Well another fall season is upon us, as we wait for snow to come and stay. Dry-land training is important for the body and the mind, as most of us switch from summer activities to #Nordic #skiing.
Ski walking without poles was the first step.
Use a gradient to do this exercise
Some of the more important points that were mentioned:
-Using Gravity and falling forward from the ankles, bring your hips past the ankles, with a leaning forward straight back, before a short quick knee dip which would simulate the locking of wax into the snow
-your arms and legs work in opposites which means left leg right arm, and then right leg left arm. Sometimes this is confusing when you are trying to get the motion of the legs. (no bear-walking)
-movement of the arm with elbow flexed 90 degrees forward, is from the shoulder joint, and elbow drives back flexed as well
-each time you take a step you should feel your whole body go from one side to the other. Think about moving your zipper or belly button 15cm(6 inches) from one side over to the other on the forward leg
-your leg should be not bent too much when your mid-foot hits the ground. Bone supported not muscle supported is the key to not fatiguing the leg muscles as much. If your leg is flexed too much there is no ability to compress ski and wax into the snow
-your movement should be flowing with no rigidness
-Always keep your mind thinking about the movement. Do not go on auto-pilot!
Next you used your poles, which for some made your leg movements incorrect. If this happens, you need to go back to ski-walking without poles until the leg movement is mastered.
-a few exercises of just holding the poles in the balance point while ski-walking was the first step.
-then you let your poles drag on the ground with just your thumb and first finger controlling the poles just enough that it was not bouncing around. Each person's poles are a different length, so only you can really tell where the pole should be planted.
- do not swing your pole past your hand
-once again your elbow is flexed at 90 degrees both forward and backwards.
-there is next to no extension of the triceps, normally
-planting of the pole occurs with you thinking of driving the basket into to the ground with your elbow, not your hand, The hand is just there in front of the elbow, but the power will occur when you drive with the elbow.
-hands are shoulder width apart for men and hip width apart for the ladies
-elbows go straight forward and back
-some loading of the pole will also occur with the knee dip timing
-poles are for push not for balance
Keep your head up and look down the trail and watch where you step. This will help with knowing how to read the snow, once it comes.
Try to do your homework of 5 hours of ski specific training, with hopefully at least 10 hours of training a week.
Work on your core as much as possible
THINK THINK THINK!
GRAVITY, CORE, BODY WEIGHT, and then muscle.
There are 113 days left before the Birkie. :)
