Preparing For Ski Season
Learn how to prepare your mind, your body and your gear to get the best out of your first days back on snow.
Learn how to prepare your mind, your body and your gear to get the best out of your first days back on snow.
Skiing is a great sport but for every skier comes a time to rest between seasons. Sometimes it can take up to a couple of weeks to start skiing at the best of our ability again. In this e-book you will learn how to get your mind, body and equipment ready to for the new season and how to get back to your A-game faster than ever before.
On our pre-season camp at Hintertux, Austria, I’m lucky enough to work alongside some of the greatest skiers and teachers in the sport, yet even these guys, with thousands upon thousands of days skiing behind them, are reporting aches and pains and muscle fatigue after their first morning’s skiing. They’re also telling me they didn’t feel like they were skiing anywhere near their best.
What could they, and the rest of us, do to better prepare ourselves for the new ski season, in order that we might maximise our fun and performance?
Here’s a few things that spring to mind:
Equipment: Are your ski boots helping you be a bad ass skier… or a bad skier?
Physical preparation: Get fit, then get fitter and work on hip flexibility.
Mental preparation: Remember useful cues from last season, set realistic goals for your first few days of the season.
First days on snow: Patiently review your cues, shift your expectations to suit terrain, early season snow, and your recent enforced hiatus from skiing (otherwise known as summer!)
Over the next few pages let’s work our way through these in order, and a little more depth.
Nigel Harrison
Your name goes here
Section 8 Snowsport Institute is a Canadian ski and snowboard training school owned and operated by passionate snow sport professionals. Our objectives are to deliver innovative and adventurous programming; to develop the most versatile skiers and boarders on the mountain; and to prepare individuals seeking a career in the ski or snowboard industry with the most well-rounded and complete training...
...we also like to have a little fun in the process!
"In order to be the best you must lose your mind"
Ski School - The Movie
CHAPTER 1
Storing it. Prepping it. Tuning it.
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Let’s begin by winding back the clock to the end of last season.
If you’re anything like me (and I hope for your sake you’re not), spring rolls around and you throw your skis and boots in some dark, spider infested cupboard at the back of the garage and jump on your bike. Try to be better than this.
Give your skis a service at the local ski shop, for a base grind if needed, but certainly a liberal coat of wax to protect the edges from rusting and the bases from drying out too much. Then store your skis on a rack which supports them fully along their length and protects them from distortion. The storage space should be around normal room temperature, so you may need to move them into your clothes closet, which your partner will love. Some people recommend winding binding spring tension back. I don’t know if this achieves anything. Ask someone more knowledgeable than me if you are concerned.
Likewise, store your boots with care, possibly pull out the liners, check all moving parts are intact, and store, like the skis, in a closet at normal room temperature, ensuring dryness and protecting from degradation from UV or dampness
As the new season approaches, prepare your gear by wearing your boots for a while and feel for any new differences from last year’s fit and comfort. It’s common for boots which previously fit like a glove to hurt or rub, either due to stiffening of the plastic or through a physical change in the shape of your feet.
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Your skis will need to have storage wax scraped off them, and the bindings should be inspected and tested. I always get the shop to do this as I don’t feel qualified to do it myself. Look for any damage to skis or bindings and look along their length to make sure they are true.
Official Section 8 Gear Testing Team
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If you would like to get into more detail and see how you can hack your boots and learn how maintenance issues directly affect your performance then keep on reading the next chapters.
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Skiing is a gear sport. To some extent our performance is limited by our gear; not just the quality of it, but how well it is maintained, tuned and set up.
We are all happy to go spend a dumpster full of cash on a week’s skiing. We are almost as happy to spend considerable sums on skis, and only slightly less so to spend money on boots. This, I have always felt is back to front.
The boot functions as a device to transmit our movements to the ski. If our movement patterns are well timed and the joints move in the appropriate proportions relative to each other, we can dictate with incredible precision what the ski will do as it passes over the snow, and hence decide what the outcome of each turn will be, essentially exactly where we will release our mass from inside the turn and allow it to move into the next.
The boot feels to me to be analogous to the keyboard on a computer, in that it is the point at which person meets machine, and ultimately, what the computer does comes down to the actions we have taken at the keyboard. A badly fitted boot, which doesn’t transmit our movements quickly and precisely to the ski, or a boot that may be too tight in places, cramping muscles in the foot, or preventing the skeleton from moving as it needs to... would be like a keyboard with all the keys apparently in the right place, but the wiring behind them incorrectly made; we press Q and a T appears on the screen, we meant to write “awesome”, and we end up writing “hotdog”.
We'll start our conversation on ski boots with a blog post from SkierLab... Section 8's experimental digitized ski school.
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Hi, my name is Tobin, founder and program director of Section 8 Snowsport Institute. I get made fun of a lot in the snow school locker room because I'm constantly tinkering with my boots. For me, with a somewhat aging crooked body, it's just small tweaks in the endless search for symmetrical turns, and I must admit it borders on obsessive compulsive behavior.
I don't suggest you always look to your gear as the cause of your skiing setbacks. Most of the time it really does come down to technique. However, your equipment is the interface between your body and the snowy environment, so if your set up isn't just right, it can prevent you from performing your best. Every skier's body is unique, so of course generic boot designs can't possibly be optimized for everyone's physique.
Well, if you're a Science Frictioner and your diagnostics assessment indicates that some sort of fit or alignment issue could be contributing to your symptoms, it's probably at least worth a little self experimentation.
There is a lot you can do to enhance the performance of your boots without fancy equipment or even much knowledge, but the fact that us skiers absolutely love the idea it of blaming our equipment has spawned a healthy economy for specialist ski boot fitters. If the need arises you should be able to track one down in any reasonably sized ski town.
The first prerequisite is having money (I don't know why they don't work for free). Secondly, if your self boot hacking got some results but permanent shell alterations are needed to go all the way. If you've exhausted every technique fix and still have equipment related symptoms (like sewing machine leg). Or of course, if your feet or lower legs are in pain... then it's probably time to seek out a professional.
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The world of boot fitting is kind of like religion and politics... there are many different schools of thought and no two groups can agree. I know quite a few reputable boot fitters, all are mad scientist like in their rhetoric but each of whom follow a different dogma.
It's pretty hard to find two boot fitters who agree on a particular methodology for achieving an optimal set up because legitimate data is seriously lacking. Boot fitters rarely validate their work with any sort of recorded ski performance observations on snow. So most of it just comes down to anecdotal feedback from their clients... and which theory makes the most sense to them.
What does all this mean? First of all it means I'm not going to tell you exactly how your knees or other body parts need to be lined up... I'm just going to relay some things I've felt and observed through experimentation on myself and some of my students. Secondly, I want to convey that a visit to an experienced boot fitter still has a tonne of value, especially if your feet are in pain! Actual 'alignment' may be more art than science, but performance enhancing results are frequent enough that it's quite possibly worth the gamble. Just be wary or wordy salesmen and proceed cautiously when making any permanent alterations to expensive boots. I tend stick with folks who are also high level instructors or coaches. At least this way you know they have a relatively good understanding of technique. Even if you hire a professional, you'll still need to do some on snow testing to verify whether or not a particular fix actually solves your symptoms.
I have a few hypotheses of my own but I dare not detail them here. With my limited understanding of lower leg anatomy and the fact that I still haven't found my own boot nirvana is probably an indication that my ideas are almost certainly based on figments of my imagination.
What I do know... Or at least what I think I know, is that small tweaks to your boot set up can dramatically affect how you and your skis interact with the snow.
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Rule #1... If your foot is in pain then it's not going to perform... or at the very least it's not going to be fun (which I'm pretty sure is the reason you do it). Make sure your boot is long enough and wide enough in all the right places for your foot to sit comfortably flat.
On the other hand if the fit is sloppy and your foot shifts around inside it's probably too big and your skis won't move when you do.
Getting the right fit is probably what a professional boot fitter is best at! They know which model has a last that will fit your specific foot shape the best. They will size you properly and if needed stretch the shell in all the right spots. If you require more fine tuning, there are a variety of custom liners on the market such as 'Intuition' or foam filled liners that can be custom molded to the shape of your foot and lower leg.
Forward lean (or the angle of the boot cuff in the fore/aft plane) has a huge affect on how the skier moves and balances on the skis. As a ski instructor, an inappropriate cuff angle is the single most common equipment related issue I come across. Or at least it's the easiest for me to detect. Fortunately it's also the easiest fix!
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You see, the boot cuff limits the amount of flexion and extension available in your ankles. If the cuffs are either too straight or too flexed the skier will have to compensate by moving excessively in other joints (such as the knees and hips) and have a difficult time maintaining balance. Because some of us have big calves, skinny calves, long femurs, short tibias, big hips, boobs, biceps, heads or whatever other body part comes to mind... the optimal cuff angle will be different for each of us. Ideally we are looking for the biggest vertical range of motion we can have without losing balance. We also want to maintain strength and efficiency.
The litmus test for forward lean is to simply stand on a firm flat surface (no skis on) with your boots done up all the way. Now bend down and try to touch your butt to the ground. Hopefully you have a good range of flexion and extension before you fall over. If you have reasonable dexterity then you should be able to get your femurs parallel with the floor. If not, you may need more forward lean. In this case you can just stuff a spoiler, some stiff foam, or a couple trail maps in the back of your boots between the shell and the liner. This will add more forward lean effectively allowing for more flexion in your ankles.
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Simulating an upright cuff, Kana can't bend much in the knees and has to compensate with a lot of bend in the hips.
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With an ideal amount of forward lean, Kana has a good range of motion to flex and extend.
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Simulating excessive forward lean, Kana can flex super low but probably can't lengthen her legs enough to resist much force without getting too far forward.
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Now try extending as much as you can. If you feel your calves pressing on the back of the boots but your legs still have a lot of bend, then you may want to get rid of any spoilers or padding in the back to straighten things up. If you feel like you're legs are always tired and you have to ski in a really crouched stance this could be something to look out for.
Enter a hardcore boot fitting establishment and you'll also hear terms like 'Ramp Angle' and 'Delta' thrown around. Ramp angle refers to the amount the heel is lifted in relation to the forefoot. It seems to have a small effect on fore/aft balance but I can't say any adjustments I've tried with ramp angle have had a major effect on my performance. For folks with limited range of motion in their ankle joints, increasing the ramp angle may (or may not) have a more positive effect.
Delta has to do with the binding height. Typically the rear binding platform is higher than the toe piece essentially tipping the entire boot forward. In essence this increases both ramp angle and the shaft angle in one fell swoop (out of laziness this is what we're doing forward lean in the simulations above). I can't say I've done much experimenting with Delta (at least not intentionally). I just take the heel height built into the binding and adjust the forward lean if needed. Of course that doesn't mean it doesn't matter so if your trusty boot fitter says it will save your skiing, it's probably at least worth a shot!
Boot flex is usually indicated by the arbitrary number on the side of the boot (higher number means stiffer but there is no standardization what so ever). Flex has a fairly significant effect on how the boot performs. By nature the cuff of the boot restricts ankle movement. If the boot is stiffer it restricts it that much more. Why would we want to do that? Well there are some advantages and disadvantages.
In a softer boot the increased range of motion in the ankle can make balance easier (at least when you're going slow)... and when balance is slightly off a considerable amount of the energy will be absorbed by flex in the boot before it is transferred to the ski. This essentially makes a softer flex more forgiving of your errors.
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The disadvantage is that a considerable amount of energy will be absorbed by the flex of the boot before it is transferred to the ski... when you actually want that energy transferred to the ski. This of course makes a stiffer boot more responsive so the ski will react quickly to small shifts in balance. A stiff boot can actually help you recover when you're off balance as they can be used as a lever to prop yourself back into balance.
So should you go soft or hard?
Well that's up to you. In general if you feel like your boots are locking up your joints and you're constantly getting thrown off balance, a softer might be the way to go. If I was a novice or intermediate skier, I would want a more forgiving flex. If my preferred skiing discipline required more absorption and range of motion (like freestyle) I'd also probably go softer.
On the other hand, if I was an expert skier and wanted support, along with quick and precise reaction (say if I was racing slalom), then I'd go stiffer.
If you need to change the flex of your boot and don't want to splash out on a brand new pair, a good boot fitter will have a few tricks up their sleeve to address stiffness.
There is a fair bit of consensus around the idea that the bases of both skis should lie flat on the snow surface when you're simply gliding down a planar slope without making any attempt to tip the skis on edge. If you've ever tried to straight run and one or both skis starts wobbling like crazy then they're probably not sitting flat on the snow and you might want to address this issue. You may have also experienced symptoms such as, knees knocking together, chronic skidding or an inability to release your edges.
Where the controversy lies is HOW to go about getting your skis to sit flat on the snow!
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Many higher end boots come with a lateral cuff adjustment (that thing on either side of your ankles that you can stick an Alan key into... but have no idea what it does).
The mechanism will allow the cuff to move a degree or so in either direction and is meant to allow the cuff to line up better with your lower leg.
Most boot fitters ask you to take the liners out and stand in the shells (foot beds included) then asses whether there is excessive space between your legs and the cuff on either the inside or the outside. Then they adjust accordingly.
I must admit, I totally ignore these guidelines because I find it impossible to grip with my boots set up in this manner. Clearly many other folks have success with this kind of set up though so instead of following my protocol I would do some testing of your own to find out what works for you.
A good rule of thumb... if you slip a lot, or your knees knock together, then move the cuffs out more. If you grip too much and have difficulty pivoting, or you experience other symptoms of being over edged then try moving the cuffs in.
If your boots don't have a cuff adjustment (or don't have enough, which is often the case) then you can easily improvise with some padding on either side between the cuff and the liner.
Keep in mind that more often than not you'll have symptoms on one side more than the other... so adjust each boot accordingly.
This is where much of the controversy lies. Some say 'post and support'.... others say 'don't post' for unrestricted foot function.... and then there are a million and one philosophies in between.
From my perspective, the main function of a custom foot bed is to add comfort and because it mimics the shape of the bottom of your foot, it prevents your foot from sliding around inside the boot. The added comfort helps with foot circulation and depending on the material it can also help insulate and keep your foot warm.
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Many boot fitters will also use a custom foot bed to 'align' your foot... but this begins to enter the realm of podiatry and is way beyond my scope of expertise!
I have two quite different feet (when I stand naturally one pronates while the other supinates) so I experiment with this on myself relentlessly. I can tell you that small changes to a foot bed have a profound effect... but after many years of tinkering I can't definitively say I've found the perfect solution. But then, I haven't joined any cults yet either.
A few of my ignorant and very generalized observations about foot beds:
I've experimented a fair bit with shims that tilt the foot laterally.
Assuming the cuff angle remains the same, if the foot bed is tilted inwards so the foot is 'everted' slightly inside the boot, it makes it very easy to roll the outside ski onto edge and it seems to provide better gripping abilities. You are effectively tipping your ankle joint closer to the working edge. We all love grip... but keep in mind that too much grip makes it difficult to twist or pivot the ski.
If the footbed is supported on the arch side to the point where the foot sits slightly inverted, it allows me to move my inside leg out of the way easier but the outside leg becomes more difficult to tip over and adds a slightly difficult to resist torque on my outside foot.
Going to extremes in either direction usually just causes my knees to hurt after a run or two.
A lot of boot fitters talk about aligning the foot so the 'Subtalar Joint' is neutral. It makes sense to me that being neutral is a good place to start so you can move easily in either direction. The question remains however, whether it's a good idea to 'support' the foot in order to get there.
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A lot of boot fitters will build your foot bed to support your foot in a Subtalor Joint 'neutral' position.
There may be some folks who need full support, I really don't know, so I'll leave it up to you and your podiatrist to figure that out. My very unscientific personal beliefs lie somewhere in the middle of the boot extremists. Some corrective support under the heel or other contact areas of the foot such as the first metatarsal head is probably okay if needed (and may even be ideal), but the foot should not be completely immobilized either. My instincts tell me that the foot bed needs to be at least supple enough under the arch to allow the foot to roll laterally inside the boot, otherwise I just feel locked up. For me, the ability to roll my foot is crucial to skiing well.
We could probably go on and on about rotational alignment, forefoot varus, valgus and add infintum, but if those words exist in your vocabulary then that's definitely a sign that a specialist needs to get involved. Maybe I'll get some foot/boot gurus to chime in here on future posts.
After foot beds and cuff alignment are dialed in, many boot fitters insist that true canting should be done by tilting the whole boot laterally. This is usually accomplished by grinding the bottom of the boot at the desired angle then bringing the boot back to DIN standards (to fit in your binding properly) by grinding the top of the rand with a router.
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Many people swear by this method mainly because it doesn't affect how the boot fits. I've never actually had it done myself. I've tried every variation of test shims under the sun without achieving the perfect symmetry I've always longed for, so I haven't been willing to commit to the permanent planing of a rather expensive pair of ski boots (mind you I've destroyed plenty a pair of boots attempting ill equipped home remedies).
Seeing as this is pretty common practice among elite skiing athletes, it's probably a good way to go if your situation calls for it. The only thing I can really recommend here is to test the new angles on snow first to make sure they are right!
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(Written by Tobin Leopkey, Section 8 Snowsport Institute Founder and Program Director)
If symptoms indicate, be on the lookout for any of these ski tuning issues that may be a contributing factor.
Dull edges: Probably the most obvious ski tuning issue and the easiest fix. While dull or burred up edges won't matter much in soft snow. If you are having trouble gripping on hard or icy snow. This is the first thing to asses.
As Dan pointed out, the old finger nail test is a pretty good indicator. Can the edges easily scrape off a bit of finger nail? check in several spots along the ski's edges. If you are skiing on hard snow frequently it will dull your edges faster and you'll need to tune them more often.
Base Edge Bevel: This is the angle of the bottom part of the edge adjacent to the ski's base. A larger degree of base edge bevel will make it easier to release the edges and pivot or skid the ski. Less base edge bevel allows for better grip but make it more difficult to release. A 'true bar' can be used to determine approximately how much base bevel you have. Between 0.75 and 1.0 degree is a typical bevel for all mountain recreational skiing. Racers tend to go with a little less (or even no bevel) especially for the technical events such as slalom.
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Side Edge Bevel: The angle of the side part of the edge can be increased for a sharper edge but at the cost of edge durability and release capabilities. For all mountain skiing a side edge bevel of 1.0 to 2.0 degrees is average. Perhaps up to 3.0 degrees if you often ski on very firm snow. Some elite slalom skiers may go as high as 5.0 degrees but that could be dangerously grippy for most.
Burred Edges: If you edges have minuscule bits of metal protruding making them rough and serrated they glide don't as smoothly through the snow. They should be sharp but smooth.
Base High: If the ski is base convex in shape it can become difficult to grip. To assess for this run a true bar or straight edge down the base of the ski and look for light shining through underneath it towards the edges.
Railed: If the ski base is concave in shape it can become overly grippy and be difficult to release the edges or pivot the ski. Again run a true bar down the base of the ski and look for light shining through towards the middle of the base.
Base Texture: Base texture is that funny pattern etched into the base material of your skis. It helps the skis glide. Basically as your skis run along the surface of the snow they create a little slick of water to glide on and this texture allows that water to escape so it doesn't create a suction cup effect. Different patterns work better in different conditions with deeper grooves typically working better in wetter snow. If you aren't gliding well make sure your skis have some base texture.
Base Damage: Obviously hitting rocks that take big chunks out of the base will create issues with glide as well. In most cases a little P-tex will fix these in a snap.
Dry Bases: If your skis don't glide it's pretty hard to do anything else effectively. If your bases are dry (black bases will look appear whitish) then they desperately need a wax!
Weather Appropriate Wax: Different waxes work well in different conditions. Softer waxes tend to be made for warmer wetter conditions whereas harder waxes will help your skis glide better on colder snow. If it's one of those colder than usual or warmer than usual days at your local hill... this isn't to be overlooked.
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How To Fix It: If you're a perfectionist (or need a race tune) and into DIY there are plenty of great tutorials out on the interweb explaining how to resolve most of these issues on your own. Here are a couple:
https://www.sidecut.com/advanced-ski-tuning-videos.html
http://www.racewax.com/edge-tuning/
Or if you're lazy, like me, you can always just drop your skis off at your local technician and have them done professionally;)
Here's some links for waxing tips:
http://www.racewax.com/wax-application/
CHAPTER 2
Cardio. Strength. Flexibility.
Sign up for our free digital Ski School and become one with your skis.
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Skiing is a sport, and like all sports, it is easier and more fun if you are fitter.
Just like the world class skiers I am fortunate enough to ski with from time to time, you are likely to find yourself sore and stiff after your first few days of the season. This of course hampers your return to the performance levels of the previous season, and also slows your progression towards ski enlightenment.
To decrease suffering and maximise performance, ensure you are in the best possible shape in terms of both aerobic fitness and strength.
Improved aerobic fitness will help you perform early season, when you are likely to be at very high ski areas, perhaps on glaciers such as those at Hintertux or Stubai in Austria, or Zermatt or Saas Fee in Switzerland. At 10000 feet (with variation depending on latitude) air contains one third less oxygen than it does at sea level and you will feel this the moment you exert yourself. Running, biking and any other aerobic workout will help you improve your fitness at altitude, and you will enjoy better endurance as a result.
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For our personal fitness, both pre- and during the season we work with our personal trainer, Morgan Klieber from Wild + United Athletics. Here’s a link to a brief video she made about the benefits of aerobic training:
Here's Morgan again, talking about the benefits of strength training in skiing:
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Besides strength, flexibility is also critical to good skiing. As above, there are few people less qualified than me to advise on the nuts and bolts of improving flexibility for skiing.
Once more, here is a link to a video from our personal trainer, very briefly describing the benefits of maintaining and improving flexibility:
Flexibility is like the red thread that holds strength and fitness together and is often overlooked by many skiers. Therefore, we have included one of our favorite blog posts by our good friend and expert on all physical education Sam Low, dedicated to the importance of hip flexibility in skiing.
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The following section is written by our friend Sam Low, who has not only spent many years training for olympic Tae Kwon Do, but also teaches Human Anatomy and Kiniesology at the West Coast College.
Have you ever tried to learn some specific ski technique but were unable to perform it no matter how much you practiced? Sometimes there are physical limitations that prevent our body from certain movements.
We will look at the importance of flexibility in skiing, focusing specifically on joint motion at the hips. For most of us, flexibility is often over looked; especially those of us who work in sedentary jobs, or jobs/hobbies that put us into long term static positions. Activities that put us in static positions for long periods at a time can have a profound effect on your muscular and skeletal system. These effects can include reduced range of motion at the hips, reduced muscular strength, and mal-alignment of your spine. Having a functional range at the hips can decrease the risk of injury and improve your skiing
Let’s first look at the hip, a bit lower than most people think; not at the top of your waist, but a bit lower. It is a ball and socket joint; which allows for a wide variety range of movements. If you locate the top of your hips then place your palm a bit below on it, move your thigh around, you should feel something moving under your hands. That is where your hip socket is approximately.
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Flexion: the movement of the thigh towards your chest. Typical range is 100º-120º
Extension: the movement of the thigh behind your body. Typical range is 10- 30º
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Adduction: the movement of bringing your leg towards your other leg. Typical range is 20º-30º
Abduction: the movement of bringing your leg away from your body. Typical range is 40º-45º
Note this image appears to show increased hip abduction, however it is due to the movement of the pelvis.
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External/lateral rotation: the movement of turning your knees away from your body. Typical range is 45º-50º
Internal/medial rotation: the movement of turning your knees towards your body. Typical range is 40º-45º
These movement ranges are approximate. There will be people outside of these norms as well.
Let’s look at a few examples of how these motions contribute to skiing.
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Flexion: Not usually restricted in most people. Instead, the hip flexors are usually shortened reducing potential strength and hip extension. (Skiing most often puts into a shortened hip flexor position). Shortened hip flexors cause the pelvis to tilt forward.
(Red arrow is pointing to lumbar spine due to rotated pelvis)
The problem with a rotated pelvis is its’ attachment to your spine. It causes you to have an increased curvature. This position itself is not a bad thing if intended as it can give great stability to your spine (Think dead lift at gym). Try rotating your pelvis forward and see how much you can bend your body to the side.
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Pelvis with posterior tilt: image below. Try to side bend and see if you feel or notice a difference.
*A side note that a forward tilted hip leads to internal rotation of the femur, which can lead to pronation in your foot. But we will look at that some other time. *
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Extension: can be limited due to tight hip flexors. It can make it difficult to stand up strait. Meaning your quadriceps muscles are always used. If you try to extend your hips while having tight hip flexors, you end up rotating your pelvis forward.
Adduction: reduced range of this action will result in the inability to bring your leg towards your other leg. This motion is not often restricted.
Abduction: Reduced abduction, which may be the result of weakened abductors (gluteus medius and minimus), or over shortened adductor muscles resulting in a muscular imbalance. High ski edge angles will require the legs to be able to abduct to some extent along with flexion.
Internal rotation: Can be and often restricted due to shorted lateral rotators and deep hip flexor. Lack of rotation will limit your ability to turn your skis under your body.
I remember in a ski camp one year a student was trying to perform short turns but was unable. A quick assessment showed that the student was unable to internally rotate their left hip. The result of not being able to internally rotate was that the leg was not able to turn right without the body following along. In ski terms, the student was not able to create upper and lower body separation. Long story short, that student ended up with knee pain due to trying to rotate using their knees instead. A few weeks of stretching was able to resolve this issue.
Internal rotation is decreased with a forward pelvic tilt. In fact, range of motion is decreased in all ranges.
External rotation: External rotation is typically greater than internal rotation. However, both external and internal rotation is equally important if you are trying to keep your body facing down the hill while turning the skis under your body.
Let’s look at how you can increase that range. These are typical stretches and there are many ways to stretch these muscles.
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Flexion: never usually a problem for many people. To increase this range, you would pull your knee towards your chest with your knees bent. Having your leg strait will reduce this range due to the hamstrings muscle.
Extension: usually most people need to stretch in this motion. Focus on keeping hips parallel to the wall. The stretch will be usually felt on the front of the thigh being stretched behind you. The stretch will disappear if your pelvis tilts forward.
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Internal rotation: focus on using the top foot to press down on the outside of the knee.
External rotation : Laying supine (face up) place foot of the leg to be stretched on your other knee. Pull that knee towards your chest.
Abduction : make sure leg is out to the side and not forward or behind the body. Increase the stretch by bending the body towards that leg.
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Adduction: The leg being stretched is the one behind the body and strait. To stretch this, stand sideways to a wall and cross your outside leg over the front of your inside leg then drop your towards the wall.
In conclusion, flexibility can play a large roll in skier movement. 5-10 minutes a day with some simple stretching can improve your skiing as well as reduce your chance of injury. Remember, it's not always you who can't learn how to change your skiing; sometimes it's your body!
CHAPTER 3
Imagination. Feeling. Expectations
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Something I notice in myself is that I jump back on my skis in October and expect to ski like I was doing the previous March. I need to have a chat with myself because that’s never going to happen. It takes me at least two weeks before I feel like skiing is starting to feel instinctive and a month before I can’t remember it not being intuitive.
Over the years, of which there have been more than I would like, I have never quite learned to accept that time is required to remember and re learn what was once innate, however I have become somewhat more able to accept the fact and deal with it with less frustration.
In accepting my temporary (?) mediocrity I still find pleasure in my skiing and actively enjoy the process of re-discovering the feeling of skiing well. I like to think of this as being in the waiting room before boarding the awesome train, and in this space I enjoy the little achievements that measure progress; feeling balance return, remembering what a gripping ski feels like, finding once again the ability to move quickly and accurately from turn to turn on steep and intimidating terrain, finally feeling that effortless, thought free movement that comes with being truly back in tune with your gear and the snow.
Try setting yourself goals for each day. Don’t make these very challenging, and make sure they relate to the core skiing skills such as balance, rather than, for example, aiming to lay perfect carves down a black run or ski some steep trees fast and clean. You might find that a good goal is to stay in balance on 80% of your turns; anything, just so long as it is achievable, and physically easy.
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How does balance influence your skiing? Check out this quick video by Tobin explaining how properly balancing over your outside ski will help your ski to grip the snow.
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Some cues to help you find your ski feet.
I find there are certain drills and cues which I can use in my early season skiing to speed up the process of recall and which are fun and rewarding in themselves.Here the focus is on re-learning skills, rather than achieving ski performance. It’s like going on holiday to France……. It takes a few days but eventually that schoolroom French starts to come back as if from nowhere. In truth, it never went away, the brain just put it aside in some dusty compartment, in case you ever needed it again. After only a six month break from skiing, recall should be pretty quick. Much quicker than it takes me to recall my French, at least.
Hey, Feet! Remember me?
With some practice in building awareness it is possible to feel very sensitively what is going on under the foot, and from there discover how and where we are balanced over the ski.
Depending on your particular foot/ footbed/ boot combo, you will feel slightly different things. I happen to feel the whole of my foot when in a neutral position, with the footbed pressing firmly but comfortably up into my arch, while the heel and the ball of the foot feel like they carry the remainder of my weight evenly between them. I feel like my foot has a little freedom to roll inside the boot, but only by a matter of a few degrees. By this I don’t mean that the foot can ‘spin’ along its length, or that the skin of the foot can slide inside the boot, merely that the foot is not too greatly compressed, in order that the bones of the foot and lower leg can move, just a little. Remember, please, that what works for me, may not work for you…………. and of course, I could be wrong! Perhaps if I were to re configure my foot/ boot interface I could enjoy a huge improvement in ski performance. For now, though, this is the most effective set up I have found, and any experimentation is best left for later in the season.
As you ski, try to feel exactly where you are balanced along the length of your foot, and shift until the ski react the way you want. See if you can roll your foot in attempt to squish the arch into the footbed and feel pressure towards the front part of the heel. If your foot moves around inside the boot, go to your local ski shop and get some nice moulded footbeds. Don’t skimp on cheap ones. These things are the best investment you will ever make in your skiing (apart from maybe your liftpass). If you buy cheap ones, everyone will know and attractive people will instinctively move away from you at parties. The more you try to feel your feet, you are improving your awareness of your balance. Balance is essential to good skiing, but without awareness of where we are balancing, it is not the immensely useful tool it could be.
Here’s a little video we shot in Austria on just this topic, in October 2018. Maybe you’ll find it useful:
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Whilst many of these drills can be used with various goals in mind, in the early season the goal is simply to re-discover balance.
Hop turns: try to maintain a series of small hops right around each turn. This forces the body to use its full range of motion and find the center of the ski. As you do this, notice what sensation is apparent under the foot and inside the boot generally. The feeling you take away from the drill is more important than your level of success. It’s perfectly possible to force yourself to the middle of the ski whilst hopping only 1 inch off the ground. 10 inches off the ground may well not bring additional benefit, but will definitely wear you out.
Shin bounces: these are a slow motion version of the hop turns. The goal is simply to challenge yourself to keep bouncing the shins off the front of the boot right around the turn. Once again the goal is to wake up the lower joints and re discover balance, and to notice sensation in the boot and under the foot. As you move through your range of motion your body will start to figure out where balance lies. Your job is to notice where this is, and what if feels like; in other words to start to develop cues that you can use to self check how you are standing over your skis at any particular moment.
Foot shuffling: by shuffling the feet back and forth right through and between turns we once again explore and remind ourselves of, the range of motion available to us. Personally I find that there is too much going on in this drill to focus on any sensation beyond that found under the foot, however I do find it very useful in terms of recalling range of movement.
Ski naked: this won’t do anything for your skiing but you will get noticed.
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WHY BALANCE?
And in case you were wondering, there are several reasons we want to balance well over the ski!
You’ll be way less tired at the end of the day, as your body will be supported in a way that takes advantage of the skeleton, whilst allowing for mobility, also because effort needed to turn the skis will be reduced, see point 2, below.
Your skis were designed on the assumption you would be balancing right over the waist of the ski (The waist is the narrowest part, right under the arch). When we balance on the ski the way it was designed to be used it begins to perform the functions it was engineered to perform, i.e turn left and right. The mechanical effort required from you to make the ski turn becomes minimal, and the shape of the ski both begins and maintains the turning effort with only fine management required by you. From this point our next goal becomes to shift our balance as the turn progresses to make sure we are using the parts of the ski the designer expected us to use at the various moments in the turn………….. but those refinements are best left for a day or two after getting back on your skis.
It feels good. And the reason it feels good is that by choosing to balance over the center of the ski you have taken a huge step towards exploiting the maximum performance to be found in your particular ski.
As your balance, and your awareness of balance improves, you will start to notice how your movement patterns affect ski performance. A truly great skier subconsciously feels how their ski is performing, and, taking account of their goal within each turn (for instance, maybe tighten the arc to make a gate) can adjust their movement patterns accordingly, and without conscious thought. At this stage of skiing the skier is a true expert, blending their knowledge of their body and ski performance to create desired results.
Most important of all, remember that even if you are that truly great skier you won’t be that great on day one: even you will need to spend some time recalling your greatness. It’s our hope that these cues will help you get back there faster, so you can get down to the serious business of bragging about your awesome turns in the bar. We ask just one little favour: as you brag, perhaps you could mention Section 8 a couple of times.
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Also have a look at our virtual ski school on skierlab.com
