Theme for today – more movement!
Video Clip 1
- Hip Angulation – Range of Motion
- Puling Inside Foot backwards – Loosening Inside Hip
- Twisting Bust/Upper Torso Into The Turn (without rotation) – Strengthening the Core (increases the stretch between the outside hip and the lower front ribs)
Keep the outside leg extended during the turn and use inclination and hip angulation to lower the Centre of Mass into the turn. Higher speeds and longer turns require more inclination and less angulation. It takes practise to learn to relax at the hip joints. The inside leg must be held in place by using the adductor muscles (same as with feet together pivoting!)
Use a chair or bench to practise flexion at the hip joints…
Video Clips 2 and 3
- Short Swings (jumping)
- Short Turns with Anticipation
The first attempts at short swings lacked anticipation and weight on the ski poles!
Deep snow “fall line” skiing requires “flat skis” – which requires pivoting, pole use and strong anticipation… effectively short fall line turns.
In the deep snow photo below look how the centre of mass is crossing over the skis into the next turn but the skis remain on their uphill edges… (i.e – a carved turn would instead have the skis strongly edged) The flat skis are achieved by strong “anticipation” the body moving out over the skis but the knees still held uphill.
Video Clip 4
- Controlling the Inside ski in a Pivot – Strong Inside Leg Adductor Use
- Compression Turns (Flat Skis – Pivoting)
Compression turns on the flat simulate real compression with bumps – where the legs bend to absorb the bump and serious anticipation/pole use is required. Your range of movement once again needs to increase – but at this stage even getting a slow pivoted compression turn right is a huge achievement.
Here’s a video clip showing proper compression turns at an advanced level. Warning! – The drills used to “teach” in the clip are mainly inappropriate and fail to show the pivoting nature of bump skiing.
VideoClip 5
- Leg Retraction Timing
Nice and smooth turns in the videoclip – but the range of movement needs to increase. The video below shows leg retraction (with slow motion clips) clearly.