learning V1: my videos + story from last week

I think the poling motion of elite racers for V1 skate is very different
from poling for V2, and very different from normal double-poling. I just
found some more elite-racer ideas to play with in my own V1 poling.

Basically the "weak side" arm of V1 should not be
left too low and behind, but instead be more like a
double pole as much as possible.

In dryland lesson a few months ago, the instructor told me my whole V1
poling with _both_ arms should be like normal double pole motion. And he
also introduced me to that hips-shoulders-stable-rectangle image.

But that's not what I'm seeing the elite racers doing -- including our
fastest American skater Carl Swenson -- see
http://avari182.mt.luth.se/Technic/swenson1.mpg
Here's the things I see in JanneG's Technique videos that make the poling so
different in V1:
-- shoulders tilted at initiation (hang-side higher)
-- hang-side hand starts further outside, with
-- pole-tip aimed slightly _inward_
-- shoulders aimed twisted to one side, not forward
-- less use of "upper crunch" muscles in upper chest
-- almost no crunch in lower abdomen during poling
(most of the crunch is to get forward _before_ poling)
-- no dropping of hips and butt during poling
-- most of the power comes from the _arms_
-- with assist from the abs-chest _twisting_ muscles
(to drive the shoulder down to push on the arm)

Here's what I'm trying to steal now for my V1:

(a) less use of my strong crunch muscles in poling (and no butt-drop) --
focus on arms: Because up-and-down motion is generally inefficient in the
physics of hill climbing. Instead focus on getting my shoulders and
center-of-mass _forward_ on hills, because I think that position gives more
favorable leverage for pushing at slower speeds for both arms and legs.

(b) turn to face square with the ski at initiation on my hang-side -- and
check by looking down. (but do _not_ worry about trying to face square with
the ski when I turn the other way for my leg-push on the off-side)

(c) initiate with my hang-side shoulder tilted+twisted high, and _untwist_
it together with my arm-push -- and look down to make sure I drive that
shoulder straight down at my hang-side ski.

(d) aim my hang-side pole-tip _inward_ -- because the unbalanced stronger
pole-push on one side naturally forces my shoulders to turn away toward the
other side. By starting my hang-side hand further out, and aiming the
pole-tip inward, that hang-side pole-push automatically applies a
self-correcting _counter-force_ to prevent the expected turning-away (so I
don't have to divert muscles or attention from other body parts to deal with
the problem of turning my shoulders away too early).

Also:

(e) by using the forward-step-up-the-hill move to allow me to land my
hang-side ski closer in, the additional range-of-motion at the start of my
stroke allows for more _time_ to drive my hand to below my waist before I
need to turn away to turn away to transfer my weight to the other ski.

(f) by not worrying about turning all the way to the other side, to face
square with the off-side ski, I remove another possible need to hurry to
start turning my shoulders away from the hang-side.

Ken

"Ken Roberts" wrote:

In dryland lesson a few months ago, the instructor told me my whole V1
poling with _both_ arms should be like normal double pole motion. And he
also introduced me to that hips-shoulders-stable-rectangle image.

But that's not what I'm seeing the elite racers doing -- including our
fastest American skater Carl Swenson -- see
http://avari182.mt.luth.se/Technic/swenson1.mpg

We are seeing the same thing but coming at it from different directions. My
"more like a double pole thing" statement was my interpretation of twisting
while comparing Nash to Muhlegg in V1 poling. I wasn't talking about your V1
poling. When I was learning, I bought an out-of-date book on general
cross-country skiing that said to "hide the (off-side) hand" from view if
you are looking from behind the skier to make sure that you were shifting
weight completely. The pictures showed the off-side hand low and crossing
much of the body to the strong side when bringing the poles forward... this
was the early 80's style. Daehlie does it to a lesser extent that that old
book showed, but he does it more than most current skiers. Evi Sachenbacher
(sp?) also poles like that, at least in what I saw on TV coverage of the
Salt Lake Olympics. I don't think it's a significant handicap for
Daehlie/Sachenbacher.. maybe it works better for some individuals.

Here's the things I see in JanneG's Technique videos that make the poling
so
different in V1:

(lots clipped)
My overall sense of the Swenson1 clip is of how strong his core is and how
he is about to keep it as one tight unit while going through the V1 upper
body motion, however it is described. What I try to do is let my hips
natural motion lead the upper body and that gets me into the right rhythm.
I bog down if what I do with my upper body motion clashes with the natural
hip motion that is there when I ski without poles, so I try to stay on top
of the hip motion with my rigid (maybe not the right word?) core. That's
what I do when I go from skiing no-poles with swinging hand motions, to with
technique hand motions, to with poling lightly, etc. Once I'm on top of my
hips, I can make adjustments, but the motion feels like it should be lead by
the hips. I'm no coach, so, maybe I'll go out skiing today and find that I
describe it wrong...

Don't let your physics analyses prevent you from trying things that are
counter-intuitive. I like physics myself (I have an engineering degree
myself, though it's in materials and I don't use it), but I find that the
armchair physics that I do in my head is sometimes incomplete. The best
technique is developed by feel and experimenting with alternatives.
Technique doesn't need knowledge of physics to be developed. Physics plus
bio explains why it is good technique (or better than an alternative) after
the fact. Swenson is a good technique model, and you might be able to
explain why it is good, but figuring out how to get there requires
experimenting, practice, feeling the moves, tips/coaching pointers, etc.,
but not physics.

"Lead with the hips" goes back at least as far as Audun Endestad's book.
Andrew's post just got me thinking about why it works -- or if maybe it's
_not_ always the most effective timing any more.

What I try to do is let my hips natural motion lead
the upper body and that gets me into the right rhythm.

That timing seems to hold true for the elite racers when they're making a
pole-push together with their skate-push, like in V2 or on the hang-side of
V1. I think the reason is because they want to keep their shoulder stable
in line with the main initial part of their pole-push. At the same time
they are already pushing their ski out to the side using their hip abductor
muscles (with help from the reactive side-force from stopping the sideways
shift over from the previous side). So their hip already starts shifting
back over to the other side. But they initiate the twist of their shoulders
only after the main pole-push, together with the final "skate-off" phase of
the leg-push. So the hips lead.

But when there's no pole-push, it does not look to me in the elite videos
like the hips still lead. In the transfer in V1 from the pole-recovery side
(which I often call the "off"-side) back to the hang-side, it almost looks
to me like the first move is by the off-side _hand_. Then I see the
shoulders start to turn toward the hang-side. The hips maybe just barely
start their sideways shift together with the shoulders -- or maybe not. But
the hips definitely do not lead the shoulders in that direction, by my view
with slow-motion and single-frame-advance.

And it appears clearly to me that the "big" rotation of the shoulders comes
_before_ the "big" shift of the hips over to the hang-side. My explanation
from the physics is that since there's no pole-push for the shoulders to
support, there's no need to hold back their rotation away to the other side.
And since the hip abductor muscles used for the first phase of the
skate-push are weaker than the big muscles used for the second phase -- and
the hip abductor muscles on the off-side are getting no assistance from any
pole-push -- they need all the help they can get. So it makes sense to
deliver the reactive side-force as early as possible during the leg-push.
Therefore the elite racers start twisting their shoulders back the other way
as soon as the off-side ski lands.

So in some situations the hips are just barely keeping up with the lead of
the hand and shoulders -- even falling behind during part of the sideways
transfer away from the pole-recovery side in V1 skate.

Ken

"Ken Roberts" wrote:

"Lead with the hips" goes back at least as far as Audun Endestad's book.

Actually that was the second book that I read for information on skating ...
I found it at the library when I was starting out. I don't recall where I
got the idea, or if I'm making it up, but I'm probably not meaning the same
"lead by the hips" that he used since I should have chosen other words. I
don't remember that book well anyway.

I was being confusing - sorry. I meant that the hips lead by directing how
and when the upper body motion should occur, not that they go first in the
movement . Leave out the hands and arms for now and just look at the
shoulder area and hips in the 30 photos of Nash again. The hips rock about
axes that are parallel to your direction of travel as one leg goes up and
then the other (recovery motion). The pelvis also rotates about a vertical
axis a bit as you kick, because the kick is not directly to the side (it
gets dragged back, even if you try to do it that way). This rotation is the
"facing the glide ski" thing, which you might do to a greater or lesser
extent depending on how much or little rotation there is (very little in V2
for example). Now if you stick a line vertically (o.k., canted forward a
bit like the upper body) through the pelvis as it rocks and rotates, it will
rock and rotate too (describing an circle or oval), roughly describing the
position of the torso as it moves, minus the compression, if any. I think
of it as the natural motion that the upper body makes as you swing your arms
alternately like you are walking or roller skating, keeping the torso rigid
and (and in position to weight the kicking leg assuming you can skate well
without poles). Keeping my upper body in that path rigidly attached to my
hips is how I try to stay "on top of" the hips. I probably shouldn't end my
last post with "lead with the hips", since if you look at the Nash photos
and look at the movement sequence from side to side, it is actually the
opposite sequence-wise. The reason why I try to stay on top of the hip
movement is that the upper body motion can clash with the lower body motion.
If you kill too much of the natural hip motion, your legs get bogged down.
When I started working on my V1 after figuring out I was doing it wrong, my
legs would bog down on hills with poles that I could skate up without poles.
That's why I suggested trying to feel the natural hip motion (rotation,
rocking) without poles, and then gradually try to get "on top of it" as you
work in hand movement and poles gradually. That's the basic movement that I
see. I might be seeing it wrong, so corrections are definitely welcome.
Maybe this is not the best way to teach it - as I said, I'm not a coach.
But it was how I figured out how to V1 progressing from a good no-pole skate
that worked on even the steepest hills. The movement does morph a bit in
the transistion. I think all that was a long-winded way of saying skate
well without poles and gradually work in the poles while concentrating on
not losing any of the legs. My interpretation of Vordenburg would be that
he is suggesting moderation of some of these movements, not changing the
basic movement pattern.

Yes, my thinking is that the first principles for using the upper body in
skating should be:
"Do no harm." and "Keep it Simple."

Andrew Lee wrote
The reason why I try to stay on top of the hip
movement is that the upper body motion can
clash with the lower body motion . . .
That's why I suggested trying to feel the natural
hip motion (rotation, rocking) without poles

And I like this learning progression of first getting the pattern of the
legs and hips stable and effective. Your idea of trying to feel their
"natural" movement pattern is intriguing -- I like the idea of learning by
feeling things -- and I like the idea of building on patterns in the
cerebellum that are already there. (But I suspect that lots of people will
need the guidance of a skilled instructor to reliable find their effective
natural pattern for skating.)

I did a lot of no-poles V1 and no-poles V2 late yesterday afternoon, and
worked on _feeling_ the physics -- because optimal V1 is so complicated that
it would be hopeless if I had to consciously _remember_ it all. I like the
no-poles V2 better because the arm motion is simple. But with no-poles V1
there's all this complicated waving my hands around in the air to get
right -- but it definitely helped me when I persevered.

But my next objective is get _beyond_ the hips, and beyond simple upper body
stability -- to active upper body _propulsion_.

So I also spent some rollerski time practicing just the V1 pole-push, with
_no_ leg-push. And then within that I tried to minimize my arm-push and
just focus on using my _trunk_twist_ to push the poles, to move me forward.
It was surprising to feel where the muscles were getting engaged -- one
muscle was much lower in my abdomen than I ever would have guessed. Anyway,
that's my current approach to "programming" my cerebellum supercomputer:
put it into special situations where it can feel the physics.

Beyond "core stability" -- to active core propulsion.

Ken

P.S. This no-legs V1 poling work also helped when I then focused on my
hang-side arm, and feel the inward pole-plant, and look down and see how the
resulting counter-force keeps my rollerski straight in line and holds my
shoulder directly above it.