem showed up at the beginning of this year.

 

To all those out there using a reflex with the flexion strap, has this been a problem for you? To which of the 3 notches do you set the strap?

[DefectiveDave]

Here are some before and after pics. I tried to get two images where my body position was as close as possible. The rope is kind of in the way, but you can see that the relative angle of the lower front leg is greater in the after photo.

 

Before (water breaks at back of front binder):

 

After (water breaks near front of front binder):

[Waternut]

I'm on the middle hole as well. The loosest setting would allow my ankle to bend too far forward which created pain for me so I assumed that wouldn't do much. I didn't think the tightest setting would allow me to put adequate weight on my front foot while still carrying decent form.

[wart]

It is time for a new Reflex front slalom boot.

Which should I get - classic or white cuff?

 

So, white cuff users... do you tighten the buckle on the cuff (very) tight, to engage the strap when needed?

That is, when using my classic boot I leave the cuff buckle loose which leaves me plenty of movement (front and back) with just a little of hinge movement of the cuff.

 

 

[Deanoski]

I had a white boot the cuff would stop the flex so much it gave me to much tip pressure even with strap on the top hole, so I went back to the classic. but that just my opinion.

[skosney]

I'm am also running middle hole on the strap and I also don't crank the top buckle overly tight. The only buckle I run really tight is the middle one. I find this gives me great control without sacrificing forward flex.