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#1
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help! I'm abusing my quads!
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. 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. 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. -- monique Longmont, CO |
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#2
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Monique,
How long have you been skiing? What kind of terrain do you mostly ski? At what altitude do you ski as opposed to where you live? What is the current model and length of skis you are using? How many days of skiing do you do per year? Do you workout in any way besides skiing? What is your height, weight, age? Do you take any meds, smoke, or have any other chronic physical conditions? It is difficult to give you any advice without such info. |
#3
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"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. 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. 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. 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 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. 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 :-( -- Cheers, Bev ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ "Calling someone an asshole for being rude to a telemarketer is like accusing someone who's shot a burglar in his home of being a poor host." -- W.S.Rowell |
#4
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On 2005-01-09, thinnmann penned:
Monique, How long have you been skiing? What kind of terrain do you mostly ski? At what altitude do you ski as opposed to where you live? What is the current model and length of skis you are using? How many days of skiing do you do per year? Do you workout in any way besides skiing? What is your height, weight, age? Do you take any meds, smoke, or have any other chronic physical conditions? It is difficult to give you any advice without such info. Okee doke. I've mentioned all of this in my various posts to the group, but I'll reiterate as it's handy to have all the info in one place. I'm 27 and have been skiing on and off since I was 16. I live in Colorado and ski mostly A-Basin, some Vail, Beaver Creek, etc, so I live at around 5k feet and ski from 10-13k feet of altitude. Before I moved here, I lived in VA and skied wherever I could. I still have trouble with powder, but can handle pretty much anything else and have skied double black moguls. Typical days would be packed powder or maybe some fluff, some groomers, lots of moguls, maybe some widely spaced trees. Pretty much anything that looks interesting. My skis are "intermediate" Elans, 160cm. I got them before last season and have probably skied 25 days on them. I hadn't skied for 2-3 years and wanted a cheap pair to get me back to my previous level. I've far exceeded that since then. I am demo'ing skis in anticipation of buying skis more appropriate to the terrain I'm skiing. No one at any ski shop has ever seen them before, it seems. Just random crap skis, soft, around 65mm waist. I probably skied about 20 days last year, 4 (badly) the year before that, none the several years before. I play ice hockey once a week, practice striking martial arts, and mountain bike during the warmer months. I'm supposed to be doing PT to strengthen my inner thighs due to some kneecap tracking issues, but I haven't done that in a while. I remember getting sore back when I used to ski, in high school and college, but not nearly as sore as I get now, nor as quickly. Of course, I was in much better shape then (weren't we all). I was getting massively sore throughout last winter, as well. 5'5, probably 170 lb. No meds except BC, no smoke, have arthritic knees, had a wrist problem most of last year, was sick a bunch between mountain biking and ski season, so I lost a lot of my muscle. Honestly, I believe that all of the above is probably of less importance than my skiing technique. I tend to "haul" on the skis to force them to turn; I think I'm fighting the mountain. When instructors, friends, etc, try to get me to feel the point where my boots are providing all of my support, I never seem to find it, whether on my old boots (salomon evolution) or my new (salomon women's xwave 8). It *always* seems like my quads are involved. -- monique Longmont, CO |
#5
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On 2005-01-10, Monique Y. Mudama penned:
I'm supposed to be doing PT to strengthen my inner thighs due to some kneecap tracking issues, but I haven't done that in a while. Forgot to mention that the entire width of my quad gets sore during skiing, not just the inside. -- monique Longmont, CO |
#6
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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. 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). 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. 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). 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). 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. 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. 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. |
#7
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Monique,
This is a moderated group and I am really not trying to sound rude, but if you really live that high and you really ski that much and you really mountain bike off season and play ice hockey, the quad suffering really isn't adding up, except for the 5'5" 170 lb part. If you do a BMI on that it is pretty poor. Try it here http://nhlbisupport.com/bmi/bmicalc.htm and you get a 28.3 which is on the high side of overweight. What I believe is happening isyYour quads are doing an inordinate amount of eccentric contractions to support your weight on your small frame during a day of skiing, even if said weight is solid muscle. In my humble and honest opinion, you have two choices: lose some pounds through diet and more aerobic conditioning or add lots of weight quad presses emphasizing the eccentric part to develop your quads. If you lose the pounds, your quads will respond with better performance. If you lift weights, your quads will also respond. Choice 1 - You need to begin to closely mointor your caloric intake. I suggest using a tool like the software available at http://calorieking.com Forget about fad dieting, because you need lots of carbs to support a hard day of skiing. Reading a book like Chris Charmichael's Food For Fitness would add to your success. Combine this with a walking and running program. You should see an improvement in a month or so if you stick to this type of program. Choice 2- Get yourself a squat machine or go to the gym. Do sets of low high reps, low weights, and don't go past a 90 degree angle at your knees. Do the eccentric part (when you let the weight down) slower than the concentric part (when you push the weight out). Make it a 3 to 1 ratio. Choice 3, which I just thought of, is do both Choice 1 and Choice 2 for a few weeks. Unfortunately, you should have been doing this, minimally, June - September... You will be playing catch-up now that the season is in full swing. I have seen lots of athletes blame their equipment and spend lots of money on new stuff when they would get better results through simply improving their conditioning and losing some pounds. Fortunately, these things usually go hand-in-hand. Certainly, continue to demo stuff and make sure you are committing to proper pressuring a pair of nicely shaped edges so that they do most of the work for you. The fitness component will make you even more of a star. Good luck! |
#8
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Monique Y. Mudama wrote:
(snip) Honestly, I believe that all of the above is probably of less importance than my skiing technique. I tend to "haul" on the skis to force them to turn; I think I'm fighting the mountain. When instructors, friends, etc, try to get me to feel the point where my boots are providing all of my support, I never seem to find it, whether on my old boots (salomon evolution) or my new (salomon women's xwave 8). It *always* seems like my quads are involved. So, I'll add a couple of things to my previous post. Sore quads as you describe is *often* a sign of being in the back seat. Sore quads as you describe is *often* a sign of being a little dehydrated. Feeling like you are "hauling" on the skis or "fighting the mountain" is often a sign of being in the backseat. Has anyone shown you drills for getting your hands forward? If you can't see your hands you are probably in the back seat. Do your hands move excessively? When you "crank" a turn, does one of your hands move behind you? Both hands should be visible all the time and movement is mostly from the wrist, ticking the pole on the snow as a timing move. Nothing more. Of course when you are horsing around, other things happen. VtSkier |
#9
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Monique Y. Mudama wrote:
After (half) a day of skiing, my quads are always burning Back seat ... |
#10
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lal_truckee wrote:
Monique Y. Mudama wrote: After (half) a day of skiing, my quads are always burning Back seat ... I couldn't have said it more succinctly myself, in fact I didn't. VtSkier |
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