Can skis hurt the knee?

During the month of December 2016, I was given a pair of test Polish-made skis XO “One Seventy Two” and I proceeded to ski on them for a few days.

After using the skis for over one week, I didn't particularly enjoy them as I found the skis very difficult to steer and control. More importantly, I suffered a relapse of an old left medial collateral ligament (MCL) elongation that occurred 22 years earlier.

As a result, I stopped skiing 10 days the following January, to rest that knee. Not knowing what to make of that resurging pain, I conveniently suspected that these skis had caused it. Fast-forward to a few days ago, when following some abundant snow falls, I decided it was now safe to use my brand new Dynastar Legend X80 without ruining them.

These boards skied and carved beautifully and were full of liveliness. At the end of the first day though, I began to feel pain again in my left MCL and it become worst on the second day. I returned to my old, flabby, Dynastar PowerTrack 79, and the symptoms immediately went away.

First, I thought my MCL problem was caused by the new skis high level of response and springiness, but I wasn't quite satisfied with that rather baseless hypothesis. I then thought of comparing the binding position on both skis (they were 180 cm in length) and observed that my older skis were mounted about half-and inch forward, compared to the new ones.

Yesterday, I adjusted the boot position on the new skis by a similar distance of 12 mm (4 notches at 3 mm each), to get closer to the old ones, and took them for a spin. I skied a good sampling of terrain and snow conditions to get a valid, general idea, and the results were totally positive.

I had solved the problem and my take-away is that the one-piece binding plate that's installed at the factory with its numbered markings related to boot sole length is woefully inaccurate can't be securely relied upon.

Further, it shows that weak knees are extremely sensitive to longitudinal binding placement and that relative boot position to ski is totally ignored by so-called ski specialists and for which there's no information.

This will need more digging into!