I think it's good to train and practice technique styles that are different
than how you actually race. Like I have trained lots of hours doing
hips-forward quiet-upper-body no-poles-skating, even though I will almost
never do that in a race. I think it's fine if Carl Swenson practices lots
of Quiet Upper Body V1 offset skate, even though he knows he's going to be
doing mostly shoulder-swing V1 up the hills in an actual race.
Jeff Potter wrote
It doesn't have to be slavishly followed in races either.
When the racer is on the course he then does what he thinks best.
Good -- but surely it makes sense also to _train_ with the techniques I know
I'm going to actually use in the race. Because shoulder-swing V1 uses
different upper body muscles than QUB V1, and those muscles are not going to
perform as well if they haven't been trained. So I've been spending time
specifically training my shoulder-swing V1.
It's paying off for me. Yesterday out on real snow on real hills I tried
out my shoulder-swing V1 and I felt strong climbing the hills. Sometimes
lost the shoulder swing and started slowing down (but my view was nicer
without my head making that big loop motion). I noticed that I was bogging
down, and it hit me that I had lapsed back into the old Quiet Upper Body
mode. So I consciously started my shoulder swing again, and immediately my
speed up the hill felt better.
I didn't actually measure the difference with a stop-watch -- sounds like a
future experiment for me.
Ken
"Jeff Potter" wrote in message
.. .
Ken Roberts wrote:
[ ] Which takes us to the amusing admission in a
more recent New Skate article: that the World Cup winners still do show
lots of shoulder rotation and swinging in their V1 offset climbing up
hills,
but they would all be faster if they would just start following the New
Skate principle of Quiet Upper Body. (though the one video clip I've
seen
of Carl Swenson makes it seem like Vordenberg has had trouble even
getting
all his own U.S. skaters to follow that rule.)
Well, we know they are working on some changes. They admit it's a risk. It
could be a winning risk WITHOUT having all other countries imitate it. It
might
work even in terms of training for US in OUR situation. We don't have the
heritage and the depth: maybe a technique/training adaption is needed,
something we can EFFECTIVELY key off of. It doesn't have to make sense. It
has
to WORK. It doesn't have to be slavishly followed in races either. When
the
racer is on the course he then does what he thinks best. His training and
coaching and technique are then his background. The final presentation is
a
unique elixir! Slavishly follow anything at your risk. I don't think Pete
has
ever said that in a winning race we will see Kris do this or that, or that
for
others to then beat him in turn they will have to do this or that. It is
something we're trying. If it works, we will WIN. In the winning race we
might
see our skier even do marathon skate or herringbone up a hill! Will this
refute
his training if he wins? No! It will vindicate it! Will he likely change
his
training if he wins? No! Same reason. If it works, who cares how it plays
out.
Do we really know any of these things? Each skier will take his
training/coaching/tech/skis/wax/mood and do something special and custom
with
it to suit him best: let the best skier win!
--
Jeff Potter
****
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