Should You Tuck in Your Ski Pants?

Q & A

I just read an article on a popular web site and the author was talking about inside-the-boot ski pants. I think I just about fell out of my chair as I read that. Can that possibly be true? It just doesn’t seem like it to me and let me explain why.

It would seem that you would want some extra padding inside your boot but doing this is actually a terrible idea. Anything bunched up in your ski boot between your shin and boot is going to push into your skin. Your ski boots take a lot of pressure as you ski down a slope and that pushes even harder on your shins. So anything that’s not smooth is going to really get pushed in and that’s very painful. You could even be in pain the next day.

I saw this happen to a kid in the worst way. I was teaching a lesson and only about 15 minutes into it, there was this teenage boy that didn’t look right. I asked him what was wrong and he said his legs hurt. A few minutes later, I ended taking him into ski patrol and we found out that he had his pants tucked into his boots. The kid had the worst look on his face and you just knew he was in serious pain. He didn’t ski the rest of the night either.

I now take extra time at the beginning of each ski lesson to check out every person’s boots. I tell them that if they have anything bunched up in their boots – which can even be their socks not pulled tight, that they will be in severe pain in about 15-20 minutes. At that point, I see people adjust their pants and boots while I also am checking everyone. You can’t learn very well if you’re distracted by pain.

And it would seem that you’d want to keep snow out of your boots – another good reason to have your ski pants outside of your boots.

So I have no idea why, in that article I just read, someone is talking about inside the boot ski pants. I think that’s completely wrong. If you find any such thing, please do not buy them. It’s a bad idea. All ski pants need to go outside of your boots – even the liner with the elastic band, which you find on a lot of pairs of good ski pants. Put that on the outside, for sure. Trust me and thank me later.

I just hate to think that there are people out there who might have given up on skiing because of leg pain and the reason was that they had their pants tucked into their boots. If they only knew.

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