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Old July 2nd 03, 03:14 PM
Poachise
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Default what is more important in downhill, leg strength or aerobic capacity?


"Kurgan Gringioni" wrote
in message et...
I say aerobic capacity.

Why?

Well, you need leg strength to make turns, but you need aerobic

capacity to
breathe, right?

If you don't have leg strength, then you can't turn at high speeds,

but if
you can't breathe, then you'd be dead.

Dead people are definitely slower than people who lack leg

strength.
Therefore, I submit that aerobic capacity is more important in the

downhill.

Well, you're very close, but the actual answer is *anaerobic*
capacity.
You see at the speeds most downhillers are moving, when they open
their
mouth to breathe, the venturi effect draws all the air out of their
pleural cavity. The better ones use this little known fact to their
advantage by collapsing their rib cages, and thus decreasing their
cross-sectional area, enabling them to go faster due to the drag
reduction.

As you might imagine, not breathing at all during two minutes of very
high exertion puts quite a strain on the old bloodstream so most
downhiller take Geritol every day.


ps. I used to hang out with some skiers once, therefore I know what

I'm
talking about

You are clearly a very knowledgable person with a PhD. What do your
do
your dissertation on? I did mine on Biomechanical Implications of
Camel
Toe.

-P


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