using more muscles to help climb

For lots of years I never thought there was any special "techniques" for
climbing up on skis with skins. I thought it was just a matter of developing
strong quadriceps and gluteus muscles, and training them with lots of
ski-climbing or similar-to-climbing exercises.

This year I started thinking there might be some "tricks" to using more
muscles to help take some of the load off my main leg muscles to make
climbing easier. (Or racer could add new sources of power to climb overall
faster).

Below are the tricks I've found so far -- what are some others?

* Arms + poles: This is the obvious thing to add -- consciously push harder
with the arms -- using the tricep and shoulder muscles. Extra "wrinkle" I've
tried adding: I "wing" my elbow out to the side, so I can also use my
inward-shoulder-rotator muscles help drive my pole-push.

* Forward-Hip-rotation move: Instead of just stepping the next foot
forward, rotate the pelvis about the vertical axis so that the next hip
moves forward up the hill. This means that the hips+pelvis will turn to
"face" toward the side of the current leg-push. Another way to think of this
is to make the "step" as if the leg were attached high to the rib-cage.
(This move enables taking just a long a stride without requiring so much
range-of-motion and load on the gluteus hip-extensor muscles. It engages
some abdominal + lower back rotator muscles, like the obliques?, to
contribute to forward-upward-propulsion power).

* Knee-drive Ankle-flex move: Flex the ankle more forward by driving the
knee down and forward. (This brings the hips forward, so the same
stride-length can be taken with less load on the hip-extensor muscles. It
engages the shin muscle to contribute more to forward-propulsion power).

* Torso-twist move: If I twist my torso toward the side I am currently
poling on, then resulting move of my shoulders backward (and somewhat
downward?) helps drive the pole-push -- using some upper-abdominal / chest
muscles which otherwise have nothing to do. (Note that this torso-shoulder
rotation is opposite to the hip-pelvis rotation -- so I cannot maximize both
at the same time. My strategy is to give priority to the legs and the
forward-hip-rotation move -- the pole-push and torso-twist get only the
left-over of the rotational range-of-motion)

My experience was that I didn't get much benefit from using these new
muscles during the first month or so. I think I was still learning to
coordinate it all. And I think it took a while for the new muscles to
develop enough endurance and strength to keep on sustaining significant
extra power for a long enough time.

But after a couple of months I found that I could do three big touring days
in a row, where before I would have needed a rest day after each big touring
day -- so I think the strategy of taking load off my main leg muscles at
normal speed is working. (Then I had a chance for a shorter day, so it felt
good to try using the extra muscles to climb at much higher speed, and it
felt like I was zooming up the hill for a while.)

Ken

Ken Roberts wrote:

* Arms + poles: This is the obvious thing to add -- consciously push harder
with the arms -- using the tricep and shoulder muscles. Extra "wrinkle" I've
tried adding: I "wing" my elbow out to the side, so I can also use my
inward-shoulder-rotator muscles help drive my pole-push.

I quite often push off the tops of the poles directly with the heels of
my hands once I've passed the shaft on a steep ascent as I find loading
the strap with your arm behind you is a bit less effective. It also
saves faffing about lengthening the poles, or if you're using single
piece poles and don't have the option anyway.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

Peter Clinch wrote
I quite often push off the tops of the poles
directly with the heels of my hands

Good point. I do the exactly same thing lots of times -- especially on my
downhill pole when making a rising traverse.

And then there's various tricks for grabbing the uphill pole lower than the
obvious handle area.

Ken
_____________________________________________
Peter Clinch" wrote
I quite often push off the tops of the poles directly with the heels of
my hands once I've passed the shaft on a steep ascent as I find loading
the strap with your arm behind you is a bit less effective. It also
saves faffing about lengthening the poles, or if you're using single
piece poles and don't have the option anyway.

In message
"Ken Roberts" wrote:

Peter Clinch wrote
I quite often push off the tops of the poles
directly with the heels of my hands

Good point. I do the exactly same thing lots of times -- especially on
my downhill pole when making a rising traverse.

And then there's various tricks for grabbing the uphill pole lower
than the obvious handle area.


You can buy touring poles with a longer rubber grip down the shaft,
however it is a simple matter to put some tape on the shaft to increase
the friction and enable you to hold it at a lower point. Two
modifications to this basic taping work quite well in my experience, the
one I use is to buy plastic handlebar grip tape from a cycling shop. One
of my friends adopted a different approach, which was to wrap a spiral
of electrical flex down the pole and then to cover it with a layer of
insulating tape. This second approach seems to make quite a good grip if
you have a narrow carbon fibre pole.

Mike URL:http://www.path.cam.ac.uk/~mrc7/
--
o/ \\ // |\ ,_ o Mike Clark
\__,\\ // __o | \ / /\, "A mountain climbing, cycling, skiing,
" || _`\,_ |__\ \ | immunology lecturer, antibody engineer and
` || (_)/ (_) | \corn computer user"

Mike Clark wrote:

Two
modifications to this basic taping work quite well in my experience, the
one I use is to buy plastic handlebar grip tape from a cycling shop. One
of my friends adopted a different approach, which was to wrap a spiral
of electrical flex down the pole and then to cover it with a layer of
insulating tape.

Recently I saw someone with some excess cutoff from a climbing skin used
as a lower grip. Quite neat, as it gives you an emergency kicker skin
in case of Major Disaster with your skins.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

Peter Clinch wrote:


Recently I saw someone with some excess cutoff from a climbing skin used
as a lower grip. Quite neat, as it gives you an emergency kicker skin
in case of Major Disaster with your skins.



You can also wrap the section below the grip with some 6 or 7 mm cord
which makes a nice grip, can be used as a skin in an emergency, make a
rescue sled, etc. probably moire versatile than a climbing skin.

-klaus