Classical Skiing Renaisance, p. 2

Developing Efficient Motor Patterns

Poor “motor patterns,” or recruiting the wrong muscles for a particular task or not using muscles in an integrated fashion, is a major cause of poor technique. Stuart McGill, a noted biomechanical researcher, describes the most troublesome motor pattern for skiers – important deep glute muscles develop “neural amnesia” and don’t fire properly. Many recreational skiers have developed this pattern either from past injury or simply from living the North American lifestyle of frequent sitting and poor posture.

Improperly firing glute muscles lead to a skier hinging at the waist, as opposed to the hips, while striding, which can lead to back problems and make it difficult to ski properly. Recent research has shown that engaging the deep glute muscles of the body is critical to developing proper body awareness (proprioception) and balance.

One way to achieve engagement of the glutes is through functional training, or multi-joint (and multi-directional) movement and balance training. Specific examples of functional training exercises include one legged dead lifts and one legged bridging exercises on unstable surfaces.

Done with proper technique, classical skiing itself can serve as a functional training exercise and help correct poor patterns we may have developed over the years. Classical skiing involves basic movement patterns, such as the squat and one-legged balance, which sports scientists see as fundamental to our overall biomechanical health.

Step one in correcting bad patterns is to neurologically wake-up the key, deep stabilizer muscles. To get a feel for this, try this brief exercise. Pick up a moderately heavy object from the floor in your habitual fashion. Now pick it up again, but this time visualize your body staying in one place and, instead of you standing up, visualize your legs pushing the Earth away from you. This should lead to hinging at the hip, and increased use of deep glute muscles.

For many recreational skiers, this simple exercise can be the start of improved balance and coordination. To use the image while skiing, visualize standing on top of the Earth. On each stride, grab the Earth with your kicking leg and push it behind you, as you visualize your body staying in one spot on top of the Earth. This exercise will encourage use of your deep stabilizing muscles necessary for proprioception and overall balance. The increased body awareness and improved body movement will reduce stress on your joints while allowing for more fluid, powerful strides.

Extending for a Graceful Stride

Now that we have a body on its way to functioning efficiently, let’s look at technique. To achieve “fluid striding,” the key for most recreational skiers is to move out of their comfort zone and extend body weight over the forward ski. We want to fall forward from ski to ski. Note that the skier in the photo is hinging at the hips (i.e., using his glutes), his weight is always forward and, if he were to stop at any of points of the stride, he would fall on his face (so, his weight is constantly moving forward).

To achieve this sort of fluid striding, a two-stage retraining of technique can help. Stage one involves revisiting the fundamentals and stage two involves focusing on extension and losing inhibitions.

What follows are basic drills and images to help put you on the right path.

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