Secrets of Effective Skiing: How to Lift a Leg with a Stable Posture & Pull Back the Inside Ski

[@canadianskimonger]

Wow! This is coaching at its best. Thank you a thousand times.

[@OzoneSkiing]

Thank you! :) More in progress!

[@gairnmclennan5876]

Yes totally agree thanks! Very good video. I ski on one leg a few turns left and right turns linked. I know i need to do as you say to improve my technique.

[@OzoneSkiing]

Thank you! :) Skiing is amazing; it is so versatile and can never be boring, but on the other hand, it can never be perfect. There is always room for improvement. I'm working on the third part, but before that, another video about the background of the movements will be released.

[@kuanjuliu]

This "keep inside ski tip on snow" while lifting it is precisely what PMTS' Phantom Move prescribes, but doesn't explain in terms of the biomechanics. I only just got this to work recently after deep thought and very slow practice on bunny slopes. Doing it successfully also puts your stance leg (the one left on the snow) onto the balls of that foot, ready for edge angles to develop. Brilliant explanation. I've just tried the "Lego brick" exercise in barefeet and look forward to testing it out on the slopes this week!

[@OzoneSkiing]

Thank you! :) I strongly believe that understanding is the key to successful motor learning :)

[@Steph-iw3hr]

Hello When it comes to javelin turn , the inside hip is moving upward ? A bit The outside is pushed on big toe with a kind of Inner thigh muscle rolling inside ? Am I wrong Stick turn is more about keeping the ski straight with a hamstring pullback Javelin is more a drill to put pressure on outside ski using 1 leg Stock turn to learn the hamstring pullback Thanks for your feedback

[@OzoneSkiing]

In my opinion, the hip should be leveled near horizontal. There may be many purposes for a javelin, depending on the execution form. It looks like an outside drill, but it is more about pelvic stability through the inside hip flexors and medial rotators. A stable pelvis can result in a solid outside leg, and a stable outside leg and pelvis can receive pressure better from the outside ski. The biggest issue with the javelin is that 90% of skiers do it by sitting on the tail of the outside ski. This form is a big mistake, good for nothing. I completely agree with the importance of pulling back the ski, and it can also be practiced with a javelin.

[@shooter7a]

I totally disagree. Pelvic bone tilt (more commonly called hip levling) is more far important than hip flexion. Pelvic bone tilt is mandatory to aggressively tilt your feet/skis. This is what enable WC skiers to initiate turns so quickly. Watch this... kzbin.info/www/bejne/enjCdZptlLN8qpI I am pretty sure Mikaela's tech coach 2015-2017 knew what he was doing when he had Mikaela practice exaggerating this motion! Pelvic bone tilt is there with all elite skiers, though it is sometimes hard to see because of their high edge angles. You THINK they are square, but they are not even close. Their inside hip is hiked so much that the pelvic bone tilt is 20-30 degrees beyond square to outside ski force vector. You should maximize your pelvic bone tilt/ leveling before you use hip flexion. Some skiers have pelvic bones that just naturally level, enabling them to start turns easily from the feet. Ski coaches just assume these skiers are simply more talented. But most skiers do not, and they have to work actively on the pelvic bone tilt to enable their feet to tilt and start the turn. A common failing of coaches is to fail to notice which skiers naturally have a pelvic bone that does not want to tilt, and thus limits their ability to tip the feet to start the turn. This is why Brandon had Mikaela do this drill....it activates that complimentary motion of hip leveling. Try starting a turn decisively on SG skis without aggressive hip hiking.... you can't.

[@madispalm1517]

I've also had good results paying attention to a "hip hike" like Shiffrin, Puckett or Deb Armstrong recommends.

[@shooter7a]

@@madispalm1517for me, it was a night and day difference in my skiing, due to an injury. I tore a bunch of muscles in my lower back decades ago, and my pelvic bone tilt is harder in one direction due to scar tissue limiting range of motion/tilt. The result was that I had a really hard time initiating right turns (left ski) on 30m GS skis. This took me a YEAR + to figure out. When I discussed this problem with coaches, they told me...."just do what you are doing for the left turn on the right turn". Yeah...like I did not think of that. They were utterly useless...and we are talking about former USST coaches. I even ASKED them about hip hiking, and they dismissed it....telling me some vague nonsense about getting stacked over my outside ski. The problem was my biomechanics were resulting in my pelvic bone not wanting to hike. We are talking about a 5 degree difference. No coach can see that in your pelvic bone. All it took was my actively thinking about tilting the pelvic bone...like a switch, in transition, and then concentrating on it to make my turn initiation come to life. After I decided that my pelvic bone tilt was the problem, and I practiced it for WEEKS, the coaches are suddenly saying I am skiing so much better and how all I needed to do was "do it the same". That have no clue that I literally spent 20 hours of skiing concentrating on pelvic bone tilting (which they dismissed)...and started doing exercises to activate my gluteus medius muscles. Even today it seems that ski coaches are sometimes so clueless as to what really works.

[@OzoneSkiing]

We are not far from each other! First, it is easier to agree when we use the same terms for the same movements. (Unfortunately, using figures or videos in a comment is impossible. It could be easier to explain all the movements with some drawings. I may prepare a video when I have time.) Hip hike - and hip drop - is when one side of the pelvis is higher or lower than the other side. ""Pelvic tilt" means something else - APT or PPT). Usually, jip hike refers to a one-leg stance situation. In this case, we have to use the same muscles of a hip hike to prevent a hip drop: most of all, the gluteus medius. To understand the movement of a bone, we must take into consideration the origin of the movement. For example, extension or flexion in the hip joint can result in an up or down movement of the femur - if the pelvis is fixed. But when the femur is fixed, the pelvis tilts forward or back. The pelvis has three joints: the hips connect the lower extremity and the pelvis. The upper joint is the complex of the discs of the lumbar spine. The movements can be in the hip joints, or the spine can bend. In this video of Michaela Schiffrin, all the explanation drawings show that the pelvis and the shoulders are parallel, the spine is perpendicular to them and fixed, the upper body tries to stay straight and upright. This is what "squared" means. A golden rule of sports is that the spine must be fixed near the anatomical curvature under load - this is the case at the apex of a turn. That's why it is an essential point in all drawings in the video. She does a lot of gym training where they never bend the spine under load. So we can exlude the solution of the lateral lumbar spine bend. In skiing, "hip hike" does not mean lifting one side of the pelvis by bending the lumbar spine. It is a very unhealthy and unstable movement. Never try to do it when you want to stay healthy. Otherwise - do it freely, but do not complain when it hurts when you get older.! :D So, how can we view an angulation in the body between the upper and the lower body? There are two options: 1. The angulation is between the pelvis and the upper body by a bend in the spine. In this case, the pelvis and shoulder axes aren't parallel. Never do it... Dangerous, unhealthy, ineffective. 2. The angulation is in the hip joint, between the pelvis and the lower extremity. In this case, the pelvis and shoulder axes stay parallel. Squared. This is what the drawings on the video look like. It combines adduction, rotation, and hip extension of the outside hip regarding the femur. Abduction, rotation, and flexion of the inside hip. Completely different than bending the spine. In the video, we can read at 0:06: "Sekeletal alignment (stacked) pre roll-up." This is what "square" means: "square" upper body is because the pelvis and the shoulders are in a square geometry, as all drawings in this video suggest. "Leveling" is the same: it means that the skier doesn't let drop the inside hip. But it is not made by a lumbar spine bend; instead, it is an outside glutes activity in the hip joint and, simultaneously, an inside hip flexors activity - in the hip joint. This is what is said in the video. Look at the stance and how Michaela starts the drills: the first muscular activity of her is a definite hip flection of her right femur. She levels her pelvis, not letting her hip drop with a right hip flection and a left gluteus medius extension. But she does not raise her inside hip. Never. Thinking that hip hiking is an inside hip lift by banding the spine is a big mistake. "Hip hike" is not a hip raise with a lumbar spine bend. It combines the inside hip flection, outside hip extension, and adduction. The result is a pelvis shift to the center of the turn. What I describe in the video is the base of this movement in a stance. In the video, I am not speaking about the turn. Simple, because it is about the fundamentals in the stance. Turns come later :) So there is zero contradiction between Michale"s video and what I said in this one. :)

[@shooter7a]

@@OzoneSkiing ". But she does not raise her inside hip. Never." But she does. It is right there to see. It is a huge and deliberate motion. How can you say that when it happens plain as day.

[@shooter7a]

@@OzoneSkiing you know...I started in business as an Engineer. I long since moved to the technical sales area in my industry, but I am still an Engineer at heart. I work with and sell to large Engineering firms that design huge infrastructure projects. In the world of complex ideas and principles, we have an axiom relating to expertise. And that is if you can not explain something clearly and succinctly, with a minimum of words, to a non expert in the topic, then you yourself probably do not have true expertise. When I see you have to write that much to explain a single aspect biomechanical kinematics, it makes me seriously doubt if you know what you are talking about.