An excellent site for ski technique...

Miko the pooch wrote:

In article ,
The Real Bev writes:
Kidney belt. You too can have that stylish dirndl look.

I'm not sure a kidney belt really supports the back. If it did wouldn't
it be called a "back belt" ?

Hey, I didn't name it. I know that when I started wearing one dirt riding I
experienced a lot less pain and soreness. Perhaps it's called that because
your back extends from your neck to your coccyx, but your kidneys are in a
pretty specific place.

--
Cheers,
Bev
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
I remember when everybody posted to Usenet with their real, deliverable
e-mail address. Of all the sins committed by the spammers, destroying
the viability of the open Internet was the worst.
(Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, news.admin.net-abuse.email)

"Miko the pooch" wrote in message
...
In article ,
The Real Bev writes:
Kidney belt. You too can have that stylish dirndl look.

I'm not sure a kidney belt really supports the back. If it did wouldn't
it be called a "back belt" ?

bruno.

The Kidney belt that Bev is talking about is very similar to the ones that
you see the workers in Home Depot & Lowes wearing but without the shoulder
straps at least the ones that I wore many years ago when I rode a dirt bike
and early day street motorcycles. The idea was to help keep the kidneys
from bouncing around and do a little back support. If too much movement was
done you could end up with severe kidney problems, blood in urine etc.
These belts are definitely not like the weight lifting back support belts.

JQ
Dancing on the edge

In article ,
"JQ" writes:
The Kidney belt that Bev is talking about is very similar to the ones that
you see the workers in Home Depot & Lowes wearing but without the shoulder
straps at least the ones that I wore many years ago when I rode a dirt bike
and early day street motorcycles.

I'm pulling Bev's chain. I wear one riding motocross and a couple of years
ago I started wearing one skiing too. If they are useful while you are being
bounced around on a bike they should be good for skiing too.
I think they are correctly named and prevent organs from moving around.
When I used to suffer from back pain many years ago I wore one but it didn't
help that much. If you want back support you need to basically build muscles
around the trunk. Abs, back, obliques...
TKD is an excellent sport for that. My back problems went away after I
started attending classes one of my coworker offered.

bruno.

Miko the pooch wrote:
In article ,
"ant" writes:
Very true. Although if you ski them gently with turns rather than
hitting them, all your bits will be fine.

I agree with that. I'm 45 years old and ski around 80% bumps
when I'm on the hill. At the end of the day I have muscle fatigue
but no joint problems. In fact I'm currently skiing bumps with a
sprained MCL (from soccer not skiing) and as long as long as I keep
good form that hasn't been a problem.

Alan feels we're doing it wrong....

I think I'll stick with the US way, my knees and back don't like the look of
that Canadian fellow smashing against them.

--
ant

Alan Baker wrote:
In article ,
"ant" wrote:

Miko the pooch wrote:
In article ,
VtSkier writes:
There are those of us who don't want to ski bumps the
way a competitive bump skier does. Many of us don't
have the knees and stamina to do it.

Bumps will kill your lower back much faster than your knees.

Very true. Although if you ski them gently with turns rather than
hitting them, all your bits will be fine.

And you'll also ski very fast as you can't skid off speed skiing in
the troughs...

What? You are kidding. A round turn kills off speed wherever you use it. You
also use pressure control, and absorption, but without hard impact first. As
for the troughs, well, the US style uses any bit of the bump you want.
ridges and bridges, contours, troughs, or as many of us do, a mix of all of
them. You don't have to smash into the bumps to slow down.



All I'm saying is that video clip shows bad hand position.
Look at the last frame and his hand and arm is extended behind his
body.

He's throwing his hands out a lot, but the real problem is he's
leaving the pole in the snow while he turns, and the hand ends up
out and behind him. That's going to do some funky things with the
upper body, and will make you late for the next turn.

Ummm...

He makes 5 pole plants in that sequence and in none of them is there
any sign that he is late.

His hand is in the snow for too long on each turn. His body comes back low,
he smashes into the bump, and he's late, way late, for the next turn.
Unless smashing into bumps is a desirable outcome, which I suspect for him
is the case.


You can see it in the way he hits the next bump, and his ski tips go
up. He's low and back, and is using each impact to check his speed,
and then he recovers.

He's low, he's not back.

He's more back than you'd want to be for a smooth, controlled trip through
the bumps.

In US modern technique, you don't want so much of your skis off the
snow for that long, and you don't want to be hitting the bumps and
then ricocheting. You want to be making round turns, keeping the ski
on the snow. I bet his knees and his lower back talk to him about
this quite often.

LOL

That sequence is all about reducing impact.

And there is simply no way to keep your skis on the snow in bumps
unless you ski the troughs exclusively. Bumps have a different
curvature than the camber of your typical ski so as you go over one,
first your tips and then your tails will be off the snow. Every time.

You need to bone up on modern technique, even 90s will do. We don't want to
toss the skis in the air; the aim is to keep the skis on the snow, tipping
the tips down on each crest so they contact the snow rather than being
knocked into the air. And no, you do not have to ski the troughs. You plot
your route, and do it with constant control (especially pressure control)
rather than impact.

He's a good bump skiier, but there's better, easier ways now.

Ant: you may be a ski instructor, but you aren't even close to being
in Butler's league.

Maybe not, but his style of skiing bumps is old school, and may work for him
but it's hard on the body and very impractical for most people. It looks
really good, but there's better ways. The bump skiiers I admire are older,
much older, and do it with grace and control.

--
ant

In article ,
"ant" wrote:

Miko the pooch wrote:
In article ,
"ant" writes:
Very true. Although if you ski them gently with turns rather than
hitting them, all your bits will be fine.

I agree with that. I'm 45 years old and ski around 80% bumps
when I'm on the hill. At the end of the day I have muscle fatigue
but no joint problems. In fact I'm currently skiing bumps with a
sprained MCL (from soccer not skiing) and as long as long as I keep
good form that hasn't been a problem.

Alan feels we're doing it wrong....

I do? This is news to me...


I think I'll stick with the US way, my knees and back don't like the look of
that Canadian fellow smashing against them.

It's all about glancing over the sides of the moguls.

--
Alan Baker
Vancouver, British Columbia
"If you raise the ceiling 4 feet, move the fireplace from that wall
to that wall, you'll still only get the full stereophonic effect
if you sit in the bottom of that cupboard."

In article ,
"ant" wrote:

Alan Baker wrote:
In article ,
"ant" wrote:

Miko the pooch wrote:
In article ,
VtSkier writes:
There are those of us who don't want to ski bumps the
way a competitive bump skier does. Many of us don't
have the knees and stamina to do it.

Bumps will kill your lower back much faster than your knees.

Very true. Although if you ski them gently with turns rather than
hitting them, all your bits will be fine.

And you'll also ski very fast as you can't skid off speed skiing in
the troughs...

What? You are kidding. A round turn kills off speed wherever you use it. You
also use pressure control, and absorption, but without hard impact first. As
for the troughs, well, the US style uses any bit of the bump you want.
ridges and bridges, contours, troughs, or as many of us do, a mix of all of
them. You don't have to smash into the bumps to slow down.

A turn kills off more speed than going straight, but a turn that is
carved or naturally banked because of the terrain doesn't kill of much.

And if you're talking about going anywhere in the bumps then you're
going to have to absorb the impact part of the time.




All I'm saying is that video clip shows bad hand position.
Look at the last frame and his hand and arm is extended behind his
body.

He's throwing his hands out a lot, but the real problem is he's
leaving the pole in the snow while he turns, and the hand ends up
out and behind him. That's going to do some funky things with the
upper body, and will make you late for the next turn.

Ummm...

He makes 5 pole plants in that sequence and in none of them is there
any sign that he is late.

His hand is in the snow for too long on each turn. His body comes back low,
he smashes into the bump, and he's late, way late, for the next turn.
Unless smashing into bumps is a desirable outcome, which I suspect for him
is the case.

He wasn't late for any turn in the sequence.



You can see it in the way he hits the next bump, and his ski tips go
up. He's low and back, and is using each impact to check his speed,
and then he recovers.

He's low, he's not back.

He's more back than you'd want to be for a smooth, controlled trip through
the bumps.

LOL

I love people who feel they can criticize the true experts of an
activity...


In US modern technique, you don't want so much of your skis off the
snow for that long, and you don't want to be hitting the bumps and
then ricocheting. You want to be making round turns, keeping the ski
on the snow. I bet his knees and his lower back talk to him about
this quite often.

LOL

That sequence is all about reducing impact.

And there is simply no way to keep your skis on the snow in bumps
unless you ski the troughs exclusively. Bumps have a different
curvature than the camber of your typical ski so as you go over one,
first your tips and then your tails will be off the snow. Every time.

You need to bone up on modern technique, even 90s will do. We don't want to
toss the skis in the air; the aim is to keep the skis on the snow, tipping
the tips down on each crest so they contact the snow rather than being
knocked into the air. And no, you do not have to ski the troughs. You plot
your route, and do it with constant control (especially pressure control)
rather than impact.

He isn't "tossing" his skis anywhere, but when you take an essentially
straight ski over a convex bump, then part of it is going to be off the
snow.

The only way to avoid that is to never ski the convex portion of the
bumps: i.e. ski the troughs.


He's a good bump skiier, but there's better, easier ways now.

Ant: you may be a ski instructor, but you aren't even close to being
in Butler's league.

Maybe not, but his style of skiing bumps is old school, and may work for him
but it's hard on the body and very impractical for most people. It looks
really good, but there's better ways. The bump skiiers I admire are older,
much older, and do it with grace and control.

Ummmm...

Butler is at *least* 45-46 years old. He was a member of Canada's
Interski team in 1981, and I very much doubt he was younger than 20 when
he did it. More likely he is over 50.

Did you even bother to *read* the text that came with the little clip?

--
Alan Baker
Vancouver, British Columbia
"If you raise the ceiling 4 feet, move the fireplace from that wall
to that wall, you'll still only get the full stereophonic effect
if you sit in the bottom of that cupboard."

TKD is an excellent sport for that. My back problems went away after I
started attending classes one of my coworker offer

Hey, what is TKD, my back is screwed (I've got a partially cruched
vertebra) so any thing that works is interesting to me.

"fat_boy" wrote in message
ups.com...
TKD is an excellent sport for that. My back problems went away after I
started attending classes one of my coworker offer

Hey, what is TKD, my back is screwed (I've got a partially cruched
vertebra) so any thing that works is interesting to me.

TKD = Tae Kwon Do is a Korean form of martial arts similar to karate but
concentrating on kicking techniques.
It does not really help back problems other than getting one to be more
physically active thus strengthening the supporting muscles, because of the
concentration on kicking it can cause back problems. How did you hurt your
back? How long ago and what have you done to remedy the problem? If you do
not have bone fractures in the back I would recommend seeing a good hands on
chiropractor that actually does joint manipulations. It will take several
visits before the adjustments will take hold, but you must do your part in
strengthening the muscles the help support the area.

JQ
Dancing on the edge

JQ wrote:

"fat_boy" wrote in message
ups.com...

TKD is an excellent sport for that. My back problems went away after I
started attending classes one of my coworker offer

Hey, what is TKD, my back is screwed (I've got a partially cruched
vertebra) so any thing that works is interesting to me.

TKD = Tae Kwon Do is a Korean form of martial arts similar to karate but
concentrating on kicking techniques.

Um... Please don't tell us that you do this while you are skiing.

//Walt
//
// But if you do, post video.