Research findings regarding the impact of ski width for junior ski racers

Research author Heidi Nunnikhoven shares a discussion on the influence of ski width on muscle activity, performance and self-efficacy in young alpine ski racers.

[@felisaaero]

I tested 5 demos today 88-96 underfoot. It was so obvious narrower one performed better especially on moguls. The widest was stable but noting happening. The sales people these days push for wider skis. Think I am going back to narrows like how I started. Thank you for your strong opinion!

[@bridgetbarnhart9272]

It’s great to finally have research supporting free skiing on a similar ski that the kids are training gates on!

[@dennisgoetz3521]

Deb - thanks for this video! We rent skis (bring our own boots) when we travel to CO -- consistent theme at rental shops is "wider is better". On the rare POW day, I get it; however, most days are spent on groomers and bumps. I never understood why they recommended fat skis -- I was more comfortable on narrow skis. I'd suggest the ski shop recommendations have more to do with their inventory then the proper ski.

[@ozein312]

Absolutely love the content you put out Debbie. Wonderful! Thank you

[@janinerosenke5463]

Fascinating research. Thanks for sharing.

[@JanosKoranyi]

I agree and feel happy that you pick up this issue.. It has been a race going on out there, with ever increasing ski wastes and rockers. It´s easy to believe that a wider ski is more stable and a big rocker makes it easier to ski up on any bumps and in deep snow, people by these skis because they want an easy life on there skis. But they do not realize that it is much more complicated to make carved turns on those skis and most of these people wish to make carving also. All exaggerations lead to major problems.

[@danblumel]

I am 65 YO and 6'3" tall about 210 lbs,. I have always preferred (45 years) and mostly skied on GS racing skis (back in the day 210 Kastle, more recently 198 Fischer or Blizzard) as my preference on groomed runs. Glad you confirmed the thinking I already had and you will again in a future video you alluded will be coming. My current skis are all about 65mm underfoot.

[@karlk9316]

Wonderful to see in a different Deb Armstrong video, kiddos around age ten, skiing on cross country skis.

[@ttmallard]

Great focus & seeing the mass choices ... cheers🍺

[@MaxRank]

I ski only in Montana on a 98 underfoot Armada. Great all mountain ski with good edge grip performance. Highly variable snow conditions dictate for me this is the best ski for my style. Colorado groomers in direct sunlight, I’m going narrower for sure. Great content Deb.

[@yuurishibuya4797]

Great research, can you provide link to document, I would love read it.

[@nazneenkaka2083]

I’m a physical therapist that works with female athletes of all ages and sport. As a VERY novice skier myself, this information is very helpful. I wonder if we find male vs female differences in muscle recruitment considering changing anatomy of females at that age as well..?!

[@DebArmstrongSkiStrong]

I am not sure if that science is out there or not. This study did not differentiate muscle recruitment between the genders. that would be very interesting to know. take care

[@mchristopher]

Deb, I love your videos. This is very interesting. I have U12 and U14 skiers (girls). Both are excellent racers and spend the majority of their ski time training (drills and gates) with their programs. The U14 is at a Vermont Ski Academy training 5 days a week. My thoughts were to get them out of the race course and race mindset from time to time - skiing bumps and woods and terrain park to add variety and athleticism. I recently purchased wide skis (95mm) for this purpose: 1: to change up their equipment and 2. So they wouldn’t trash their race skis. Do you think having them “play” on the wide skis from time to time would be detrimental or beneficial for a kid lucky enough to have access both race skis and wide skis? With all weekend clubs shut down in Vermont this season I also felt it would help keep it fun while having to ski with Dad. The overwhelming majority of the time they are on their race skis. Ok? Good? Or sell them? Thank you!!!

[@joeybennett1491]

Variety in a discipline will only have a positive impact on their skill set. It’s a concept that bridges multiple domains.

[@calleX]

Interesting but we are not all 13 year old racers. A 90kg 6'1 man can turn a 100mm wide ski with two sheets of metals in them easy and they carve great. Wide skis are also more fun after 11:00h when every piste is turned into slushy mogul piles. I see so many intermediates sturggle horribly trying to neogtiate the choppy snow on their 64mm skis. A big ski plow and cut trough everything, just carve like it's curdroy.

[@user-ze9dd7lv2w]

How to contact you? Thanks

[@LS-jh7st]

Deb, enjoy ALL of your videos. Going narrower, what width range do you suggest for adult recreational skiers? I am 64 years old and continuing to learn and improve.

[@DebArmstrongSkiStrong]

What kind of skier are you?

[@LS-jh7st]

@@DebArmstrongSkiStrong advanced?? Starting skiing at 44, have taken some lessons attended some ski schools, ski mostly groomed blue and single black, but do venture into bumps and ungroomed. Like to make turns and control my speed. Ski 10 days/year out west, Utah and Colorado. Have owned my own boots forever but always have rented skis.

[@DebArmstrongSkiStrong]

@@LS-jh7st sounds good. A 75ish to 80ish underfoot. That would be a nice range I think.

[@LS-jh7st]

@@DebArmstrongSkiStrong thank you, keep the videos coming, really enjoy and can’t wait to use the information. Heading to Utah end of March. Gonna be a really good skier someday!

[@VickiKech]

Harder for me to get 88mm ski on edge too.

[@normalizedaudio2481]

Turn initiation. It's a big deal. Needs to be right. I don't like all that extra crap on the side of the ski. I'm not into it. Please stop telling me to buy some new skis on the ski lift. Deep power works out OK. Just keep up speed and point them down.

[@tamcaj]

Très intéressant !

[@proverbalizer]

Wait so race skis work better for race training? I'm shocked

[@patrickchase5614]

The problem with both this study (and her other "Elite Skier" paper) is that it doesn't properly isolate ski width as an input or control for other factors. As Nunnikhoven herself says, she compared a slalom ski to an off-the-shelf all-mountain ski. There are many non-width differences in play, specifically in longitudinal flex, torsional flex, camber, sidecut, rocker, and tip/tail taper. The muscle-recruitment differences that she measured have very plausible alternative explanations involving these other factors, independent of width. The only way to obtain her claimed conclusion is to make or obtain narrow and wide skis that are designed/optimized to control for those other factors. Because she didn't do that, all she can possibly conclude is that she measured differences attributable to _those specific skis_, not to width in general. I say this as an ex-racer and somebody who absolutely loves narrow skis (I ride SLs, 3 flavors of GS, SG, and DH skis). I love skinny skis. I also have wider skis that vary quite a bit in terms of those other factors (ranging from "widened race-stock GS" to McConkey-ish "sliders", and my experience has always been that camber, [lack of] taper, [non-]rocker, and sidecut are collectively more important than width. I would agree if she'd instead claimed that "typical wide all-mountain / freeride skis" create the impacts she measured, and that agrees with my experience and what I see with my own children. I just think that trying instead to attribute all of the impacts of the multivariate ski design space to "width" is absurdly reductive and misleading.

[@DebArmstrongSkiStrong]

Thank you for your comment

[@patrickchase5614]

@@DebArmstrongSkiStrong Thanks for being so accepting of a somewhat "strong" comment. I do want to throw out some examples of what I'm referring to: If you look at the Dynastar Pro Rider and Faction Dictator/Dancer 2/3/4 skis, they're basically widened dual-metal-layer GS skis, with a small amount of tip rocker, minuscule tail rocker, and no tip or tail taper to speak of. They initiate and finish turns with similar pressure dynamics to racing skis despite being 105 and 96/106/116 (for Dancer 2/3/4) mm wide. Admittedly they are slower edge to edge, take more work to edge, and don't grip as well on ice due to unfavorable leverage, but I don't think they encourage so much in the way of technical adjustments or different muscular recruitment. Another ski in this vein that you might be familiar with is the now-discontinued Fischer Ranger 107Ti (the black-colored stablemate to your pink 102s, but stiffer and with much less rocker/taper). I would be willing to bet that if Nunnikhoven had used any of these as her "wide" ski she would have seen smaller differences. At the other extreme you have skis like the original old Rossi S7 and Soul7, or the DPS Wailer 112, which have very deep rocker and especially tip/tail taper, and very short middle sections with conventional camber (lack of rocker) and sidecut (lack of tip/tail taper). They don't really have tips that you can drive into, and have to be initiated (or more specifically _not_ initiated) and ridden "from the middle", and I suspect that this sort of thing is what Nunnikhoven's measurements reflected. There are a lot of "wide" skis that are in between these extremes, like the Volkl Mantra (which has long but subtle rocker extending far back from tip/tail, and relatively little tip/tail taper) and your Ranger 102s (which have more pronounced but "shorter" tip/tail rocker than the Mantra, and noticeable tip/tail taper). I think that a study similar to Nunnikhoven's that included exemplars of the broad categories above as well as narrow carving/racing skis would be a really interesting opportunity to look at the relative importance of these various design factors. It wouldn't totally isolate for any single attribute, but it would at least provide some hints.

[@DebArmstrongSkiStrong]

@@patrickchase5614 you are very knowledgeable. Appreciate your points. What informs your perspective and knowledgeable equipment insight?

[@patrickchase5614]

​@@DebArmstrongSkiStrong I'm just an obsessive skier with engineering and lowish-level junior/college/club racing backgrounds, and a day job that allows me to accumulate a lot of skis and try different things. I ride a lot at Mammoth and therefore spend a fair amount of time on open runs filled with wind buff and/or chop, and "widened GS skis" are an absolute blast in those conditions. Their long running and effective lengths make them very stable and allow conventional (from an ex-racer's perspective) turn mechanics, while their width prevents them from sinking. "Back in the day" I rode 213 cm Super-Gs in similar conditions, and I think that the stiffer and less rockered/tapered wider skis are worthy replacements. Those preferences extend to my powder skis, where I prefer reverse-cambered, minimally-tapered skis to ones with positive camber in the middle and extensive rocker and taper at the ends. You can engage the entire edge of a reverse-cambered ski on harder snow by bringing it up on edge, but rockered tips/tails are simply useless on anything that isn't fairly soft. My $0.02.

[@DebArmstrongSkiStrong]

@@patrickchase5614 love it!!!!! Well informed

[@gregforney6427]

Heidi takes our chair lift banter to a scientifically proven "told you so." You folks working in ski shops promoting "cool" fat skis are really doing your customers a huge disservice. Of course you would know that if you could ski well...

[@fredharvey2720]

James Bond skis spotted.

[@DebArmstrongSkiStrong]

Ha

[@fredharvey2720]

@@DebArmstrongSkiStrong Olin Mark VI. kzbin.info/www/bejne/q3-vipiHnt1gfZo