As the Autumn technique lab tour roll onwards I thought I would take this time to build on the topics that build the foundations of the Technique Lab, have a closer look here if you haven’t already. Our off snow programme for testing how appropriate your biomechanics are for skiing aims to not only help you prepare yourself but understand where your blocks are and how they can be holding back your skiing. Often it is not a technical deficiency but an inability for you to move appropriately that is stopping you from breaking through your skiing plateau.
Let us start at the beginning, or the closest part of us to the ground, our feet. The first topic in the Technique lab is Ankle Flex range. It is a simple test to asses whether or not you have sufficient mobility in your ankles to ski effectively and keep you away from injury. Often overlooked as the modern ski boot is still a fairly restrictive device as it needs to transmit and respond to forces to and from the ski. Despite being enveloped in a relatively stiff plastic ski boot the ankle joint is still required to flex and open so that we can adapt our position along the length of the ski. When we lack mobility in the ankle joint our ability to flex at this joint whilst skiing is greatly hindered often making it hard for skiers to ever adjust their position forward along the ski.
In tandem to this a good degree of ankle flex ability can greatly reduce your chances of a torn calf muscle if you come to an unexpected, abrupt, unforeseen stop, a crash. Especially if it is one where your skis stop dead and you are sent flying gracefully forward through the air, or stay in your skis but are still pitched forwards beyond your range.
The other side of this is not having the strength to create an opening and closing of the ankle which will lead to the next topic in Flexion and Extension, but that’s for next time.