Technique Video
Kenneth Salzberg
motion) just posted. Nicely done - and I'm sure the gurus will enjoy
picking apart Chad's form (If I could ski that well . . . )
See: http://www.skinnyski.com/training/articles/rollerskiing-2.html
-Ken
***********************************************************
Kenneth Salzberg ksal...@hamline.edu
Hamline University ksal...@hamline.edu
School of Law (651) 523-2354
1536 Hewitt Ave.
Sisu Skier - 50K Club St. Paul, MN 55104
******************************************************************
Matt Morency
Very nice. I too wish I could ski that well.
--Matt
Nathan Schultz
If you want to ski like a Subaru Factory Team athlete, now is the time
to learn. We're putting on a series of Academies this summer that focus on
technique development with video analysis as well as providing a
comprehensive foundation of knowledge for efficient ski training.
Time is flying rapidly and some of our summer academies are approaching
registration deadlines, so if you want to spend a weekend with people like
Chad and me telling you everything we know, now's the time to jump on the
horse. We have great itineraries set up all over the country and will be
doing a lot of technique work out there, so please join us.
We have a few spots left at the Minneapolis Academy June 7-8 and so
we've extended our early registration deadline until Monday (June 2). I'm
also going to offer an RSN discount of $40 for anyone who registers by then.
Just enter discount code RSNMSP if you register on-line at
http://nsavage.com/sts/ or let me know if you call (877.764.4338).
We're doing a killer trip to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina August 8-18 and
the early deadline (save over $400) is next Friday, June 8. I was just sent
some pictures from down there and the snow is starting to accumulate. We'll
catch the end of winter there and spend 9 days on winter snow with intensive
coaching by FT athletes every day, ending the week with the Marcha Blanca, a
FIS race that they are trying to get on the Worldloppet. FT skiers will be
coaching participants through the race, covering everything from pre-race
preparation to waxing. It's a rare opportunity to learn how elite athletes
prepare for a race and discover the ways they handle pre-race stress.
Hope to meet some of you out there,
Nathan
--
Nathan Schultz
http://nsavage.com
--------------------------------
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"Matt Morency" <mmor...@wpi.edu> wrote in message
news:5772e81a.03053...@posting.google.com...
Ken Roberts
> www.skinnyski.com/training/articles/rollerskiing-2.html
I notice thatt V2 Alternate / 2-skate is featured prominently:
Do skiers at Chad's level use V2 Alternate much in races?
I looked at V2:
www.skinnyski.com/training/movies/chadtech-v21.mpg
Some comments on what I see:
- - Chad obviously has tremendous strength, and great balance on rollerskis.
- - set-down of ski on outside edge is very pronounced. Unlike the
Per_Eloffson_10 video, where it seems like Elofsson sets the ski down flat.
(If Chad is going to feature the outside edge so much in his demonstration
skiing, at least he could throw in an inline-style "double push" move once
as a show-off.)
- - more side-to-side motion than Elofsson. More "rocking" or tilting of
his body from side-to-side. Notice especially the finish of Chad's stroke
off his right ski at around :10 - :11 seconds in the view from behind.
- - definitely steps _forward_ before the start of each skate-push: sets
his next foot down clearly in _front_ of the previous foot -- so the new
heel is ahead of the old toe. Looks a more exaggerated to me when he's
stepping off his left onto his right.
I was taught to do this in a lesson this year, and I've seen Elofsson and
other World Cup racers doing it too in videos, but . . . While I do see
value in stepping _up_ on steep hills, I'm not seeing the physics of
stepping forward on the flats.
What's the advantage of stepping _forward_ on the flats? Do inline skate
racers step forward anywhere near as much as Chad is demonstrating?
Ken
P.S. I wonder how much these observations are due simply to Chad adapting
his snow-skiing style to rollerskis on hard pavement?
Nathan Schultz
V2A (open field skate) is used quite a bit, but not as much as V2. I
have talked with several elite skiers lately about this, and all generally
agree that they have begun using V2A less and less over the past few years
in favor of V2. One theory I have is that skis, waxes and equipment have
gotten better and therefore we're going slightly faster on average, which
means we're able to V2 up more. Although this would also suggest that we
would be doing V2A more, too. Maybe the perception is due to the
overwhelming increase in V2 makes it seem like we're V2A less, when we're
actually doing it more. Basically, I have no scientific evidence here, just
a hunch that is probably of dubious value to anyone.
Having worked with Chad both on and off snow, I think his technique in
those videos is a little bit adjusted because:
1. He is demonstrating transitions.
2. He is rollerskiing.
-Nathan
http://nsavage.com
"Ken Roberts" <KenRob...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:372Da.108730$cO3.7...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
Gene Goldenfeld
>
> Having worked with Chad both on and off snow, I think his technique in
> those videos is a little bit adjusted because:
> 1. He is demonstrating transitions.
> 2. He is rollerskiing.
Not sure what you have in mind, but my impression is that Chad was focusing
on being smooth, steady and contained for the purpose of demonstration on
rollerskis. In that, he succeeds. I haven't had the opportunity to see him
ski on snow except when he was helping me with V2. Somehow, I always miss
him lapping me during lake races.
Gene
Nathan Schultz
I hope I didn't make it sound like he was doing something wrong. I
think he looks great in the video. But I don't think that it is fair to
evaluate technique when someone is transitioning. I guess that was my
point - don't critique video for general technique (V2-V2A, etc) when
transitioning. Certainly, it's good to evaluate the transition itself, but
people modify their technique significantly leading into, during, and
following a transition.
-Nathan
http://nsavage.com
"Gene Goldenfeld" <gene...@highstream.net> wrote in message
news:3EDCC42D...@highstream.net...
Ken Roberts
I noticed that in the World Cup footage I've been seeing in the last year or
two, I've been specifically looking for V2 Alternate / 2-skate / Open Field
Skate -- and not seeing it.
As I've been analyzing the physics, it seems to me that V2 Alternate has a
fundamental physical-biomechanical inefficiency on the pole-recovery side.
You can compromise around it a little, but you can't make it go away. V2
eliminates this inefficiency compromise by the double-leg-extension.
I can imagine how in some special speed-slope-snow situations, the
physics-biomechanics might show some other benefit to V2A that outweighs
this inefficiency compromise. But it's a small percentage.
Seems to me the main reasons for preferring V2A over V2 at higher speeds are
(a) having balance that is only good, instead of excellent, (b) insufficient
upper-body power to fully exploit the advantage two pole-pushes per cycle --
or (c) just _enjoying_ the passive glide on one side.
Ken
Ken Roberts
more edge-oriented than on snow.
I've heard that's even more true for like for inline skates and ice speed
skates. I think I remember in place in Barry Publow's book where he
comments that an ice speed skate is significantly less stable when gliding
on it flat. And I know for myself on hardpack snow on alpine skis in a
sustained fast downhill situation, I usually feel more in control if my ski
is edged a bit.
(And the frictional cost of edging is much lower in a very-hard-surface
"elastic-deformation" environnment.)
Nathan Schultz wrote
> Having worked with Chad both on and off snow,
> I think his technique in those videos is a little bit adjusted because:
> 1. He is demonstrating transitions.
> 2. He is rollerskiing.
But there weren't any transitions in that one video clip I was looking at:
all just V2.
I suspect another explanation is that when you know you're skating _for_ the
camera, you unconsciously tend to skew your movements to be more _visually_
interesting.
And perhaps there's a danger of (not unconsciously?) skewing your style
toward what you guess is "politically correct" in the eyes of old coaches,
or perhaps "more suitable for impressionable young audiences".
Which is why I think JanneG is right to give us video clips from actual
races. Where style is perhaps unconsciously skewed toward "doing what
really works to win".
Ken
sknyski
> other World Cup racers doing it too in videos, but . . . While I do see
> value in stepping _up_ on steep hills, I'm not seeing the physics of
> stepping forward on the flats.
>
> What's the advantage of stepping _forward_ on the flats?
Maybe because it gets you closer to where you want to go faster?
bt
Ken Roberts
of the other boot:
If I can gain 12 inches / 30 cm in every stride, then if my average stride
covers 33 ft / 10 meters, I'm getting 3% more distance on every stride -- so
if my turnover cadence and other factors stay the same, then my speed must
be 3% higher.
That argument does sound overwhelming. And even if you're not sure it's
correct -- hey, what harm could there be in doing the step-forward move
anyway, just in case? And I know when I do it, it _feels_ like I'm gaining
something.
My response: I _am_ pretty sure that argument is a fallacy. And do I think
the step-forward move has a hidden cost. (But perhaps the step-forward move
could still be beneficial, by some other physical-biomechanical argument.)
The fallacy in the physics of that argument is in thinking that moving one
_part_ of my body ahead must be a gain. But (except on the last stride
across the finish line) my whole body has to get to the end of the race.
The step-forward does not get _me_ closer to where I want to go. It only
gets my foot closer.
The rest of my body actually _slows_down_ a little. Newton's Third Law
says: the force that moves my foot forward must be paired with a _reactive_
force that pushes _backward_ on the rest of me. The net effect on the speed
of my whole body is exactly zero.
A likely reply to this is: "But the gain comes not from just setting the
foot down 12 inches / 30 cm ahead -- it comes from being able to _push_ from
a point 30 cm further ahead."
But that's a fallacy too. Because on this scenario my body center has
started behind my foot. So during the push, either (a) my foot slows down
and drops back to join my body center, or (b) my foot does not slow down,
and body center "catches up" to my foot. If (a), then there was no net gain
in the operation.
If (b), then there was a gain -- bit it's because I actually _worked_ harder
with my leg muscles in that push. It's not because my technique was more
efficient. If I'm going to move my body 3% further forward, I have to push
a 3% larger volume of air molecules out of the way. That takes real work,
no matter where I set my foot down.
In skating on firm snow on the flats, the big obstacle to speed is air
resistance. The distance that my contact point with the snow surface has
traveled is not important (because it's the easy part). The critical metric
is rather the distance my frontal surface cross-section has traveled through
the air -- that's the hard part.
The step-forward move is simply irrelevant to the real problem.
Ken
P.S. This makes me think of a non-fallacious argument for the step-forward
move: In slow thick deep snow, if I step my ski 12 inches / 30 cm further
forward thru the _air_ before I set it down, that's 30 cm less snow that my
ski has to "plow" through.
Gene Goldenfeld
Are they stepping forward? I think Ken is right here, and is making the
same point Kevin Brochman makes. That is, the action is focused on momentum
and fall forward gained through leg and upper body compression onto it, not
stepping. This is true in V1, but can be seen most clearly in Chad's and
Elofsson's V2 and Open Field, where each foot is planted next to and only
slightly in front of the other (in V1, see Chad's medium speed video, the
slow one is deceptive). If you think of the body position as a frame with
everything moving together, then anything that leaves the frame -- gets out
in front (or behind) -- undermines biomechanical power and efficiency.
That's what stepping does. For swing dancers, this notion of frame will be
familiar; in fact, the body positions are remarkably similar, except the
arms are lower and weight is on the balls instead of full foot.
Gene
Ken Roberts
But it fits. Last week out rollerskiing I was playing with all kinds of
technique variations in skating, and it struck me the incredible _freedom_
there is in skating -- body configuration, set-down position, muscles used
or not -- especially skating on the flats, almost anything works. Unlike
Classic striding technique whichn is much more constrained -- by the
difficulty in getting grip, and by those two grooves.
And then the physics says what matters is how much I push, and getting the
right "gearing" -- nothing about position.
Therefore, might as well choose the body configuration and set-down position
that let's me _push_ best. And seems to me the biomechanics of my body
parts says that happens best "contained within the frame". The problem with
going "outside the frame" is that I either have to push from a
biomechanically weaker position, or I have to wait until I get back into a
biomechanically stronger position.
Ken
_________________________________________
Gene Goldenfeld wrote
> . . . If you think of the body position as a frame with
Ken Roberts
_little_ in front of the other boot.
Might get better edge grip with the weight more toward the tail of the ski.
I notice that Barry Publow in his book Speed on Skates says that ice speed
skaters should set down the new skate "a few inches ahead" to keep the
weight more toward the back. (He makes no mention of the "obvious" argument
of gaining distance
I'm not an ice skater much any more, but on downhill skis, I get better edge
grip when my weight is back. And in softer snow it makes sense that a ski
with the weight back "plows" through the snow with less friction.
Ken
Philip Nelson
> That argument does sound overwhelming. And even if you're not sure it's
> correct -- hey, what harm could there be in doing the step-forward move
> anyway, just in case? And I know when I do it, it _feels_ like I'm
> gaining something.
>
> My response: I _am_ pretty sure that argument is a fallacy. And do I
> think the step-forward move has a hidden cost. (But perhaps the
> step-forward move could still be beneficial, by some other
> physical-biomechanical argument.)
>
> The fallacy in the physics of that argument is in thinking that moving
> one _part_ of my body ahead must be a gain. But (except on the last
> stride across the finish line) my whole body has to get to the end of
> the race. The step-forward does not get _me_ closer to where I want to
> go. It only gets my foot closer.
>
> The rest of my body actually _slows_down_ a little.
I think I disagree. To step further forward you have to bend your knee a
little more. You trade a little potential energy for some forward motion,
just like in walking.
Also, your upper body should be moving forward with the forward foot
plant. Then as your leg goes from that compressed position to the slightly
less position during the glide, it uses it's most efficient ability, the
move to a straighter leg. With the upper body in position, this is also a
forward motion, instead of being more side to side.
It's great to have these discussions in terms of bio-mechanics. Skiing
does seem to be a balance of conflicting goals mechanically, but
understanding the parts should help. I really hope that at some
point there would be a more common vocabulary about these parts to make
these discussions go a little faster.
Ken Roberts
> To step further forward you have to bend your knee a
> little more. You trade a little potential energy for some
> forward motion, just like in walking.
To me "potential energy" means "takes real work", but shifted to a different
phase in the stroke cycle.
> your upper body should be moving forward with the forward foot plant.
Moving your whole upper body: Sounds to me like "substantial real work".
So it's sounding to me like you're agreeing with my later point that a real
gain _is_ possible, but only by applying real additional work.
But then why couldn't I have achieved at least that much gain just by
putting that same amount of additional real work into my normal skate-push?
I say "at least" because I'm thinking that my normal skate-push is performed
with better biomechanical leverage.
> To step further forward you have to bend your knee a little more.
But a key limit on the effectiveness of my skate-push leg-extension is how
low I can get my hips -- which requires bending my other non-pushing knee.
(It's the triangle geometry of "how far can I push out to the side before my
ski loses contact with the snow surface".) Now you're saying I can't use as
low a hip position in my skate-push, because I need to save a little of that
knee-bend to "trade" for the forward-step move. So one hidden cost of the
"potential energy" method of making the forward step is a less effective
skate-push.
> your upper body should be moving forward with the forward foot plant.
In that case, the only thing _not_ moving forward is my current skate-push
leg. Which amounts to just saying that I should aim my skate-push more
toward the back and less out to the side. (a whole other interesting topic)
If correct, your arguments should apply equally well to speedskate racers on
ice -- but we don't see them doing the big forward step move.
Ken
Ken Roberts
with this forward-step on the flats move.
Let's take somebody skating at 29 km per hour (18.5 mph) on the flats, doing
V2 at 40 full cycles per minute, which is 80 skate-pushes per minute. So
they're going about 8 meters every second. Each skate-push takes 0.75
seconds, so they're traveling a forward distance of 6 meters with push.
Suppose further that we think that _everybody_ (even ice skaters) steps
forward a little, like say 5 inches. But say the forward-step concept is to
step like 14 inches ahead -- so we're talking about a difference of 9 inches
/ 22.5 cm.
Divide 22.5 cm by 600 cm to get a 3.75% reduction in sliding-friction
resistance. But let's say sliding-friction is only 40% of the resistive
force in this situation (and the other 60% is air resistance). Then the
reduction in overall power-output required to go that speed is only 1.5% --
all other things being the same.
All other things likely are not the same: Suppose making that step-forward
move delays the start of the skate-push by a mere one-hundredth of a second.
Divide 0.01 sec by 0.75 sec to get a 1.33% reduction in the power output
_rate_. Further suppose that by starting the leg-push from a non-optimal
biomechanical position, its power output is reduced by 0.5%. Now we're
looking at a net power _loss_ of about 0.33% from the forward-step move.
That calculation is going to look very different in different situations:
- - at slower speeds on the flats, air resistance drops dramatically, and
sliding-friction dominates the power game, so the proportional impact of the
forward-step move on power is larger. (so maybe non-elite citizens should
be taking a bigger forward step than World Cup racers)
- - at slower speeds up steep hills, air resistance drops, but now gravity
dominates the power game, so the proportion impact of the forward-step on
power is larger -- and could be _much_ larger, if it could somehow be used
to more directly fight gravity -- as an upward step.
- - at faster cadence turnover, the percent reduction in sliding-friction is
larger, but so is the cost in dead-spot time, so the effect is not clear.
Ken
Philip Nelson
have been thinking about for a long time...
On Sat, 07 Jun 2003 18:14:04 +0000, Ken Roberts wrote:
> Philip Nelson wrote
>> To step further forward you have to bend your knee a
>> little more. You trade a little potential energy for some
>> forward motion, just like in walking.
>
> To me "potential energy" means "takes real work", but shifted to a different
> phase in the stroke cycle.
Losing potential energy *recaptures* work done elsewhere. I am using the
term to describe the energy held when you center of gravity goes up. So
in sking, you gain potential energy by raising your hips and upper body.
You trade that gain for forward motion by extending your push leg and
bending your glide leg knee and moving hips back. You enhance the
*acceleration* of that phase with poling and quick straightening of the push
leg knee
>
>> your upper body should be moving forward with the forward foot plant.
>
> Moving your whole upper body: Sounds to me like "substantial real work".
>
It's just falling. As a demo, stand with your legs together, tip forward
anchoring on the "push" leg and fall until you
catch yourself with the other "glide" foot. The more you bend your glide leg,
the faster you go.
> So it's sounding to me like you're agreeing with my later point that a real
> gain _is_ possible, but only by applying real additional work.
>
> But then why couldn't I have achieved at least that much gain just by
> putting that same amount of additional real work into my normal skate-push?
> I say "at least" because I'm thinking that my normal skate-push is performed
> with better biomechanical leverage.
My idea, which I have been formulating over the last year, but hadn't
decided was full baked enough to explore beyond my circle of friends, is
that the "real work" in skiing is *not* from pushing. The real work is in
recovering from the glide by raising your center of gravity. I would add
that my term "raising" may not correspond exactly to elevation, as the
vector is probably not exactly vertical, but more forward. This
point of view applies to the skating motion in a different way than to
the poling motion, but I don't think anybody would argue that the majority
of energy in a poling motion comes from lowering the full weight of your
upper body onto the poles.
>
>> To step further forward you have to bend your knee a little more.
>
> But a key limit on the effectiveness of my skate-push leg-extension is how
> low I can get my hips -- which requires bending my other non-pushing knee.
> (It's the triangle geometry of "how far can I push out to the side before my
> ski loses contact with the snow surface".) Now you're saying I can't use as
> low a hip position in my skate-push, because I need to save a little of that
> knee-bend to "trade" for the forward-step move. So one hidden cost of the
> "potential energy" method of making the forward step is a less effective
> skate-push.
I suppose we have to narrow the discussion a little, and my ideas aren't
fully baked so I don't have the best choices for words perhaps. The way I
have been exploring this, the cycle of one "stroke", corresponds to one
round of the center of gravity lowering and raising. So in a:
V1 uphill - the center of gravity is moved forward by leaning up the hill.
It begins to raise off the glide ski, push leg
just extends this activity in a continuum. Both legs share the work of
raising the center of gravity but the push leg does more work. I
think this corresponds pretty closely to how it feels since the glide leg
is the most compressed but you leave it compressed as you get ready to
push and the push leg does the heavy lifting.
v1/v2A flats - center of gravity lowers to the glide ski. Bringing it up is
the cooperative effort of the glide and push leg, always initiated by the
glide leg. Depending on how agressive your lean is and how long you are
gliding, you will have more or less push leg knee bend to spend. But
since falling matters more than pushing, it's the fulcrum effect of the
extension that matters more than the push itself, so long has you have
regained your height after the glide.
v2 - natural but more expensive flow from glide to push leg, which are now
the same leg. I have found
that I end up leaving my glide knee bent a little longer when I go for
speed and that's more expensive. If I have been doing a long v2 only
workout, after the glide leg is fully weighted, I straighten it to an
agressive hip forward glide position and use mostly double poling and the
leg extension rather than a knee straightening to push. Sometimes the
dreaded double bend occurs after a particularly long glide.
> If correct, your arguments should apply equally well to speedskate racers on
> ice -- but we don't see them doing the big forward step move.
I haven't watched close enough to know. The lines that speed skaters take
seem to be quite different because they can "cross" their legs without
tangling ski tips and tails. Because of this what would be interesting to
me is how much of the full lane is used on each stroke.
your point is good though. A lot of what I'm saying is more of an argument
for an agressive knee bend than a foot forward plant. I have been
experimenting with both. The good news with the forward plant is that it
seems to help with getting my center of gravity postioned better for the
glide. Since managing the center of gravity is what all the rest of this
is about, the two issues seem related. But it does matter more where the
glide ski is fully weighted than where the ski touches the ground. The
bad news shows up if you extend your foot forward enough that your
center of gravity is between your front and back feet after you extend the
push leg. This would mean that
you would have to spend more energy just to get you weight over the glide
ski.
Does that make any more sense?
Philip Nelson
On Sat, 07 Jun 2003 19:06:57 +0000, Ken Roberts wrote:
> Suppose further that we think that _everybody_ (even ice skaters) steps
> forward a little, like say 5 inches. But say the forward-step concept is to
> step like 14 inches ahead -- so we're talking about a difference of 9 inches
> / 22.5 cm.
>
> Divide 22.5 cm by 600 cm to get a 3.75% reduction in sliding-friction
> resistance. But let's say sliding-friction is only 40% of the resistive
> force in this situation (and the other 60% is air resistance). Then the
> reduction in overall power-output required to go that speed is only 1.5% --
> all other things being the same.
I would think that a much bigger effect of stepping forward is that your
ski would be pointing more directly down the trail, saving distance and
possibly reducing power because the vectors don't work as well. There is
some optimal point, or angle here that I don't have the skills to
calculate, and this is affected by the pitch of the trail as well as other
resistance factors you mention.
> That calculation is going to look very different in different situations:
> - - at slower speeds up steep hills, air resistance drops, but now gravity
> dominates the power game, so the proportion impact of the forward-step on
> power is larger -- and could be _much_ larger, if it could somehow be used
> to more directly fight gravity -- as an upward step.
>
#1 expense is adding to your potential energy by lifting your weight up
the hill. #2 is could be friction though that should include the body's
internal friction which is hugely dependent on "quietness" of technique
> - - at faster cadence turnover, the percent reduction in sliding-friction is
> larger, but so is the cost in dead-spot time, so the effect is not clear.
And the effect of going straighter down the trail is reduced because with
higher turnover, there would be less side to side motion wasted anyway.
Gene Goldenfeld
>
> that the "real work" in skiing is *not* from pushing. The real work is in
> recovering from the glide by raising your center of gravity. I would add
> that my term "raising" may not correspond exactly to elevation, as the
> vector is probably not exactly vertical, but more forward. This
> point of view applies to the skating motion in a different way than to
> the poling motion, but I don't think anybody would argue that the majority
> of energy in a poling motion comes from lowering the full weight of your
> upper body onto the poles.
If you mean raising (setting up) for the next cycle, that seems right on
(btw, in Borowski's short skating book, that vertical motion is called "The
Drill," which gives a sense of the importance he gives to it). About
poling, based on what I learned from Kevin Brochman, the emphasis is on
compressing into the leg, rather than lowering onto the pole. That changes
the orientation (goal) of poling from what you describe, which is what I
also learned some years ago. The idea is use the pole and ground to
compress into the middle, that being the upper leg (and a bit of abs).
That seems to be where the much talked about ankle flex comes from. As
this type of action would imply, Kevin favors a relatively more upright
body position and relatively or absolutely short poling motion (except
V2alt). The way he explained body lean to me, was that it comes first as a
result of the effect that raising the arms (elbows out and high) has in
preparation for the next pole plant (Chad Giese talked of raising the
chest, but one can still do that and leave one's arms hanging). Kevin
frequently suggested the Daehlie video as illustrative. The Norwegian ski
team skate video, narrated by Torbjorn K, also seems useful for seeing
this.
Gene Goldenfeld
Gene Goldenfeld
just that without good frame or good body position, sloppiness and
inefficiency tend to take over. The Daehlie video is illustrative. Notice
how on top of good body position there's a kind of looseness; his arms
swing up and around, and on V2-alt his off leg does a little circular like
motion to end up forward for the next skate off.
Gene
Ken Roberts wrote:
>
> This concept of skiing "contained" or "within the frame" is new for me.
>
Ken Roberts
works.
Sounds like Philip is saying that the effective way to skate is mainly to
use body-weight to bear on the ski -- and enhance with some straightening of
the knee joint.
On the other hand, what I'm saying is that efficient and powerful skating is
nearly _all_ about using the hip-adductor muscles, leg-extension muscles,
and toe-push muscles to directly _push_ the ski out mainly sideways, and to
rely on the magic of the angled gliding ski to convert that into
motion-straight-forward power. I'm saying that the efficient and powerful
way to use body-weight in skating is use it to push down and back on the
poles, not the ski.
Philip Nelson wrote
> . . . the "real work" in skiing is *not* from pushing.
> The real work is in recovering from the glide by raising
> your center of gravity.
. . .
> you gain potential energy by raising your hips and upper body.
> You trade that gain for forward motion by extending your push leg and
> bending your glide leg knee and moving hips back. You enhance the
> *acceleration* of that phase with poling and quick straightening of the
push
> leg knee
Why do I think it's inefficient to use body-weight potential to push on the
ski?
(1) Any time we use our body to change energy from one form to another,
there is loss of power. Lifting my butt and upper body takes power from
many of the same muscles as the skate-push leg extension -- but it uses
their power indirectly. It imposes the extra stage of lifting, before
getting to the "pushing against the snow". If I'm going to use those
muscles to apply power thru the _ski_ -- more efficient to have them do it
directly: push by pushing.
(2) Once I decide to raise the weight of my upper body and build "potential"
energy, it's likely more efficient to direct the energy to the snow thru the
pole than the ski: Because the pole is pushing exactly in the straight
forward-backward direction. Unlike the angled skate ski, where there is a
sort of "extra step", with some loss of power, in converting from sideways
push to forward motion.
> If I have been doing a long V2 only workout, after the
> glide leg is fully weighted, I straighten it to an agressive
> hip forward glide position and use mostly double poling
> and the leg extension rather than a knee straightening to push.
If I'm understanding you, my answer is:
Yes -- and that's how I used to miss out on the full power of V2: by
fudging together the double poling and the leg extension. (? what is the
difference between leg-extension and knee-straightening?) I was missing out
on the maximum power of extending (or straightening) my knee starting from a
low hip position.
My skate-push was less effective, because I started my leg extension too
early from a higher hip position. My pole-push was less effective, because
some of the upper-body energy was diverted into the skate-push. All this
supported by well-meaning instructors and books who say that in V2 the
leg-push is made together with the pole-push. And that style of V2 does
feel good -- easier -- less work. Because the skier is _doing_ less work,
and it demands less balance.
But feeling easier doesn't make that style of V2 more _efficient_. Because
it also _delivers_ less in forward motion. I incur all the "overhead" of
the stroke-cycle, but I miss out on an opportunity for the most effective
use of my strongest muscles.
Ken
Ken Roberts
> >> your upper body should be moving forward with the forward foot plant.
> It's just falling.
> As a demo, stand with your legs together, tip forward
> anchoring on the "push" leg and fall until you catch
> yourself with the other "glide" foot. The more you
> bend your glide leg, the faster you go.
Now try the same "demo" with inline skates or fast skate rollerskis on hard
smooth concrete -- or with hockey skates on ice (not figure skates with
those "toe picks"). For full objectivity, have somebody else watch you from
the side, with a tape measure to accurately capture the length of the
forward (or backward?) progress of different parts of your body. First do
it with both skis or skates aligned straight forward and backward. Then you
could try angling one out just a tiny bit, say 10 degrees, like you would if
you were skating at 20 mph (32 km per hr). Then you could try it out at a
larger angle, like say for 12 mph. (and remember: Try to use only the
"falling" motion of your body-weight.)
For me, this "forward-step" idea is a hold-over from static Classic skiing
concepts. It's a kind of back-sliding from the full dynamic magic of
Skating.
Which is why I don't like the terminology in your descriptions of different
skating motion: "glide ski", "glide leg", "push leg". Because in Skating
it's _all_ gliding, _all_ dynamic -- and completely different from Classic
(except for the poling).
I think what _should_ distinguish the two sides in skating is the use of the
poles -- like talking about the "hang-side" in V1 offset, the side where it
feels like you start with your weight "hanging" on the pole.
Ken
Philip Nelson
> Philip Nelson wrote
>> >> your upper body should be moving forward with the forward foot
>> >> plant.
> . . .
>> It's just falling.
>> As a demo, stand with your legs together, tip forward anchoring on the
>> "push" leg and fall until you catch yourself with the other "glide"
>> foot. The more you bend your glide leg, the faster you go.
>
> Now try the same "demo" with inline skates or fast skate rollerskis on
> hard smooth concrete -- or with hockey skates on ice (not figure skates
> with those "toe picks"). For full objectivity, have somebody else watch
> you from the side, with a tape measure to accurately capture the length
> of the forward (or backward?) progress of different parts of your body.
> First do it with both skis or skates aligned straight forward and
> backward. Then you could try angling one out just a tiny bit, say 10
> degrees, like you would if you were skating at 20 mph (32 km per hr).
> Then you could try it out at a larger angle, like say for 12 mph. (and
> remember: Try to use only the "falling" motion of your body-weight.)
>
>
And what do you think I'd find? I have done it with a coach watching,
while I was trying to put better words to the thoughts I have on this. she
also disagreed with my comments for what it's worth, but did agree I think
that I was getting more speed with less effort than she was.
> For me, this "forward-step" idea is a hold-over from static Classic
> skiing concepts. It's a kind of back-sliding from the full dynamic
> magic of Skating.
I'm not very familiar with formal descriptions of Classic skiing so I
don't know if I agree or not. But I think we are not fully communicating
about the same thing here. The phrase I used was cooperation of both legs
in raising the center of gravity and that is where the majority of power
is used. The center is lowered by extending the legs, particularly the
back leg, which you do to gain distance
forward, and sideways of course. Now I wonder what the comparison of
distance is between the amount from straightening the knee vs extending the
leg. In a very quick experiment, I would guess that in a fairly deep knee
bend my leg is "shortened" by about six inches. That could be used up or
down or forward, but is mostly not forward more than 45 degrees and as a
result less than the six inches of distance could be gained from the knee
bend. The leg extension though is more like a yard. Its speed is fueled by
gravity, poling and the straigtening out of the back leg. The exact
proportions are what I think we are disagreeing on. I think that no
matter how hard or fast you straighten the leg, that six inch gain will be
proportionally small compared to the gain from gravity as you descend.
> Which is why I don't like the terminology in your descriptions of
> different skating motion: "glide ski", "glide leg", "push leg". Because
> in Skating it's _all_ gliding, _all_ dynamic -- and completely different
> from Classic (except for the poling).
I can agree with that. I use the terms because they're often used, and I
think an effective skiing vocabulary needs to have the concept of a
repeating cycle that starts and ends somewhere. We commonly think of that
as starting with a push and ending with a glide. So what would be better
terms do you think?
> I think what _should_ distinguish the two sides in skating is the use of
> the poles -- like talking about the "hang-side" in V1 offset, the side
> where it feels like you start with your weight "hanging" on the pole.
Actually, that is one of the things I have been trying to leave out of the
description. The reason is because of time reading so many discussions about
why the v2 is difficult and then attempting to better understand why that
is. I did a lot of roller skiing without poles to understand the skating
motion better and realized that what seemed the most different about the
v2 wasn't
getting the poles up fast enough or even balance so much. It was getting
my center in position and that doing so is done in a very different way in
V2 than in V1 or v2a. The poles role is to increase the amount of
acceleration in the "fall" part and to add momentum to the weight going up
and down.
Ken Roberts
the concept of using "gravity" to go faster while you're skating on _flat_
terrain -- I say, "Go ahead. Whatever turns you on." I have no problem with
somebody evangelizing for an international club of the "Skaters Falling for
the Joy of it".
But when it comes to going up a steep _hill_, I've got a problem with the
"falling" concept. In an earlier post, I gave two reasons why I thought
using body-weight potential was inefficient (except for poling). Here's my
new reason:
(3) For skating up a steep hill, using body-weight potential energy is
inefficient for any skiing motion -- including pushing the poles. It is
fundamentally inefficient to raise some substantial part of my body weight
in order later drop that same weight to use its potential energy to raise
some _other_ part of my body weight (and then I still have to raise that
first part _again_). Perhaps an inanimate pulley machine could effectively
implement some strategy like that, but not the human body.
With the human body, we've got to look for more direct ways to utilize our
muscle power to fight gravity, without so much loss from transforming one
form of energy into another -- without raising some substantial body parts
_twice_ -- parts like my chest and shoulder.
I think that's why V2 ("1-skate" or "double-dance") loses its benefit going
up a steep hill. Because a key part of its physical/biomechanical advantage
is in the "double leg-push" -- where the first leg-push is to raise my upper
body so I can then be drop it down to drive the poles.
My feeling is that there's thirteen different ways to have fun skiing on the
flats, and most of them are inefficient -- and who cares? But going up a
hill, there's only one way to have fun: by surviving it without "stalling
out" or "blowing up" -- so efficiency really counts there. So right and
wrong concepts about efficiency really matter in the hills. I can't "fall"
my way up a hill.
Ken
P.S.
In a previous post I mis-spoke about muscles that could help with sideways
push. I should have said that part of the skate-push included the motion of
"hip abduction" -- which might be assisted by muscles around the gluteus
medius (I guess) -- but certainly _not_ by the hip adductor muscles.
Ken Roberts
> I have done it with a coach watching
Done what? Did you try a forward-fall demo like you suggested -- but on
inline skates on smooth concrete with both skates pointed straight ahead?
> And what do you think I'd find?
I think you'd find that you don't _go_ very far -- not with your whole body
anyway. You might even fall down and get hurt. (Maybe if you did it very
slowly, you might get somewhere.)
My point is that intuitive concepts from walking and running do not work for
skating: not on ice or on concrete, and not very well on firm snow.
> I think that I was getting more speed with less effort than she was.
How did you _measure_ your effort versus her _effort_?
> . . . in a fairly deep knee bend my leg is "shortened"
> by about six inches . . . and as a result less than the
> six inches of distance could be gained from the knee
> bend. The leg extension though is more like a yard.
I'm still not sure I get what you mean by "leg extension". Do you mean
"stepping forward"?
What I mean by it is extending (like straightening) both my knee and my
ankle joints. I just measured the difference between my foot position with
both knee and ankle flexed 90-degrees and my foot position with knee
extended straight and ankle extended about 45 degrees. The difference was
about 46 cm / 18 inch (and I am 167 cm / 66.5 inches tall). That's a lot
more that just 15 cm / 6 inches. I could use almost that full range in
"big" double-poling.
I'm pretty sure I don't use that full range of motion in skating most of the
time. But then there's the added sideways-push range, not from
leg-extension, but from the _hip-abduction_ movement, using those "gluteus
medius" muscles or whatever they are -- pulling directly from my hip joint
to move my leg out sideways away from my middle.
I just measured it now and got about 74 cm / 29 inch of sideways motion with
my foot in contact with the floor. That's with a 90-degree bend of the
other non-pushing knee. I chose that bend angle just to have some simple
way for me to measure repeatedably. I'm not saying I normally skate with
that full range of motion.
But at least it's pretty clear that the effective range of my side-push
force is way more than 15 cm / 6 inches. (and that's with no body-weight
"falling" and no pole-push.)
However, even if your "leg extension" concept has a bigger motion range than
that, my sideways push can still deliver more forward-motion _power_ --
because the physics of skating is a bit _magical_. Skating isn't bound by
the straightforward intuitive concepts we bring from Classical skiing and
walking.
Ken
Philip Nelson
> If you _enjoy_ the feeling of "falling", or you enjoy filling your mind with
> the concept of using "gravity" to go faster while you're skating on _flat_
> terrain -- I say, "Go ahead. Whatever turns you on." I have no problem with
> somebody evangelizing for an international club of the "Skaters Falling for
> the Joy of it".
I'll address that point in responding to the other post.
>
> But when it comes to going up a steep _hill_, I've got a problem with the
> "falling" concept. In an earlier post, I gave two reasons why I thought
> using body-weight potential was inefficient (except for poling). Here's my
> new reason:
>
> (3) For skating up a steep hill, using body-weight potential energy is
> inefficient for any skiing motion -- including pushing the poles. It is
> fundamentally inefficient to raise some substantial part of my body weight
> in order later drop that same weight to use its potential energy to raise
> some _other_ part of my body weight (and then I still have to raise that
> first part _again_). Perhaps an inanimate pulley machine could effectively
> implement some strategy like that, but not the human body.
Going up a steep hill is kind of a different animal from what I've been
talking about though. The upper body still gets raised up and for the
most part the rest of the body comes up to that point to meet it. Up
means up the hill, not up vertically and I think I made that point
earlier. Since a long glide is not possible, the benifit of a long
extension is less.
Philip Nelson
> My point is that intuitive concepts from walking and running do not work
> for skating: not on ice or on concrete, and not very well on firm snow.
Because I can demostrate the same point on skis and roller skis, I guess
we just disagree on that. I am clearly not explaining something well
enough.
>
>> I think that I was getting more speed with less effort than she was.
>
> How did you _measure_ your effort versus her _effort_?
As in me leaving her behind and her sweating more. Very scientific don't
you think? Actually, it was pretty meaninless.
>> . . . in a fairly deep knee bend my leg is "shortened" by about six
>> inches . . . and as a result less than the six inches of distance could
>> be gained from the knee bend. The leg extension though is more like a
>> yard.
>
> I'm still not sure I get what you mean by "leg extension". Do you mean
> "stepping forward"?
The combination of both legs, the distance between my feet when I have
extended out. Like I said in the last post, the foot forward is probably
pretty minor.
> I just measured it now and got about 74 cm / 29 inch of sideways motion
> with my foot in contact with the floor. That's with a 90-degree bend of
> the other non-pushing knee. I chose that bend angle just to have some
> simple way for me to measure repeatedably. I'm not saying I normally
> skate with that full range of motion.
Ok, you said it was the strength of that hip abductor that did that
"push". The push resulted in both sideways and forward motion. You bent
your "non-push" leg 90 degrees and that is the point you call fully
extended. When I leg extention, I mean the same thing. Where I differ is
that I think the hip abductors and knee straigtening weren't the primary
force. A force, yes, but not the the primary force. I'm saying gravity was
the primary force. Your hip provides a lever to apply the downward weight
of your body into a sideways and forward motion. I don't remember exactly
how much weight I can move on the hip abduction machines, but it's nowhere
even close to my body weight. the quads can provide more but have only
the six inches I mentioned to apply to the motion.
>
> But at least it's pretty clear that the effective range of my side-push
> force is way more than 15 cm / 6 inches. (and that's with no
> body-weight "falling" and no pole-push.)
You think your body weight didn't closer to the ground when you bent your
knees and ankles? What I'm saying here is (still an unproven theory) that
the forward force from lowering your center of gravity is a more
significant force than the hip abduction and straigtening of the "push"
knee.
> However, even if your "leg extension" concept has a bigger motion range
> than that, my sideways push can still deliver more forward-motion
> _power_ -- because the physics of skating is a bit _magical_. Skating
> isn't bound by the straightforward intuitive concepts we bring from
> Classical skiing and walking.
I think you have mistaken the old falling forward on you poles idea for
what I am talking about.
Ken Roberts
motion power is viewed as a problem, then several other sports need to
re-think their techniques. I don't know much about rowing, but I should
think this point about the inadequacy of direct pushing with the big leg
muscles will be revolutionary for the bicycle racers. Maybe try posting to
rec.bicycles.racing about it, so they can start tapping into the hidden
power of bobbing their upper bodies up and down.
You're _not_ going to get me to defend the hip abductors as a major power
source, but I will stand by my other big leg muscles -- including my calf
muscles for toe-push.
Philip Nelson wrote
> I'm saying gravity was the primary force.
> . . . the quads can provide more but have only
> the six inches I mentioned to apply to the motion.
. . .
> What I'm saying here is that the forward force
> from lowering your center of gravity is a more
> significant force than the hip abduction and
> straigtening of the "push" knee.
Maybe what your saying is true, when _you_ skate. And if you're having fun
that way, and you don't have any illusions about making that work for
skating up hills, then great. My own experience out on rollerskis Sunday
afternoon is that my approach of direct pushing was working great for me,
both in terms of enjoying the feeling on the flats and in climbing up hills
like never before.
But on this "gravity" thing: What goes down must come up -- if you're going
to do it more than once.
So where does that "up" come from? When I lift my butt and upper body,
seems like those maligned quadriceps muscles play a big role. How could
they be such big stars on the gravity thing, if they're only second-tier
players in direct leg push?
Actually I'm in favor of using gravity in skating: I just think it's more
effective to _apply_ it to pushing on my _poles_ in big V2, not to push my
_ski_. I want _both_ gravity and direct leg-push in my skating: but use
each one in its most effective phase of the stroke-cycle.
Ken
Philip Nelson
> If my reliance on direct pushing with the quadriceps to generate
> effective motion power is viewed as a problem, then several other sports
> need to re-think their techniques. I don't know much about rowing, but
> I should think this point about the inadequacy of direct pushing with
> the big leg muscles will be revolutionary for the bicycle racers. Maybe
> try posting to rec.bicycles.racing about it, so they can start tapping
> into the hidden power of bobbing their upper bodies up and down.
I repeat, I repeat, I am not talking about the upper body, I am talking
about the center of gravity.
> You're _not_ going to get me to defend the hip abductors as a major
> power source, but I will stand by my other big leg muscles -- including
> my calf muscles for toe-push.
"Push with your heel", but that's another discussion.
> Philip Nelson wrote
>> I'm saying gravity was the primary force. . . . the quads can provide
>> more but have only the six inches I mentioned to apply to the motion.
> . . .
>> What I'm saying here is that the forward force from lowering your
>> center of gravity is a more significant force than the hip abduction
>> and straigtening of the "push" knee.
>
> Maybe what your saying is true, when _you_ skate. And if you're having
> fun that way, and you don't have any illusions about making that work
> for skating up hills, then great.
Progress. My whole point on this applies perfectly on uphills. Because
what I'm saying is that the real work in skiing is in bring your center of
gravity back up. On an uphill, since glide is much less of a factor,
that's practically all there is to do, so discussions of gliding by
lowering your center of gravity aren't as helpful, since you don't do that
as much. As
the hill gets steeper, the "fall line" moves more vertical instead of forward.
Almost all the work is is lifting the body up, but still forward of the
the fall line.
> But on this "gravity" thing: What goes down must come up -- if you're
> going to do it more than once.
>
> So where does that "up" come from? When I lift my butt and upper body,
> seems like those maligned quadriceps muscles play a big role. How could
> they be such big stars on the gravity thing, if they're only second-tier
> players in direct leg push?
And you do this as you come off the glide. Think of it this way. In a v1
or v2a, you have one side that gets extended farther to push. As you do
that you lower your center of gravity. Then the *other* leg intiates
raising it up again. That is where quads really do their work. In the v1,
that motion is completed by the push leg again, before it's motion goes to
the more forward direction because of leg extension. The raising up
doesn't just raise up vertically, it raises it up forward of the fall
line. Never is the fall line vertical, but it's more vertical going
uphill. Your quads are the *most* important muscle in the cycle. The
difference in my point here isn't that the quads arent' important, it's
that they are most important to rasing the center of gravity up and
that it's a cooperative action by both legs. Nowhere is this more true
than hill climbing.
> Actually I'm in favor of using gravity in skating: I just think it's
> more effective to _apply_ it to pushing on my _poles_ in big V2, not to
> push my _ski_. I want _both_ gravity and direct leg-push in my skating:
> but use each one in its most effective phase of the stroke-cycle.
I think the use of poles is very important, but as my local coach pointed
out, poles are good for about 10-15% of overall speed. Their role is to
enhance the acceleration of the ski moving forward. A discussion of
poling is a separate one, because it's not directly about the skating
motion. that can be the "head bobbing up and down" discussion.
Ken Roberts
I have little problem with this concept as a description of how _you_ ski
right now -- or as one more _possibile_ approacy of out of many concepts for
ski skating.
I do have a problem with seeing it as _the_ secret to efficient skating, or
as the _right_ way to skate, or as a likely approach for _winning_ a
regional race. (Granted that it's _possible_ to use the quad muscles like
you say, why is it better than direct pushing?)
If you ski mostly just for fun, clearly this concept works for you. But it
could also be interesting some time to explore other approaches and concepts
and find out if there might be other kinds of fun feelings in skating. Or
maybe sometime you might want to compare your speed and efficiency against a
larger pool than just your local instructor -- like in a race.
> I am not talking about the upper body,
> I am talking about the center of gravity.
Let's define "upper body" as being above the hip joints. Well in _my_ body,
the majority of the mass is then "upper". And when I ski, the parts of my
lower body below my knee joint don't have much options for up-and-down,
since they have to stay near the ski, which has to stay near the snow. So
with _my_ body, I'm not seeing how I could get any substantial up-and-down
movement of my "center of gravity" without there being major up-and-down
motion of my "upper body".
And when I look at leading racers in bicycling and ice speedskating, I don't
see much up-and-down movement of either their upper body or center of
gravity. So that offers hope that there's _another_ way to skate on skis,
one that focuses on using quadriceps muscles in direct pushing instead of
indirectly thru gravity.
> but as my local coach pointed out, poles are
> good for about 10-15% of overall speed.
That may be true -- for _you_ -- and for your local coach.
Myself I spend lots of time on both skate rollerskis and skate snow skis
doing (A) poling with no skate-push, and (B) skating with no poles. By what
you just said, I ought to be 7 to 9 times faster doing B than I am doing A.
In fact it's nothing like that -- much closer. On snow, it's not unusual
for me to double-pole past skaters.
Ken
Philip Nelson
> Philip -
>
> I have little problem with this concept as a description of how _you_
> ski right now -- or as one more _possibile_ approacy of out of many
> concepts for ski skating.
My goal is to better describe how great skiers actually ski now. I really
think that it's the descriptions used in articles and by coaches that are
wrong, not that lots of people are skiing wrong or even that the
techniques coaches use are wrong. I am trying to clarify the
biomechanical motion because what I have been hearing for the last ten
years just doesn't add up. When I have a really good feel for it and a
much shorter way to describe the motion, I hope eventually to be able to
use it to help new skiers into the sport without these mind numbing,
heavily detailed descriptions of skiing. That ties into my role as the
president of the Wisconsin Nordic Network.
> I do have a problem with seeing it as _the_ secret to efficient skating,
> or as the _right_ way to skate, or as a likely approach for _winning_ a
> regional race. (Granted that it's _possible_ to use the quad muscles
> like you say, why is it better than direct pushing?)
What I'm saying is that you and everybody else is already doing this,
regardless of whether you think you're getting your speed from the push or
not. For me, by having what I think is a better understanding, I have been
able to wrest out a much faster and more relaxed skating style.
> If you ski mostly just for fun, clearly this concept works for you. But
> it could also be interesting some time to explore other approaches and
> concepts and find out if there might be other kinds of fun feelings in
> skating. Or maybe sometime you might want to compare your speed and
> efficiency against a larger pool than just your local instructor -- like
> in a race.
I've been skiing since 1972. I have met with and talked with coaches and
skiers all across the state since 1985 when I entered my first race. What
I am not is an elite athlete. No pedigree. Previously, I have stated here
that my goal in life was to make the birkie third wave on less than 200
hours of training per yer. Since I started doing bicycle club rides this
summer, I will have to experience life this year with a lot more than 200
hours training and see what happens.
I have been studying this because I wanted to understand how to squeeze
the most relaxed time for my muscles out of each stroke. In the last two
years since I have been exploring this, I have learned to climb hills
without blowing up and can keep up with some very fast college level and
local skiers, just not for more than 5-7K. In spite of training the least
of my life and weighing the most, I have had my best relative times in the
birkie the last 2 years, just missing the third wave two years ago. 7
birkies down, 40 to go ;-)
Since I have no elite status, I can see why my ravings will probably just
fall on deaf ears. But that doesn't mean I can't make my observations
about skiing and draw my own conclusions. I have a physicist friend who
pretty much shares my belief that the bio-mechanical descriptions used for
a lot of skiing are myth, lore and plain mumbo jumbo. In my past
experience, most coaching programs are aimed primarily at training and at
the elite level, that is probably appropriate. But at my level, skiing
well is a lot more fun than training.
>> I am not talking about the upper body, I am talking about the center of
>> gravity.
>
> Let's define "upper body" as being above the hip joints.
Your center of gravity is actually somewhere below your navel. If it's
above your hips, its not by much.
> Well in _my_ body,
> the majority of the mass is then "upper". And when I ski, the parts of
> my lower body below my knee joint don't have much options for
> up-and-down, since they have to stay near the ski, which has to stay
> near the snow. So with _my_ body, I'm not seeing how I could get any
> substantial up-and-down movement of my "center of gravity" without there
> being major up-and-down motion of my "upper body".
It's not substantial at all. When we were measuring the amount of
distance change you get by bending your knee and ankles, that six inches
or so is about it.
But by applying that drop with the lever action your hip provides when you
extend, that six inches or so gets magnified to nearly a yard in my case,
partly forward, partly sideways. When you recover, you gain that back.
You are doing it now, unless you don't use much extension or forward knee
bend as you "push".
> And when I look at leading racers in bicycling and ice speedskating, I
> don't see much up-and-down movement of either their upper body or center
> of gravity. So that offers hope that there's _another_ way to skate on
> skis, one that focuses on using quadriceps muscles in direct pushing
> instead of indirectly thru gravity.
other than aerobics, I have trouble seeing what bicycling has to do with
skate skiing. I haven't reconciled my ideas with speedskating yet.
Quads are everything, but you use both legs on both the push side and the
recovery side. What I observed watching Per Elofsen and Alsgard in
particular was that the way their body moved on the recovery side was at
least as signifcant as on the push side. A thing of beauty. and duh! The
forward leg is fully bent after your push. It has to lift your full
weight during the recovery. If you don't do that, eventually you would be
pushing your face down the trail. If you do your recovery in such a way
that your center of gravity gets positioned just right, you move faster
and with far less effort than if you come up slowly or too vertically. Or
if you ride the knee bend fully loaded too long. If you only concentrate
on the push, you have missed the most labor intensive part of the cycle
and probably are missing out on the best part of the ride.
>> but as my local coach pointed out, poles are good for about 10-15% of
>> overall speed.
>
> That may be true -- for _you_ -- and for your local coach.
>
> Myself I spend lots of time on both skate rollerskis and skate snow skis
> doing (A) poling with no skate-push, and (B) skating with no poles. By
> what you just said, I ought to be 7 to 9 times faster doing B than I am
> doing A. In fact it's nothing like that -- much closer. On snow, it's
> not unusual for me to double-pole past skaters.
Me too actually. I think I botched the numbers. I regularly do 10K loops
with no poles and with poles and there is probably a 10 minute difference
between the two for me, 30 vs 40 minutes. Full double poling is a
different thing though, and you can't duplicate that deep waist bend while
skating nor does it adapt to a wide range of hills or snow conditions.
Ken Roberts
> . . . by applying that drop [ in center of gravity] with
> the lever action your hip provides when you extend,
> that six inches or so gets magnified to nearly a yard
> What I'm saying is that you and everybody else is
> already doing this, regardless of whether you think
> you're getting your speed from the push or not.
This is a strong claim -- considering you've never met me: So you _know_
that I am using vertical up and down motion of my center of gravity to power
my skate-push. Well . . .
Last time I was out rollerskiing (without poles) I tried your approach as
best I could: sort of fall sideways onto the ski with my body weight to
push it, and help that also with some leg push. Then at the end of the
skate-push rise up a little, and fall sideways onto the other ski. It sorta
worked.
Then I tried what felt like my normal way: get low with strong ankle bend,
eliminate up and down motion, stare at a distant object to monitor that my
upper body was quiet, minimize side-to-side motion, just focus on direct
sideways push with my several different leg muscles. And you know what:
Immediately I was going at least 50% faster.
Your theory is that vertical motion of the center of gravity can and should
be used to help drive the skate-push of the ski. My theory is that vertical
motion of the center of gravity -- when used at all -- is most effectively
used to drive the _poles_.
> My goal is to better describe how great skiers actually ski now.
OK, so show us one great skier who does it your way.
First I'll give a great skier who does _not_. This is a little difficult,
since it's not easy to find videos of elite racers not using their poles. I
found this one: "Ski Faster with Olympic Champion Bjorn Daehlie".
The video starts its section on skating with a side-shot of Daehlie skating
without poles, and clearly his upper body is very quiet and his center of
gravity isn't going anywhere vertically -- as the English-language announcer
says, "just like an olympic speedskating champion" -- and yet somehow
Daehlie is moving forward easily. (there's another clip of Daehlie skating
with no poles near the end of the opening-credit sequence).
A few seconds later Daehlie switches to V2, and now there _is_ up-and-down
motion: (1) Upper body rises up just before the pole-push, (2) Upper body
goes down in unison with the pole-push, (3) Upper body holds low with no
further up-and-down motion while the leg-push continues to completion.
That's the key video point for my theory: upper-body down-motion
synchronizes with the pole-push, not the skate-push.
> What I observed watching Per Elofsen and Alsgard was
> that the way their body moved on the recovery side was
> at least as signifcant as on the push side.
That's because in V1 (offset) they start the stroke on the hang-side with an
immediate pole-push. So the only time available to raise their upper body
to help drive that pole is on the recovery side. I think if you look at the
close-up of Elofsson skiing V1 on JanneG's website, you'll see that his
upper-body down-motion exactly tracks his pole-push, as my theory predicts.
Which reminds me that the pole-recovery-side on V1 (offset) is exactly the
dis-proof of the "use gravity to drive the skate-push" theory. Look at the
last 10 seconds of the Carl Swenson video on JanneG's website -- where he
makes a strong skate-push on _both_ sides, his pole-recovery-side as well as
hang-side. How could it possible for him to push strongly on the
pole-recovery-side of V1? -- since there's no time for him to raise his
upper body after the pole-and-skate - push on the hang-side.
> If you only concentrate on the push, you . . .
> probably are missing out on the best part of the ride.
I have no problem with upper body motion as a source of enjoyment. But I
would point out that there's another way to use that: I can raise my upper
body vertically like you say -- and get that enjoyment of the glide -- and
avoid that problem you mentioned of "riding the knee bend fully loaded too
long" -- but then drop its weight onto my _poles_, not my ski. I like to
call that "big V2" and I think it feels wonderful.
Ken
___________________________________________
Philip Nelson <panma...@linux.local> wrote
Philip Nelson
> Philip Nelson <panma...@linux.local> wrote
>> . . . by applying that drop [ in center of gravity] with the lever
>> action your hip provides when you extend, that six inches or so gets
>> magnified to nearly a yard
> . . .
>> What I'm saying is that you and everybody else is already doing this,
>> regardless of whether you think you're getting your speed from the push
>> or not.
>
> This is a strong claim -- considering you've never met me:
I just assumed you were an accomplished skier to some degree.
> So you
> _know_ that I am using vertical up and down motion of my center of
> gravity to power my skate-push.
Yes, I will lay money down! Kick double pole doesnt count though.
> Well . . .
> Last time I was out rollerskiing (without poles) I tried your approach
> as best I could: sort of fall sideways onto the ski with my body weight
> to push it, and help that also with some leg push. Then at the end of
> the skate-push rise up a little, and fall sideways onto the other ski.
> It sorta worked.
Sounds horrible. You should be ashamed of yourself ;-) I wish I could
have been there.
>
> Then I tried what felt like my normal way: get low with strong ankle
> bend, eliminate up and down motion, stare at a distant object to monitor
> that my upper body was quiet, minimize side-to-side motion, just focus
> on direct sideways push with my several different leg muscles. And you
> know what: Immediately I was going at least 50% faster.
Thank you Jesus and praise the lord! Your doing exactly what I am claiming
works: "get low with strong ankle bend". I predict your knees were bent
too, no? Madame Wisconsin Theorist knows all. What got low? Not your
upper body from what your saying. It was your lower body and that is
exactly what I am saying is required to skate well. Not exactly a news
flash either. I'm just guessing that
you straightened out your knee and ankle, not fully of course, at some
point too. Did your navel stay as low then? Of course not.
Upper body quiet, great, depending
how much you extend your double poling. Minimize side to side motion, of
course. I do hope you didn't drop just to push though. Thats the dreaded
double drop problem where you raise and lower your center twice as often
as needed in all but the v2.
> Your theory is that vertical motion of the center of gravity can and
> should be used to help drive the skate-push of the ski. My theory is
> that vertical motion of the center of gravity -- when used at all -- is
> most effectively used to drive the _poles_.
To drive poles you use the weight of your *upper* body. It certainly
isn't going to drive your poles much if your navel gets 6 inches closer to
the ground. Your center of gravity is so close to your waist bend that it
has almost no impact on poling. Poling is a complementary action to
skating that uses other parts of the body.
> and clearly his upper body is very quiet and his center of gravity isn't
> going anywhere vertically
Can we have a moment of silence for the mistaken belief that your center
of gravity is somewhere near your noggin. Unless your head is made of
lead, your body when placed horizontally on a balance bar would balance
near your waist.
> A few seconds later Daehlie switches to V2, and now there _is_
> up-and-down motion: (1) Upper body rises up just before the pole-push,
> (2) Upper body goes down in unison with the pole-push, (3) Upper body
> holds low with no further up-and-down motion while the leg-push
> continues to completion. That's the key video point for my theory:
> upper-body down-motion synchronizes with the pole-push, not the
> skate-push.
This sounds good to me. Poling good. Skating good. Not same thing.
Entertaining as always....
Ken Roberts
> point too. Did your navel stay as low then? Of course not.
Actually I think my navel _did_ stay pretty much "as low" then. And I just
spent some time staring at Daehlie skating with no poles, and his navel
stays "as low" all the way to the end of the skate-push.
Looking real carefully this time, I did see some rise of his navel _after_
the skate-push was over. An obvious interpretation is that he was
straightening his leg a bit to alleviate the isometric strain of gliding on
a bent knee like you mentioned. Didn't look like the 6 inches you
mentioned.
Now that you've gotten me to focus more carefully on it, I think I do see a
little "fall" at the beginning of his skate-push. But it didn't look at all
to me like that was the main power of Daehlie's skate-push. Looked to me
more like a something to get the push started.
> To drive poles you use the weight of your *upper* body.
> It certainly isn't going to drive your poles much if your
> navel gets 6 inches closer to the ground.
I guess some things work differently in Wisconsin.
It certainly helps the drive of _my_ poles when _my_ navel gets 6 inches
closer to the ground (by dropping my butt). Take a look at some videos of
elite Classic racers. Dropping the hips (and thus the navel) in
double-poling is _the_ paradigmatic case of using gravity to power forward
motion in cross country skiing.
And when I watch Daehlie skate with poling V2 (1-skate), I see strong up and
down motion of his hips (and navel) -- like 6 inches -- way more than when
he skates with no poles. And guess what, the vertical motion of his hips is
in unison with the vertical motion of his _arms_ -- not with his skate-push.
So whether you want to talk about upper body, or center of gravity, or
navel, the story stays the same: Daehlie is using it to power his poles --
and he minimizes it when skating without poles.
> Can we have a moment of silence for the mistaken belief
> that your center of gravity is somewhere near your noggin.
> Unless your head is made of lead, your body when placed
> horizontally on a balance bar would balance near your waist.
I suggest you have a long talk about this with your Wisconson physicist
buddy. Center of Gravity is not a fixed point near your navel. The CoG of
the human body is a complicated dynamic thing, based on multi-dimensional
integral calculus. Its relative position changes when you change the
configuration of your body. Like it's not at your navel any more once you
bend over in a normal skating-with-no-poles position. Like other things
being equal, when you lower your head and shoulders, you lower your CoG --
but that doesn't mean your CoG is _in_ your head.
Ken
P.S. I've heard that Wisconsin has some successful ice speedskating coaches.
You might want to have some discussions with them about the benefits of
vertical navel-motion for skating power, and find out how important they
make that in their coaching.
Philip Nelson
>> you straightened out your knee and ankle at some point too. Did your
>> navel stay as low then? Of course not.
>
> Actually I think my navel _did_ stay pretty much "as low" then. And I
> just spent some time staring at Daehlie skating with no poles, and his
> navel stays "as low" all the way to the end of the skate-push.
>
> Looking real carefully this time, I did see some rise of his navel
> _after_ the skate-push was over. An obvious interpretation is that he
> was straightening his leg a bit to alleviate the isometric strain of
> gliding on a bent knee like you mentioned. Didn't look like the 6
> inches you mentioned.
You are probably correct. I came up with the number of six inches from
standing with a straight leg and then bending to a point similar to a
fully loaded glide leg. As you recover, you don't go through that full
range until the glide leg becomes a push leg. I also want to bring up a
point I made a number of posts back. When I say vertical, I mean vertical
as measured against the fall line, which varies with terrain, but is never
straight up and down. Spread that out over the distance covered in a full
cycle and it isn't going to be easy to see.
>
> Now that you've gotten me to focus more carefully on it, I think I do
> see a little "fall" at the beginning of his skate-push. But it didn't
> look at all to me like that was the main power of Daehlie's skate-push.
> Looked to me more like a something to get the push started.
That "fall" will continue as long as the back leg is getting more
extended, including while his back leg is straigtening and possibly a
little longer.
This a point I would like to be to answer better but haven't come up with
a way to do yet. What proportion of the acceleration comes from each of
the components? Clearly, every one is significant. Quite likely the
combination of poling, hip abductors and leg push *combined* is greater
than the contribution by gravity. Depending on the skier and style and
terrain, the proportions will vary. One of the things that got me started
on all of this was because so many coaches had such different things to
say, and they seemed to work well for some skiers. Each technique
probably emphasizes one aspect over another.
>> To drive poles you use the weight of your *upper* body. It certainly
>> isn't going to drive your poles much if your navel gets 6 inches closer
>> to the ground.
>
> I guess some things work differently in Wisconsin.
>
> It certainly helps the drive of _my_ poles when _my_ navel gets 6 inches
> closer to the ground (by dropping my butt). Take a look at some videos
> of elite Classic racers. Dropping the hips (and thus the navel) in
> double-poling is _the_ paradigmatic case of using gravity to power
> forward motion in cross country skiing.
No real argument with that statement. I would say that the hips and butt
go back and the knees lower your entire mass though, rather than saying
you lower your butt.
> And when I watch Daehlie skate with poling V2 (1-skate), I see strong up
> and down motion of his hips (and navel) -- like 6 inches -- way more
> than when he skates with no poles. And guess what, the vertical motion
> of his hips is in unison with the vertical motion of his _arms_ -- not
> with his skate-push.
That's completely consistent with my point of view. The rise happens
mostly during the recovery, not during the push. There is always some
vertical component to a push, but if you have started your push after your
push leg is extended, that component should be minimized in favor of a
more horizontal vector. In other words, staying low increases the forward
component over the vertical component. More on that later.
> So whether you want to talk about upper body, or center of gravity, or
> navel, the story stays the same: Daehlie is using it to power his poles
> -- and he minimizes it when skating without poles.
Imagine skiing in zero gravity. I don't think it would be possible. Even
when you are very low, a leg push would push you away from the ground.
Gravity is the counter force the adjusts the vector horizontal. We
subconsciously adjust the amount of gravity needed by how much the forward
leg is extended before weight is transferred and by how much we lean.
Picture a dowel, placed vertically in the palm of your hand. You have to
balance that dowel straight up and down to remain still. To move you tip
it past a "fall line". Then you have to keep your palm moving under the
dowel at a consistent speed to maintain an equilibrium or the stick will
fall or come to a stop. In all bipedal activities, we do this by moving
our legs under us. We must apply force to overcome friction and to counter
the force of gravity if we move in any way that is not accounted for by
our skeleton. Vertical motion is not really a requirement to move,
however the way our legs work, it is always a factor. The farther apart
we have our feet as we race to keep one of them ahead of the fall line,
the faster and lower we have to go. In theory, you should not
have regain that altitude as you move. As a forward foot moves under you,
you could just bend your knee more to compensate until it is behind you, a
duck walk. That isn't the way we typically do it. Our muscles require us
to have a point where they are not stressed to allow blood to circulate.
Thinking more about the comparison to speed skating, I bet you are
probably correct that vertical motion is less or even non existant. I
don't have any mpeg to view, so I have to rely on memory, but unlike
sking, in speed skating, they never relieve the isometric pressure as you
described it. The only time the leg isn't under load is after it extends.
I can only guess that this is adequate because the glide is longer than in
skiing, they only go on the flat, or the fact that they can cross their
front leg in front of the back leg means they get a better angle on the
lane than skiers do to increase glide time. They are also out there for a
shorter period of time. It appears to me that no skiers skate the way
speedskaters skate.
My conclusion of all this is that it should be possible to minimize
vertical motion in skiing too. Clearly, the more your leg push has a
vector that is horizontal, the less it matters. But to stay low has a
high cost in supporting your weight on your forward bent knee. And since
my goal was to find ways to increase the amount of time my muscles are
relaxed, that bent knee time is a real problem. My quads need oxygen.
They don't get it when they are loaded. I think all skiers do this and
you saw it in Dahlie's video. So, if you are going to go up relieve
pressure, at some cost, you get the benefit of going down again at a later
point for your payback. You should be less efficient compared to a speed
skater because of the "wasted" vertical motion. However, you have
the added benefit of more time for oxygen to circulate in your legs and of
not having spent the energy to maintain that lower height.
>> Can we have a moment of silence for the mistaken belief that your
>> center of gravity is somewhere near your noggin. Unless your head is
>> made of lead, your body when placed horizontally on a balance bar would
>> balance near your waist.
>
> I suggest you have a long talk about this with your Wisconson physicist
> buddy. Center of Gravity is not a fixed point near your navel. The CoG
> of the human body is a complicated dynamic thing, based on
> multi-dimensional integral calculus.
OK, I can accept that as it relates to skiing. I pulled the term from
some very long ago study of yoga, where is considered fixed regardless of
what position you're in. I'll try and come up with a better term. I
think you understand what I am talking about now though by referring to
the height of the navel.
Ken Roberts
> One of the things that got me started on all of this
> was because so many coaches had such different
> things to say, and they seemed to work well for some skiers.
That's also what got me thinking about the physics of ski skating. Turned
out to be much more complicated (and interesting) than I expected. I think
that's part of why there's so many things to say -- some of them wrong, many
of them just different. The other part is that different skiers have
different goals (going fast, or feeling relaxed, or enjoying glide, or
skiing "right", etc.)
> When I say vertical, I mean vertical as measured
> against the fall line, which varies with terrain, but
> is never straight up and down.
Then you better explain what _you_ mean by "fall line" and how you expect
everybody else to "measure against it". And then you could explain why it's
worth it for the rest of us to take the time to _learn_ how to analyze
skating in terms of "fall line".
Just to be clear on my part, when I say "vertical" it means straight up and
down -- the direction that an object falls thru the air.
> Spread that out over the distance covered in a full
> cycle and it isn't going to be easy to see.
Well if it's not so easy to see, then what makes you so sure all skiers are
actually doing it? (especially when some of us actively claim that we are
not)
> Imagine skiing in zero gravity.
This raises an interesting point -- it's not trivial to analyze and
calculate how to balance the vertical force components to keep the skater's
butt and upper body roughly at the same height off the ground during the
skating leg-push. But the skater carries an amazingly powerful and
sophisticated portable computer which uses specialized
massively-parallel-calculation techniques to be able to learn to do just
that. It's called the cerebellum.
There's lots of factors to adjust to accomplish that control. And if all
else fails, just put the other foot down, and use that to hold the body at
the desired vertical level.
> In all bipedal activities, we do this by moving our legs under us.
Yes, but what does that have to with falling or vertical motion in skating?
For me in skating it seems pretty relaxed and easy: I just move my other
leg underneath me by moving my leg underneath me. Skating is not Walking:
Walking and running may need to use some "falling" -- but skating is
magical, that's why we love it, and that's why we call it a "low-impact"
motion.
> It appears to me that no skiers skate the way speedskaters skate.
That's because most of the time they're using their poles, because snow is
usually slower than ice.
I told you about the Daehlie video -- last year it was being sold from
several XC ski websites.
But maybe you can hear it better from a Wisconsin skier. I was just reading
this story: Back in 1993 he was visiting Austria, and he got the
opportunity to see two of the best XC ski racers in the world, skating in a
low position like a speedskater. And he said their Russian coaches were
yelling at them to make them ski that way.
But the American ski racers back then followed the way of freedom, and were
not forced to ski in such an uncomfortable style.
Ken
Jim Farrell
> Philip Nelson wrote
>
>>One of the things that got me started on all of this
>>was because so many coaches had such different
>>things to say, and they seemed to work well for some skiers.
>
>
> That's also what got me thinking about the physics of ski skating. Turned
> out to be much more complicated (and interesting) than I expected.
I haven't really been following this thread, but last week I had a
technique epiphany. Andy Turnbull returned from a summer coaching camp
in Colo. with a great hill climbing workout suggested by one of the US
team coaches. I always have felt my V1 needed a lot of work. I kill
myself on climbs and can beat locals on flat courses who beat me in
hillier terrain. I have recieved some hints that haven't really
clicked, but mostly I thought the fault was with my upper body, lack of
crunch and poor 'forward fall.'
Instead, massive improvements in one session resulted from changing the
skate motion. We practiced with no poles a short stroke quick turn over
technique that at first seemed like not skating at all, violating the
principles of 'getting over the ski' and riding the glide. But soon,
with practice, this high tempo style began to feel more like "falling
uphill." We worked on keeping the hips forward, skating with more of a
side to side motion (rather than kicking back as I do on the steeps) and
being light on our feet. The key is to keep your skis gliding through
the push phase, too. The dead ski is the momentum killer. It really
felt like another 'gear' for me. Now maybe i was getting the tempo
change a little better than some of my work out mates, but it really
seemed that i climbed the hills faster and with much less effort.
Jim
PS: thanks to the US ski team for sharing these insights with coaches
from around the country! The illustratiion given is that some skiers
are upper body dominant (I think an Italian was given as an example,
great skier, on the WC podium, but doesn't/(didn't) appear to get as
much out of his legs as say, Carl Swensen does.) So we were working on
getting more out of the legs (why not, you gotta stand on them anyway!)
Ken Roberts
thanks, Jim.
Jim Farrell wrote:
> last week I had a technique epiphany.
> . . . skating with more of a side to side motion
> (rather than kicking back as I do on the steeps)
> and being light on our feet. The key is to keep
> your skis gliding through the push phase, too.
> [ see Jim's full text further below ]
I think of simultaneous pushing-sideways-and-gliding-forward as the "magic"
of skating, so I see this approach as like "keeping the magic going" even
while climbing up a hill. And I've been playing a lot lately with pushing
out to each side while climbing, rather than so much back.
I'm eager to get out on rollerskis and try your new images with no-poles
drill. My usual approach is to first play with new images and exercises,
then try to figure out the physics later.
> We practiced with no poles a short stroke quick turn over technique . . .
Everyone seems to agree that turnover or cadence frequency ought to higher
going up hills, but there are several ways to achieve it. The obvious way
to is to just "fast-forward": move everything the same way but faster.
Another way is to stay relaxed and use my best muscle-speed -- but move with
it _less_ distance: sounds like what this approach is aiming at.
My big recent epiphany is how to maintain higher turnover frequency when I
bring my poles back into the game.
My old way (even this spring) was to keep my pole-push as a separate phase
in my V1 / offset stroke cycle. So my cycle had a three-beat rhythm: (1)
recovery-side leg-push, (2) then pole-push on hang-side, driving hands down
to near my hips, then (3) hang-side leg-push. This was nice in giving focus
on strong pole-push, smooth application of force throughout the cycle, and a
distinct feeling of glide during one phase. (I think that's similar to what
Borowski in New Simple Secrets calls "the Drill" -- but I'll leave that
comparison to experienced Borowski-interpreters).
Then I was counting the frames of some Daehlie videos, and it hit me that he
was actually spending _less_ time in his V1 on his hang-side than on his
recovery-side. Just the opposite of what my "three-beat" stroke cycle
should predict.
My new interpretation of poling coordination: Instead of trying to do the
same three phases but faster, merge the two hang-side phases -- for a total
of only two phases. So I stay with my best relaxed muscle-speed, but
increase my turnover frequency by doing _less_ : removing a phase. And with
the extra force of my pole-push and leg-push are working _together_ during
the hang-side phase, I get thru my hang-side even quicker. Which gets my V1
/ offset to somewhere near to Daehlie's asymmetrical rhythm.
Ken
_______________________________
phof...@hopper.math.uwaterloo.ca
not bringing your feet nearly as close together as you do in the other
two 'gears'? I'm not claiming that's a completely obvious thing to do
for all of us, since I needed to have it pointed out to me by a coach
a few years back. I remember seeing some shots of the women skating
steeply up at the Trondheim world championships, and thinking (wrongly)
that they weren't shifting their weight as much as they should. (As if
I had anything to teach them!!) But that was the first time I had noticed
the big difference in how close the recovery foot came to the gliding
foot in the different skate techniques, though I didn't adopt it myself
till Don McKinnon, the local university coach, smartened me up.
Best, Peter phof...@math.uwaterloo.ca
Gene Goldenfeld
was in the Twin Cities a couple of weekends ago demonstrating his new
dryland CAT Ski. Some years ago he wrote a few skating articles for his
website, the central feature of which is that pushing the foot to the side
and a little foward on the skate-off is key to using the legs properly in
skating. The ability to do that is also how he evaluates the level of
participants at his rollerski clinics. During his visit we got to talking
about those articles and he mentioned a bit bitterly how this notion of his
is now accepted fare, without appropriate credit being given. I don't know
the history of all this, but for his step-by-step discussion see
http://www.tznet.com/enduro/Legs.html
Gene
Gene Goldenfeld
underneath, as close as possible, vs reaching out. Allows for maximum
power. He also notes that this (and timing) is harder for the long-legged.
Gene
Ken Roberts
Peter Hoffman wrote:
> just not bringing your feet nearly as close together
Yes . . . seems to me that's another way to increase turnover frequency by
doing _less_. Rather than by trying to still do everything, but rush it
all.
The other nice thing is that if I don't bring the ski in so close, then the
inside edge is already pretty close to the position where I can just start
pushing on it. So I can eliminate most of the "roll it onto the edge" move
also.
Less plus Less equals More.
Ken
Ken Roberts
down close" (if you like that feeling).
Gene Goldenfeld wrote
> . . . to put the strong side skate foot down directly
> underneath, as close as possible, vs reaching out.
> Allows for maximum power.
No -- not if "power" means the technical concept in physics -- the kind of
Power which is a critical driver of how _fast_ I will go on skis.
I'm thinking No because "planting the foot close" misses the best "gearing"
leverage for hill-climbing. So while it increases one factor for Power
(distance range of push), at the same time it non-optimally _decreases_ one
of the other two critical factors (turnover frequency).
My analysis of the biomechanical geometry is that the more-bent-knee
sub-range of the skate leg-push is the "high-gear" part, especially for
vertical work -- and the more-extended-knee sub-range is the "low-gear"
part.
In other words, the more-extended-knee sub-range is where I want to focus
when I need to deliver higher forces (especially vertical) at lower speeds.
It's fine to _prove_ that I can survive getting up a hill forcing myself to
use the "high-gear" range and get this satisfying _feeling_ that my leg
muscles are strong enough to "handle it". But it's not necessarily the way
to win the overall race, as experienced bicyclists know.
Just like there's a Power-Torque-RPM curve for my car's engine, against
which my gear shift-points are selected to optimize -- there's a
Power-Force-MuscleSpeed curve for each muscle-joint motion in my skiing.
What's trickier in skiing is that there's a different
Power-Force-MuscleSpeed curve for each _sub-range_ of a pushing motion
(because the human bone-joint geometry is made of lines with angles, not
circles).
When I add in a sub-range whose Power-Force-MuscleSpeed curve is less
suitable for the demands of my current situation, I end up _reducing_ my
average power over the stroke cycle. So I actually climb the hill slower --
or even stall out and stop before the top.
Ken
Rob Bradlee
> glide. But soon,
> with practice, this high tempo style began to feel
> more like "falling
> uphill." We worked on keeping the hips forward,
> skating with more of a
> do on the steeps) and
> being light on our feet. The key is to keep your
> skis gliding through
> the push phase, too. The dead ski is the momentum
> killer. It really
Didn't I explain all this last winter in this
newsgroup? This demonstrates that everyone needs a
coach to show them this and get them to FEEL it.
Reading the internet and teaching yourself doesn't
work.
Rob Bradlee
=====
Rob Bradlee
Java, C++, Perl, XML, OOAD, Linux, and Unix Training
Ken Roberts
Are you trying to take the fun out this?
If we all could see the right answer right away -- and use the same words
for it -- then after about 15 months we'd all be skiing the same way -- and
there would nothing else to ever learn again. But that's not the real
problem . . .
After 15 months there would nothing left to argue about.
Except doping and waxing.
Ken
Ken Roberts
-- The basic mechanical principle of the using the "incline plane" simple
machine to change motion directions and manipulate force and speed was known
2000 years ago in Italy and Greece.
-- Applying that principle to skating -- of pushing out to the side to get
motion forward -- has been known to ice speedskaters in the Netherlands for
at least 50 years.
-- I've heard it said that applying that principle to ski skating has been
visible for years in videos of elite racers from Norway, Russia, and Italy.
And the idea of applying ice skating principles to skiing is explicitly
mentioned by a Norwegian-accented announcer on a technique video I own.
Ken
Jim Farrell
>
>
> Didn't I explain all this last winter in this
> newsgroup? This demonstrates that everyone needs a
> coach to show them this and get them to FEEL it.
> Reading the internet and teaching yourself doesn't
> work.
>
Yes and more! Because I have had many volunteered hints in person that
just didn't not click with me. No improvement noted, but still strove
to do what I was told. The hints were correct, but the path to
execution remained hidden from me. A competent coach knows the symtoms
and the solutions, but also knows the words and drills to get the habits
altered.
phof...@hopper.math.uwaterloo.ca
leg-push backwards' when skating comes up, and even more so that some
coach would expect credit for it as a new idea. But maybe that's
because you learn that pretty naturally if you start ice-skating
at 4 years old, as most of us canucks (or at least those born before
1950) will have done.
Best, Peter phof...@math.uwaterloo.ca
Nathan Schultz
Welcome to the "new skate". Make sure you continue working on getting a
big push off of those legs, even with the increased tempo. Begin pushing
off those legs as soon as they touch the ground and keep pushing throughout
the entire stroke. It takes a while to build the necessary strength, but
when you pull everything together, those locals will have to watch out for
you uphill....
-Nathan
http://nsavage.com
"Jim Farrell" <jefa...@qwest.net> wrote in message
news:3F0C2AB3...@qwest.net...
Nathan Schultz
not know how happy that makes me. I am laughing hysterically. That is
perhaps the funniest thing I have heard in a long time.
Thomas Alsgaard was doing this in 1994. By Dale's own admission on his
web site, he figured it out by watching World Cup skiers. There aren't any
dates on his web site, but from looking around, it looks like he wrote all
of it around 1999, several years after several people in the US were trying
to spread the word about this "new" technique meeting huge resistance,
mostly from the recreational racing community.
-Nathan
http://nsavage.com
"Gene Goldenfeld" <gene...@highstream.net> wrote in message
news:3F0C9B20...@highstream.net...
Rob Bradlee
--- Ken Roberts <KenRob...@yahoo.com>
> Are you trying to take the fun out this?
Of course not!
> If we all could see the right answer right away --
> and use the same words
> for it -- then after about 15 months we'd all be
> skiing the same way -- and
> there would nothing else to ever learn again. But
> that's not the real
> problem . . .
The wonderful thing about xc skiing is that you can
keep working on technique forever. It's like a golf
swing - Tiger still takes lessons with his coach.
> After 15 months there would nothing left to argue
> about.
No, we'd just be arguing at a higher level.
> Except doping and waxing.
Well, those could take up LOTS of time.
Rob
Gene Goldenfeld
about the clinics he used to do in the Twin Cites, i.e., what was taught
then and now. Entirely apart from that, if Alsgaard was doing this in 1994
then I wonder about its relationship to what was marketed several years
later (6?) as the "new skate." In fact, the coach of one of the "new
skaters" commented publicly last year that there's been nothing
substantially new in skating technique in 10 years except changes in
instructional marketing (he made a comparison to toothpaste marketing).
Time to get back to rollerskiing.
Gene
Nathan Schultz
One of the most interesting things I noted from attending the Coaching
Symposium that started this thread was that there are a lot coaches out
there who do not have a very good handle on technique. Probably 10-20% of
the coaches there knew and could understand high-level technique
discussions, 40% had a grasp of intermediate technique principles, and the
remainder had little concept of even basic concepts. When we went
rollerskiing, a large part of the group looked like an advanced beginner
lesson at a local ski area. I don't believe that a coach needs to have
perfect technique (if there is such a thing), but knowing the fundamentals
and being able to explain and demonstrate high-level techniques seems a bare
minimum.
Trond and Pete did a great job integrating everyone and disseminating a
lot of knowledge, from basic to advanced. Obviously it has already had an
effect, as Jim's experience shows. Yes, it is true that not everyone agrees
on every point of technique and training, but what I learned from the
weekend was that we (as a country) need to place much more importance on
coaches' education and make information accessible to coaches, clubs and
skiers around the country. We're not necessarily going to agree about
everything, but at least we can develop a framework for basic coaching
skills, which is not currently in place.
Ken's thread about disagreement being fun seems to me to miss Rob's
point. I know we all have different goals and motivations for being XC ski
nerds, but I (and I think Rob) see the big picture of becoming better skiers
as the key to enjoying the sport. That is why I am coaching and racing; I
find all of this stuff relevant because I can become a better skier and help
others become better skiers than me. While we need to go into this with an
open mind and critically evaluate all the information out there, I think a
lot of people lose the focus on what really matters. If you want to become
a better skier, listen to what people say, evaluate it critically (not
automatically discounting it), try it out for yourself, ask questions. At
this point either accept it as valid or accept that it doesn't work for you.
Rob's frustration is not due to him "trying to take the fun out of it", but
being tired of watching people wasting time arguing about things that become
self-evident with a little coaching. For these things, there comes a point
when we all need to just shut up and go outside to try it out for ourselves.
-Nathan
http://nsavage.com
"Rob Bradlee" <rbra...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:2003071013370...@web11503.mail.yahoo.com...
Nathan Schultz
I agree with you that it is a dumb name. I've always called it the "new
skate" but immediately explained that it is not really new. Unfortunately,
due to lack of better nomenclature, people understand what "new skate"
describes, but not what the "push with your legs, lean forward at the
ankles" skate is. That's why I generally use quotation marks around "new
skate".
You would be surprised at how many people out there are still skating
old school. It is still very new as far as most of the ski community is
concerned, although it is finally starting to sink in and be a generally
accepted idea.
-Nathan
"Gene Goldenfeld" <gene...@highstream.net> wrote in message
news:3F0DB698...@highstream.net...
Jim Farrell
> Jim,
>
> Welcome to the "new skate". Make sure you continue working on getting a
> big push off of those legs, even with the increased tempo. Begin pushing
> off those legs as soon as they touch the ground and keep pushing throughout
> the entire stroke. It takes a while to build the necessary strength, but
> when you pull everything together, those locals will have to watch out for
> you uphill....
>
> -Nathan
> http://nsavage.com
>
made things easier, and more relaxed. Getting a strong push with this
tech will be a dangerous combo (If I am able to put the hours in).
Begin pushing as soon as the ski hits the ground . . . I'll have to
work on that tomorrow!
Jim
Jim Farrell
As an old rink rat from south of the Ontario/manitoba border, I agree
with you about the (ice)skate motion. It came naturally for me doing V2
and open field. Somehow, when climbing, using V1, I just started
pushing back/stepping up too much, losing all the history of skating
that is in my circuits. Nice to come full circle to what I have grown
up doing . . .
Softball (speed work?) tonight. It has grown tiresome 10 and twenty
running these guys. But, we get plenty of work running around the
bases. Time to move up a league . . .
Rob Bradlee
--- Nathan Schultz <nsch...@NOSPAMnsavage.com> wrote:
> Rob, yes you did say that, and quite well.
>
> One of the most interesting things I noted from
> attending the Coaching
> Symposium that started this thread was that there
> are a lot coaches out
> there who do not have a very good handle on
> technique. Probably 10-20% of
This is true in my experience too. Here in NE we have
been working at NENSA to have coaches clinics and a
certification program. It seems to be working. Zach
Caldwell noted when doing skate progressions at the
recent Stratton Junior camp that most kids were doing
the basics pretty well. That was NOT true a few years
ago. It does seem that more coaches are getting the
word, but there is much more work to be done.
> Ken's thread about disagreement being fun seems
> to me to miss Rob's
> point. I know we all have different goals and
> motivations for being XC ski
> nerds, but I (and I think Rob) see the big picture
> of becoming better skiers
> as the key to enjoying the sport. That is why I am
> coaching and racing; I
> find all of this stuff relevant because I can become
> a better skier and help
> others become better skiers than me. While we need
> to go into this with an
> open mind and critically evaluate all the
> information out there, I think a
> lot of people lose the focus on what really matters.
Exactly!
> If you want to become
> a better skier, listen to what people say, evaluate
> it critically (not
> automatically discounting it), try it out for
> yourself, ask questions. At
> this point either accept it as valid or accept that
> it doesn't work for you.
> Rob's frustration is not due to him "trying to take
> the fun out of it", but
> being tired of watching people wasting time arguing
> about things that become
> self-evident with a little coaching. For these
You have understood me completely. This newsgroup has
long discussions about things that would made moot by
five minutes of live coaching. Here's a story to
illustrate the point: In the Civil Wra the Union
generals were sitting on their horses at the edge of a
river discussing how deep they thought it would be.
Finally, a young lieutenant Custer rode his horse into
the middle of the river and said "It's THIS deep
general". I think if everyone here got some top
notch coaching we could elevate the discussion.
Rob
Ken Roberts
tremendous benefit from it, and I want more of it.
Rob Bradlee wrote:
> This newsgroup has long discussions about
> things that would made moot by five minutes of live coaching.
Yes, but live coaching from _which_ coach?
Nathan Schultz wrote:
> > there are a lot coaches out there who do
> > not have a very good handle on technique.
That sure fits my experience, and several other people's too.
Rob and Nathan already "know" which coaches are right. The rest of us
don't.
We still have to deal with eloquent articles by respectable coaches in XC
ski magazines teaching that old coaching lore -- and claiming to support
their old concepts from current World Cup videos.
We still have local coaches saying "those new skate concepts may be right
for national collegiate champions, but I know what really works in practice
for masters citizen skiers." And those old-lore coaches are pretty good at
giving live personal tips that _feel_ like they work to lots of citizen
skiers.
So how are the rest of us going to _decide_ which coach to put our faith in?
I don't see much alternative to presenting the diversity of things we're
hearing and reading and trying -- and debating about them.
And even if you find the "right" experts, what do you do when they disagree?
My live personal instructor of my breakthrough "new skate" lesson at a
leading ski-skating center tells me that the "forward-step" move is
important for me to practice. A week later an expert on this newsgroup
tells me "forward-step" is outmoded. Is there some official tribunal I
should have gone to for a tie-breaker?
Ken
Gene Goldenfeld
stem from the fact that it was "new" to some, but not all, in the US. And
since the 'some' that didn't find it new were watching Europeans, hence
their strong reaction. A reaction which, it appears to me, was rubbed a
bit raw by the fact that the 'new skate' was being marketed by an
organization in for-profit clinics (however modest the profit). More to
the confusion, as I recall (vague memory) the original article(s) (by Pete
V?) found support for the 'new skate' in a late 1990s study by Norwegian
coaches that compared the Italians and Norwegian style of V-1, rather than
in what Alsgaard (and others before him?) had been doing for years. Had
the latter been emphasized -- "hey, Americans, we need to catch up here" --
I suspect the reaction would not have been nearly as sharp as it was.
(Sometime I'm going to look again at T. Mogren's Gunde Swan's skating to
see how they were pushing off.)
I first learned skating in 1995 at W. Yellowstone and, to the degree that
as an absolute skiing novice just coming off a knee operation I actually
learned anything, it was hanging on the pole and such, rather than the
emphasis on leg compression that Kevin B teaches. Sometimes when Kevin
wants to correct someone (an adult), he'll soften the comment by mentioning
that they are doing it the way he and others used to teach several years
ago.
Gene
Gene Goldenfeld
Question: Push *off* the legs? As I understand what Kevin B's been
telling us, initially the push is compression *into* the upper legs and
then ends with "off," skiing going to the side and forward.
Gene
Gene Goldenfeld
On the face of it, it appears that part of the confusion and contention
about the 'new skate' has stemed from the fact that it was "new" to some,
but not to all, in the US. And, since that 'some' which didn't find it new
were often experienced coaches who were already watching Europeans skate,
they didn't react well to this 'new' technique idea. The reaction may also
have been accentuated by the fact that the 'new skate' was being marketed
for traveling clinics (however modest the profit). Perhaps also adding to
the confusion, I seem to recall (vague memory) that one of the original
articles for the 'new skate' based itself on a late 1990s study by
Norwegian coaches that compared the Italians and Norwegian style of V-1.
Had the focus been more on what Alsgaard (and others before him?) had been
doing for years -- "hey, Americans, we need to join the world" -- perhaps
the reaction would have been very different than it was. (Sometime I'm
going to look again at videos of Torgny Mogren and Gunde Svan to see how
they were pushing off.)
My first time skating and skating lessons were in 1995 at W. Yellowstone.
To the degree that as an absolute novice just coming off a knee operation I
actually learned anything, it was hanging on the pole and such, rather than
the emphasis on leg compression that Kevin B. teaches. Sometimes when Kevin
wants to correct someone (an adult), he'll soften the comment by mentioning
that they are doing it the way he and others used to teach several years
ago.
Gene
Philip Nelson
> Rob, yes you did say that, and quite well.
>
> One of the most interesting things I noted from attending the
> Coaching
> Symposium that started this thread was that there are a lot coaches out
> there who do not have a very good handle on technique. Probably 10-20%
> of the coaches there knew and could understand high-level technique
> discussions, 40% had a grasp of intermediate technique principles, and
> the remainder had little concept of even basic concepts.
In my experience, most coaches focus mostly on training rather than
technique. Then each coach has his own basic understanding about how
skiing works and her own understanding of the techniques to practice
accompanied by the coaches own unique vocabulary. Ugh.
> Trond and Pete did a great job integrating everyone and
> disseminating a
> lot of knowledge, from basic to advanced. Obviously it has already had
> an effect, as Jim's experience shows. Yes, it is true that not everyone
> agrees on every point of technique and training, but what I learned from
> the weekend was that we (as a country) need to place much more
> importance on coaches' education and make information accessible to
> coaches, clubs and skiers around the country. We're not necessarily
> going to agree about everything, but at least we can develop a framework
> for basic coaching skills, which is not currently in place.
A shared vocabulary would be a start and basic requirement. Better would
be a basic agreement on how skiing actually works, which was the reason
for this marathon thread. With an shared understanding of how skiing
works and a shared vocabulary, there is plenty of room for coaches to have
individual drills, emphasis on different techniques and even different
styles.
In architecture, and now in software development, the idea of putting a
label on a concept that all agree to call by name has had tremendous
impact. These labels are called patterns and there is tons of information
out there on the web if you are interested. But the basic idea is that to
promote the diffusion of fairly complicated ideas you have to have a
limited shared vocabulary of patterns that are shorthand for both the
simple and complex things you do. Then, newbies can learn that vocabulary
and concentrate on how to excecute the concepts rather than just make
sense of twenty different coaches who kinda,sorta mean the same thing with
different words.
It would probably require a book by a respected coach to make it happen.
> Ken's thread about disagreement being fun seems to me to miss Rob's
> point. I know we all have different goals and motivations for being XC
> ski nerds, but I (and I think Rob) see the big picture of becoming
> better skiers as the key to enjoying the sport.
Yes, arguing loudly to promote a point of view is fun, and also
educational because you have to have your arguments in a clear form to
make any progress at all.
> Rob's frustration is not due to him "trying to take the fun out of it",
> but being tired of watching people wasting time arguing about things
> that become self-evident with a little coaching.
What was the thread called? A link maybe?
Philip Nelson
>> When I say vertical, I mean vertical as measured against the fall line,
>> which varies with terrain, but is never straight up and down.
>
> Then you better explain what _you_ mean by "fall line" and how you
> expect everybody else to "measure against it". And then you could
> explain why it's worth it for the rest of us to take the time to _learn_
> how to analyze skating in terms of "fall line".
This idea, though possibly not the term, comes from Antonina Anikin, via
a coach friend who has been attending her classes. It certainly isn't new
and isn't my idea. The term is ancient in downhill skiing, though it
doesn't mean the same thing.
Since you didn't quote any of the text about the dowel balancing on your
palm, I have to think it didn't make any sense. Unless I get *really*
ambititious and find a way to annotate mpegs to show the lines I'm talking
about, I'm not sure how to explain it better. Too bad, I thought the dowel
explanation was kind of clever ;-) The line the dowel makes at
equilibrium would be described as the fall line.
I see that later in the this thread, you mention your uphill technique,
cadence and staying relaxed. The thing that helped me the most was the
idea that as long as I keep my mass ahead of the fall line, meaning I have
to move my skis under me to avoid falling on my face, the proper cadence
comes pretty naturally. If you step too far up the hill, your body can
actually kind of lean back as you straighten that leg, forcing you to use
your poles more and also slowing you down. If you don't step
far enough, you don't move past the fall line enough to move much. Your
actual cadence is determined by how fast your mass is moving and how steep
the hill is.
Nathan Schultz
I hope I didn't make you feel like I was attacking what you were saying.
I totally agree with you that it is a messed up situation and that we need
better coaching. I wasn't trying to muzzle the discussion of technique or
ideas. I was trying to point out that there is a point of becoming
superanalytical where we lose sight of what is important.
As someone who is coaching, it is frustrating to see people "wasting
time" trying to figure out things that should be easily corrected by
coaching. It is criminal that with all of the skiers we have here (I'm
being provincial, meaning here in the US), that we have so few good coaches
and that so few coaches seem to care to educate themselves and be open to
other ideas. Every club in the country should be able to find a decent
coach that has the technical knowledge to explain these things quickly.
Unfortunately, we've developed a system of turf wars where we have
perhaps too many coaches and too small of a market and so some coaches feel
threatened by others' ideas. Instead of cooperating and collaborating,
they're busy cutting each other down so as to sell more books or attract
more athletes. I don't know what the answer is. Maybe Rob and I should
start an on-line idea police business where we give advice on to which
coaches people should listen.
Whatever it is, if you want to gain technical knowledge quickly, find a
coach or two that you like and can trust, learn from them, and you will do
1000 times better than if you pore over the Master Skier every month and try
to figure out everything from reading.
-Nathan
http://nsavage.com
"Ken Roberts" <KenRob...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:tlBPa.50355$3o3.3...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
Rob Bradlee
> Maybe Rob and I should
> start an on-line idea police business where we give
> advice on to which
> coaches people should listen.
I'm in! Although I don't think the market of skiers
seeking coaching is very big.
> Whatever it is, if you want to gain technical
> knowledge quickly, find a
> coach or two that you like and can trust, learn from
> them, and you will do
> 1000 times better than if you pore over the Master
> Skier every month and try
> to figure out everything from reading.
Right on.
Rob Bradlee
Mitch Collinsworth
On Thu, 10 Jul 2003, Rob Bradlee wrote:
> Didn't I explain all this last winter in this
> newsgroup? This demonstrates that everyone needs a
> coach to show them this and get them to FEEL it.
> Reading the internet and teaching yourself doesn't
> work.
Funny. The same point keeps getting repeated over and over
again on the trumpet players list. :-)
-Mitch
Mitch Collinsworth
On Thu, 10 Jul 2003, Nathan Schultz wrote:
> That is hilarious. Dale Niggeman credited with the "new skate". You do
> not know how happy that makes me. I am laughing hysterically. That is
> perhaps the funniest thing I have heard in a long time.
>
> Thomas Alsgaard was doing this in 1994. By Dale's own admission on his
> web site, he figured it out by watching World Cup skiers. There aren't any
> dates on his web site, but from looking around, it looks like he wrote all
> of it around 1999, several years after several people in the US were trying
> to spread the word about this "new" technique meeting huge resistance,
> mostly from the recreational racing community.
Maybe I'm not understanding correctly what is meant by "new skate",
but it sure sounds to me like a technique that was first introduced
to me by biathletes, who favored it because their gun didn't bounce
around on their back so much on the uphills. This was before
Alsgaard started making headlines with his unusual technique.
-Mitch
Jay Tegeder
is from Wisconsin. He saw Alsgaard win the 30K in Lillehammer on TV in
1994. He then claimed that Alsgaard was using the same technique that
he (Borowski) invented several years earlier... It was in the Master
Skier the next fall. It takes a brass set to claim you invented
something that a World Cup skier you never met, uses a ski technique
you invented... Reference some of Lee B's other skate arguments with
one Pete Vordenberg in the Master Skier the last few seasons...
Jay Tegeder
"I faders spar for framtids segrar"
mi...@ccmr.cornell.edu (Mitch Collinsworth) wrote in message news:<Pine.LNX.4.51.03...@saruman.ccmr.cornell.edu>...
Ken Roberts
trying out as a bicycle coach.
> . . . lose sight of what is important.
Yes, I've been trying get them to learn key things like applying force
through the whole stroke cycle, and finding their lactate threshold. But so
far I've been failing:
http://www.roberts-1.com/t/b03/v
I guess I just don't have that special coaching "leadership" focus . . . or
something.
> Unfortunately, we've developed a system of turf wars . . .
> Instead of coaches cooperating and collaborating,
> they're busy cutting each other down so as to sell
> more books or attract more athletes.
"normal human society", is my term for this sort of behavior.
Providing coaching services is a competitive social status game. Some might
say: more interesting than the one-dimensional-racing game. Others might
say: a game which at least one "new skate" advocate has pursued with full
vigor.
One thing I've seen in other kinds of skiing that helps contain the
confusion: Somebody writes a really good _book_.
Like in the U.S. telemarking scene, Paul Parker wrote the definitive book.
And soon it was widely recognized as definitive -- even though telemark ski
technique is rather tricky to learn. I don't think the book made very many
people think telemark turns could be learned without taking lessons. But at
least that book helped educate the _instructors_ -- a function that may be
trickier than some people think, judging by my limited live experience with
officially-labeled "new skate" coaches so far.
Just look at the books in any XC ski catalog or shopping website -- It's not
hard to see why there's confusion about skating technique in the U.S.
community. Where is there a single book that clearly explains the new
skating ideas?
> As someone who is coaching, it is frustrating to see
> people "wasting time" trying to figure out things that
> should be easily corrected by coaching.
There's no doubt that doing live coaching is quicker and easier and
rewarding (even as an amateur, see above). There's no doubt that writing
and drawing good diagrams is harder and slower -- and re-writing and dealing
with publishing. So it's very understandable that "new skate" coaches have
been putting off writing the definitive book that would provide both broad
context and focus on what's important.
The result is this: Other instructors may be stuck on old ideas, but at
least they've done the _hard_work_ of expressing them clearly in a
publicly-available format.
Until that "book" gap gets filled, don't be surprised to see amateurs like
me stepping into it -- and sometimes adding to the confusion because Yes, we
haven't figured out which things are important yet.
Ken