I came up with two partial solutions. First, with my iphone camera and some quick editing on my computer I’ve put together some good (well, passable) clips for video technique analysis. Now I can be my own video-analyzing coach, and my coach John Suuronen as well as some of my other mentors out there can have a look at the video link on this article and let me know what they think.
The second ‘solution’ is that, while I’m out skiing, doing some other training, or within the odd daydream I simply think about technique and how I might improve my own. Through this process I’ve discovered some problems with my skiing, and linked them to weaknesses in my body, which I have been working to fix.
The biggest problem with my skate technique, which John identified this spring when I was still in Ottawa, is that I use my quads too much in the initial stage of my side push. The solution is to bend more at the ankle, push off a slightly more straight-up-the trail ski, and to bend the upper-body in conjunction with a harder arm push. The goal is to have your femur bones perpendicular to the ground or further forward (at tip I got through the grapevine from new NDC coach Mark Doble), and hips forward for the first half or more of the push. This saves your quads, gets more power from your upper body, and gives you better top end speed in fast conditions (flats, easy pitches up or down).The trouble with trying to ski with perpendicular to the ground femurs is how does one initiate the final, still very important, side push of the ski without primarily using your quads? The answer lies in the lower back, bum muscles, and hamstrings which take on the brunt of the big power you’ve harnessed from your upper body and now have to transfer it down into your legs (it is at this point the quads take on their reduced role) and onto the ski. So to ski like this (Petter Northug skis like this very well, saving his quads for his now legendary accelerations at the end of mass start distance races) I’ve made a conscious effort to strengthen my lower back, gluts, and hamstrings, in the gym, rollerskiing, ski walking etc.
Specifically, I’ve started doing partial Olympic lifts, and include considerably more dynamic abs, glut, and hamstring exercises in the gym. I’ve also focused on doing a full arm extension and torso bend when I’m doing double pole strength on rollerskis. Finally, I’ve worked on skiing without “rolling out” (forward) my shoulders, or skiing with a big forward arch in my upper back. Keeping my shoulders neutral allows better power transmission from the upper body through to the hips (a straight line rather than a curved one), and allows for your hips to come further forward in the recovery phase.
Without much to gauge my improvements by, I will say that I’ve made progress on this aspect of my technique, although it still needs work. Watching the video, I see my hips come fairly far forward, and the initial push seems to be traveling from/through my upper body without squatting back too much. There is certainly room to improve my forward ankle flexion, and my femur bones don’t seem to be perpendicular to the pavement quite yet. Hopefully some more helpful critiques and cues for improvement come out through the publication of the video as well!Anyway, that’s it for now. Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy the video!
"Technically Cool Eyewear!"