If you walk into any reputable ski shop and purchase ski boots, the salesperson will probably bring up the idea of getting aligned or balanced. Biostance is one such technology that focuses on balancing the skier over his or her bindings. A technician will take a look at your boots and body type and adjust your bindings as necessary to optimize comfort and performance. It’s a limited service and can only be found in a handful of ski shops in the states, but go to their site to find the closest shop near you. We spoke to Biostance founder Chris Korich about integrated binding systems and why forking over some extra cash could actually reduce leg fatigue.

When and why did you start Biostance?
We founded Biostance in 2005 to develop simple products and services for skiers to dramatically improve their control, confidence, and comfort. But to get these benefits, skiers need to get focused on boots, bindings, and balance.

Is it worth forking over the money for the process?
You wouldn’t buy $100 tires and not pay to get them mounted and balanced on your car. So why should you purchase a thousand dollars worth of ski equipment and not get it all balanced to your body?

How exactly does this work?
Skiers typically go to ski shops to get a problem solved, whether it’s boot pain or skis that aren’t performing. Biostance retailers know they must focus on your bindings as well. Let’s imagine the front of your foot is going numb and your heels are loose, making it hard to control your skis. Most ski shops are going to sit you down and want to dive into more boot fitting. Biostance technicians are going to first ask you about the bindings on your skis. You may own boots and bindings that both have a high heel design. Combined, this can be tipping you onto the front of your foot, causing the numbness, heel lift, and loss of ski control.

What is done to the skis and bindings?
It depends. If you own skis and bindings that are stance adjustable, Biostance shops can look up your boots on a chart and shim your bindings to a more relaxed and balanced stance. Many customers choose to purchase more appropriate bindings to mount on their skis. Unfortunately, many skiers have purchased ski/binding systems in recent years that can’t be modified. While you still see a lot of advertising for these integrated systems, a lot of people are going back to separate skis and lighter weight bindings that can be stance balanced.

What are your personal experiences on how this has changed the way you ski?
Before developing Biostance, I suffered from foot pain, knee strain, and leg fatigue like most skiers and was always searching for that magical ski. I struggled staying forward and handling difficult snow conditions as well. Now skiing is a relaxing escape.

In a nutshell, Biostance is a fore/aft balancing system that reduces the effect of too much or too little binding/ boot combined ramp angle.

Diagnosis relies on how the skier feels in each of several angle positions.

Biostance has developed statistics on hundreds of boot/binding pairings over the past 6 years and, as it happens, a large percentage of them present fore/aft balance problems. We have been through the process and can confirm that the resulting improvement in performance is nothing short of astonishing. Our test skiers simply could not believe how small lift adjustments beneath toe and heel create powerful improvements in ski control. Adding to Biostance's burgeoning credibility is the use of part of the system by Volkl, which is touting a limited version they call Bio-Logic Stance on some female-specific skis.

One of the unique characteristics of Biostance is that, unlike virtually all other alignment systems, except, especially, the Campbell Balancer, the individual decides through feel what the correct position is, rather than having to rely upon the boot fitter's estimation.

There's has been some initial confusion regarding what this system actually does. Here's a very simple way to understand the result.

Given a little leeway—this is ski equipment related—probably the best way to think about the benefits of Biostance is to forget entirely about skiing techno-gobbledygook and consider the human body.

Standing barefoot on a level grassy surface, the body is at its maximum capacity for balance. This is how humans are built and have been for several million years—a proven bipedal design, one could say.

But in ski boots, with a ramp angle of some sort, atop a binding with a delta angle, which gets added to the ramp angle, the body is tilted forward dramatically from what it would be in the barefoot grass-stance.

Top pros typically minimize elements like forward lean and even, in some cases, ramp angle and even then have boot soles reshaped to raise toes relative to heels, all in service of getting as close to that natural human stance as possible, consistent with being able to control skis, which, let's face it, are not all that natural.

This is what Biostance does, it helps level the foot-boot-binding system fore and aft to approach the fore/aft balance that pros seek and, mostly, have.

And if you think about it, this train of thought also argues against rigid foot beds with thick heels—for many of the same reasons and a few others as well.

"We're very pleased to join the Biostance dealer network. Providing our clients with this unique service will allow us to raise the bar in the Dallas market and continue to separate St. Bernard Sports from the rest of the pack" said Ryan Meyer, Merchandise Manager of St. Bernard Sports, one of the two new Biostance(R) Balancing Centers.

Owner Bart Pierce of Pierce Skate & Ski, the other new balancing center, said "In today's era of e-commerce and big-box retailing there is still room for the specialty retailer to survive and thrive. By constantly reinventing ourselves and looking for ways to be innovative and provide our customers with the best products and services available we set the new standards in our local marketplace. Utilizing the Biostance system, we will be able to provide our customers an in-store ski demo experience that they can "feel" prior to hitting the slopes, versus using theoretical tools and adjustments that sometimes comes up short once on the hill."

Biostance's present technology includes proprietary methods and patent pending products for optimally balancing a skier in his/her ski-binding-boot system. Specially designed test equipment and a balancing platform called the "BIOSTAND(TM)" are used to determine a skier's optimum "stance prescription". This prescription is then used to quickly customize the skier's new equipment or demo gear.

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"Outfitting consumers with the appropriate gear remains a priority and some retailers expect to develop new techniques in the near future. In Vail, David Gorsuch is working in tandem with Chris Korrich, a former Oakland, CA-based ski retailer, on a "method of making consumers feel more comfortable" by selecting equipment based upon individual body angles, balance, weight and other anatomical and athletic factors, Gorsuch explains. Korrich's company, called Biostance LLC, intends to outfit recreational skiers by using the technical theories typically reserved for pro racers.

"Everyone out there is trying to figure out a way to offer clients or customers a better experience, a safer experience," says Gorsuch, who started his retail business in 1962. "Everyone is in a back room trying to figure that out. As a retailer, we are trying to give good service."

Gorsuch says instructors of Vail's master camps have been testing BioStance in recent years and he expects it will be a few years before it gains mainstream acceptance. At this juncture, he is not sure of the cost of such customer service, but hopes it will not add much to an equipment purchase.