Am I "underbooted" or just weak?

[Arwen17]

I'm wondering if I'm "underbooted" or if I'm just weak.

I skated for a year when I was 14 years old and recently just started taking lessons and skating full-time again at 26 years old. I made sure not to lose any of my skills these last 12 years, so I've been able to pick up right where I left off in Freestyle level 4-5. I'm also using the same skates I used when I was 14 years old. I am the same height and weight I was when I was 14 because my growth spurt finished before 14. I even still fit into all of my old skating costumes! haha!

My skates still look good and my coach has glanced at them and doesn't think they look bad either. But I keep having to tighten them while on the ice. After doing loops, flips, lutzes for 30min, I want to retighten the right boot laces. After doing sit spins and camel spins for awhile, I want to retighten the left boot laces.
I'm pulling the laces as tight as I can, but under the pressure of the constant jumps and spins, I can slowly feel them loosening up after 30-45min. My camel spin is immediately better when my skate laces are freshly tightened. Am I just a weakling or do I need a stiffer boot? I never used to have to tighten my skates constantly. I used to be able to wear them thru a long 2-3 hour session without issue.

I'm 5'9 and 150lbs, but working on building muscle and getting lighter (125-130lbs). I'm lean, but I don't have a lot of muscle since I have a desk job, so maybe I'm just a weakling and using the tightened laces to compensate?

I'm not sure if my coach is a good judge of boot support because all of our coaches run around with their skates half-tied since they're giving lessons all day long and then they still pull off spins and jumps with their skates barely tied lol.

My skates from 14 years ago are standard Jackson Freestyle boots with Mark IV blades, size 9 medium. I think they were $300 and considered "intermediate" skates. I only skated in them for a year as a kid, so they still look very, very good.

Should I just stop tightening my skates and deal with it and get stronger? Or should I invest in stiffer, more advanced boots? I don't know why these skates aren't giving me enough support, my single jumps are tiny right now because I'm still working on improving them.

They feel really good when the laces are freshly tightened. If only they would stay that tight through a whole session....

 

[yesienna]

Change laces and try different lacing techniques. Helped me a lot.

 

[TGee]

Your body has changed and so has skate technology.....but understand that it can be hard to come to terms with....as I had a very similar experience..

You are likely significantly heavier than at 14, which in itself requires a stiffer boot for the same level of skating....and your feet have likely changed in the past 12 years even if your shoe size hasn't.

One thought is to check out new models and even just the fit of your current skates with a good fitter for your brand. It may be that you need new boots, but can move your blades...or that a new insert is needed.

Certainly, agree that new laces are essential if you don't already have them....Even at the best of times, they stretch over 6 months or so of use...And a fitter may be able to recommend the best lacing approach for your current needs.

 

[Pink Ice]

I agree with the changing of the laces, I have to change mine every six months because they stretch and I start having to relace a bunch of times while skating. There is lots about lacing technique online, the one thing that has worked well for me is the Edea style where you bring the laces over and down into the holes rather than pushing them up through them. When you lace this way, to tighten, you simply pull sideways instead of up towards you. It feels weird at first, but they are easy to tighten, I do a double "tug-tug" sideways for each hole. I also bring my laces over and down when I reach the hooks, this seems to hold them tighter, keeps them from slipping. Even though I don't wear Edeas, when I first got my boots I noticed that they were getting pretty deep creasing to the ankle just from my knee bend, after doing some reading I decided to switch lacing styles. The creasing immediately stopped progressing and over time even seemed to be less noticeable in general, the lacing style is supposed to put more even pressure on the boot, not sure if it is true, just know that my boots feel better this way. I also discovered that wearing Bunga gel pads on my ankles gave me a better fit. They make them to protect against lace bite, but they work to help boots fit on skinny ankles a bit too.

So, that is what I do/did when having trouble with tightness, again, there are other ways you can research online to lace for location tightness etc. But....if you have tried all of that and it is not helping, perhaps your boots are no longer supportive enough for the type of skating you are doing. You can research broken down boots and what they look like, generally there is deep creasing along the sides and they can even be kind of floppy where they start folding to one side when standing alone without anyone wearing them. I have a friend though, at the rink who had boots that were not that badly creased, but the were still just overall not supportive enough, she was having to lace very tightly, uncomfortably tight, to land jumps but she would loosen them for other less stressful elements to get some relief. However, I think her boots were never rated for the types of stuff she was doing with them.

Also, as was mentioned, it would be highly unusual not to have some body changes from 14 to 26. Your feet change shape as you age and that often has nothing to do with your weight or upper body size/shape. I actually think this is probably the most likely factor with your fit issues, but with new boots being expensive, it is worth it to try the cheaper fixes stuff first.

 

[loopy]

If you have a proshop, look at a sample skate of the same level and give is a food squeeze on the top of the boot where the ankle it. Then do they same with your skate. When my daughter's skates break down, they look fine. There is no creasing. No noticeable wear. But if you take a new pair of boots and hers, there is a huge difference in stiffness. Your skates were used for a year at 14. My daughter's skates last 18 months. Yours have been stored and materials do weaken over time. It might just be time for a new pair of skates. But check out a comparison first.

 

[jf12]

They could have broken down with time, just in storage. 14 years is a long time for natural materials like leather to hold up, even if you weren't using them. I would go and try on new skates if the lacing changes don't work. My personal preference is for stiffer boots that I don't need to lace up very tight near the top hooks - this way I feel like I have a lot of support side to side, and a lot of freedom to bend the ankle front to back. If you have to tie your boots so tight that its inhibiting the front to back ankle bend, it's not going to be good for your progress.

 

[Arwen17]

yep, turns out my lacing technique was crap. There's nothing wrong with the skates or laces. Hurray I don't have to buy anything new!
Basically, I should have been unlacing the skate all-the-way down every time I took them off instead of just unlacing them enough to get my foot out. Then you can lace them really tight from the toe and get all of the extra slack out that comes before where the foot bends.
I never had a problem before with the way I was originally lacing them, but now I'm doing a lot of single jumps back-to-back and camel spins and that needs a lot more support from the skates.

 

[RoaringMice]

It's always great when the cheapest possible solution works - new lacing technique wins the day!