VtSkier wrote:

The Real Bev wrote:
"Monique Y. Mudama" wrote:

After (half) a day of skiing, my quads are always burning and they're weak
enough that I worry about being able to make turns well.

Me too, but the big muscles in the lower leg participate in the misery
too, and it hits way sooner.

IME(experience), calf muscles hurting has a lot to do with boots
being too tight, or not supporting your ankles well enough.

I don't think that's it. Same thing happened with Tecnica TNTs, the
Raichle mumblesomethings (the rear-entries with lots of adjustments) and
my current boots, Nordica Air F9 Syntechs. If I try to turn by moving
my knees I move way too much and crash, so I use my ankles instead (I
have ****-poor feedback mechanisms), which stresses various calf
muscles. That's what knocks them out. What knocks the quads out is
just standing with my knees flexed for more than 30 seconds. Lifetime
problem, with or without walking/bicycling/weight lifting. Really
strong, but can't use it very long.

Friends tell me that
my thighs really shouldn't be working *that* hard. I'm told to learn to do
things like "let the boot support your weight," but even standing still on
skis, I can't seem to get into a position where my thighs aren't working to
keep myself upright.

Again my experience. My quads experience much the same as yours
early in the season. As time goes by it gets less and less. I
believe that this is due to two things. 1) condition/being in
shape. I don't do a lot to keep my quads/hamstrings in good
shape through the summer. The boots you bought (from an earlier
thread) should be stiff enough to hold you upright (at the
predetermined forward angle of the boot).

I was under the impression that the TNTs were supposed to hold you at a
decent forward angle, but apparently not. Yes, I adjusted them for max
forward lean. Not enough.

And, actually maybe
your quads *should* be working that hard. 2) lightening up. As I
get miles under me, I'm less "on guard", less tense, more
flexible, or maybe not more flexible, but just more springy.

Here in the east we often have less than wonderful visibility.
Especially after 3:00PM, even on a relatively good day the
light gets flat. Add to that real snow falling or snow guns
spraying away. If I wasn't quite springy, especially in late
afternoon bumps, I'd be on my ass in no time. I call it skiing
in Braille. You can't see anything beyond general features, so
you have to feel where you are going. Being very "springy"
helps you stay upright.

It's actually easier to ski when you can't see very well, providing you
KNOW that there isn't anything nasty in front of you. I conclude this
is right brain skiing, which works way better than left-brain skiing.
Dirtbiking too.

I'm also good to myself when my condition from, say, having a
REALLY good day the day before makes me less than optimum. I
stop often, both in terms of laps and in terms of number of
turns before I stop and look up the hill as if I'm waiting for
someone (it's a good ploy).

I have to stop every 30 seconds or so. I'm way too old to need excuses,
I just STOP!

Neither can I. The standard advice is "get forward," which I believe to
be true. Unfortunately, getting far enough forward to consistently feel
my boot-tongues with my shins requires me to lean WAY forward, such that
I am seriously out of balance if something surprising happens. I am
told that I need softer boots, but since one pair of boots is rear-entry
which are traditionally soft, I don't think it's a hardware problem.

Bev, since you are into doing this on the cheap, we used to reinforce
the tongues of our boots to limit forward lean by stiffening it
in some way. Remember Raichle Flexons? You could actually buy stiffer
tongues than the ones that came on the boots. Some people actually
cut soup cans to fit over the boot tongue to give it more stiffness
(yeah, really). Yes, I know you are still using rear entry boots. May
they explode and give you cause to buy something more modern (at a
yard sale, of course).

Boot quiver listed above. I can honestly say that there is NO
difference in performance among my boots, just comfort and ease of
application. That's why I'm pretty sure it's just me.

My big problem is having my ski tips deflected by piles of crud, spots
of ice, etc. I keep the calves tensed to keep the skis pointed ahead
rather than wherever the snow wants me to go. I think everything would
work way better if I could just keep forward, relax, and BREATHE!

Softer boots are being touted for modern carving skis. They will
"encourage" you to find a neutral stance which isn't pressuring
the boot very much at all. My AT boots are soft enough to fall
into this category. My Fischer MountainX skis work very well with
these boots, but my Volkl 6stars don't do very well at all. To
do the things the 6stars are good at, I need to change the pressure
from fore to centered to back (occasionally) with some authority.

BTW, the softer boots I've seen are a frame for support with rest
of the shell made of softer materials more for fix and comfort
than for skiing flexibility. In fact most of the soft boots
are aimed at intermediate skiers. A few, the high end Kneissl
"Rail" ski boots have forward flex adjustment, just like high
end Technicas. Kneissl boots are not longer made or at least
no longer imported.

Yes, I know, these are "carving skis" and should react OK with
the soft boots, but they don't really do very well when I get
into stuff that's iffy, but work beautifully with my alpine boots.

I suspect that I'm fighting my skis, using too much force and not enough
finesse. Any specific suggestions/drills to learn how to make it easier on my
legs? It sucks when everyone else is still raring to go and you're not.
Especially the morning of the second day. Waste of a lift ticket.

I think I remember that your husband "lurves" bumps and you are
trying to keep up with him. You might try a bump clinic sometime,
not a general lesson, a bump specific lesson. You might also rent
a pair of low-level (plain vanilla rentals) sometime to ski in
bumps. They are often softer and more forgiving than the high
performance boards that most of us own. You will get some idea
of what bump-specific skis would be like from this exercise.

I find it's way easier and less tiring to go lots faster. It NEVER
hurts if I'm trying to catch up with somebody. The problem is that I
can only do this with minimal crowds, which happens just about never --
I have to ski as fast as I can while still being prepared to avoid the
erratically-moving slalom gates that cover the hill. BTW, is tomorrow
MLK Day, or the 17th? I made the mistake of going skiing on MLK Day
once. Worst crowds I'd ever seen. I guess people just don't know how to
celebrate properly.

There were so many people on some parts of my section of the
area yesterday at certain times that I actually got
spooked. At one wide place where several trails merge
(appropriately called the mixing bowl) I stopped and looked
up to see several hundred people skiing down at varying
levels of skill, all between 10 and 20 feet apart. REALLY
spooky.

I've tried shorter and longer skis, moving the bindings fore and aft,
and tightening and loosening several pairs of boots over the 10 years
I've been skiing. I feel certain that if I was willing to throw a
couple $thousand at the problem it could be solved, but I'm not that
sort of person :-(

For a given ski, any woman should mount the toepiece from
one to two centimeters further forward than a man would
on the same ski. This does not apply to women specific
skis because the manufacturer has already taken this
need into his placing the boot center mark on the skis.

Simply shorter or longer skis is not necessarily the
answer. Ski the ski in the size the manufacturer recommends
for your height/weight/aggressiveness. Or go to the next
size shorter if you don't ski at 40MPH all the time.

I would LOVE to ski at =40mph all the time, but I don't know whether
I've ever done it or not. I hope so. Speed is wonderful.

Bev, shaped skis are beginning to come on the market very
cheap. Especially used rental equipment (be careful here
because condition might be REALLY bad). Some rental
equipment has the kind of bindings that allow the toe
piece to be moved fore and aft.

Latest skis are Elan SCX 163 parabolics with rental bindings. I've
moved the bindings up and back, with not that much difference. The
first time I rented shaped skis was a revelation and I'll never go
back. I still love my 195 MSLs, but I'll probably never use them
again.

Go short with shaped skis.
For most women in the intermediate/advanced skill level
150 to 160 cm is enough. A really small woman should go
smaller. My 6stars are 165cm. My friend the instructor
is using 150cm 6stars. She's 5'-7" or so and about
135 pounds and a damn fine skier. Her husband, also
an instructor, is about 5'5 and 50# heavier and hates
her 6stars for various reasons.

I think I was happiest with 170 cm Rossi cheap rentals last year. The
160s seemed squirrelier. The Elans were so cheap I couldn't pass them
up, though!

--
Cheers, Bev
================================================== ===============
"A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person
or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even
possibly incurring losses." -- C.M.Cipolla