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Dorsiflexion and its role in skiing
- Thread starter LiquidFeet
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If you don't feel a lot of pulling in you calf when stretching, you may need a fibula mobilization. If you feel tension and are not making any progress, Grasston sp? technique is a super aggressive form of massage that may help. @Brian Finch as a PT can you share your thoughts.
fixequinus.com
has a boot you can wear for extended periods to provide a longer stretch than anyone ever does.
Custom are also available-
http://ultraflexsystems.com/afo/
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Your umbrage seems to be amplifying my 'dogma'.Honestly, 10 minutes on the hill and I doubt we'd have much disagreement. There's a time in every turn to get our feet under us, and a time to let them move ahead a bit.
I would LOVE to ski with you, I've felt this way for all the years I've read your posts!
I must respectfully disagree with this statement. Dorsiflexion is not a move in of itself meant to accomplish a goal. It is a means to an end.
Consider that our goal is to pressure the front portion of the ski. The boot is firmly fixed to the ski by the binding and is the primary force through which we might accomplish that goal. Using the forward lean of the boot, the boot's stiffness, the boot tongue and the shin, we have a lever arm of at least 20" to apply pressure the front of the ski (That's the length of my shin. YMMV) The force which might be transferred to the front of the ski by "gas pedaling" is puny by comparison. Maybe 9" (Again, the length of my foot. YMMV) Why would we want to negate the entire design of the modern ski/boot combination? "Gas pedaling" might feel likes its accomplishing something, but that's not in any way true. Worse, taking pressure off the boot tongue by opening the ankle encourages leaning back and back seat skiing. Trust me, I know. I skied like that for the better part of 30 years. Not that I'm any paragon of great skiing. I just suck a lot less after starting to lift my toes.
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After blowing out an ankle, I struggled for some time trying to achieve good dorsiflexion along with anything resembling good form, in particular I felt like I was in the back seat alot (which of course could have been the result of other issues). Anyway, I ended up cutting a small pad out of a shoe insole (3-4mm thick) and placed it under my boot liner as a heel lift. The results were immediate and dramatic. Since then I've played around with different thicknesses but as soon as I go thicker, it puts strain on my calve muscles.
While there does appear to be some controversy about the use of heel lifts on the googly-webs, it certainly was worth trying in my case and if it doesn't work no harm.
With active dorsiflexion, I feel my heel solidly anchored into the heel pocket of the boot and a connection to the snow kind of like going from 'luxury mode' suspension to 'sport mode'. I think the move is meant to remove the absorption the bridge of the foot can contribute and instead shift the absorption further up the kinetic chain to the knees and/or use the flex of the boot itself to absorb terrain bobbles.
If you are instead standing on the ball of the foot, the foot is doing a lot of work to absorb terrain, which is only natural. It is how we run/walk. But it doesn't make the best use of your muscles and ski equipment. With active dorsiflexion, the boots, skis, and legs will flex instead of the foot.
Dorsiflexion to lever your entire body forward is not sutainable - the muscles are just not strong enough. But the active tension does generate that effect indirectly. If you are actively dorsiflexed, you are not also standing on the balls of your feet. Your ankle is closed. So you therefore tend to end up in a forward position.
If you are instead standing on the ball of the foot, the foot is doing a lot of work to absorb terrain, which is only natural. It is how we run/walk. But it doesn't make the best use of your muscles and ski equipment. With active dorsiflexion, the boots, skis, and legs will flex instead of the foot.
Dorsiflexion to lever your entire body forward is not sutainable - the muscles are just not strong enough. But the active tension does generate that effect indirectly. If you are actively dorsiflexed, you are not also standing on the balls of your feet. Your ankle is closed. So you therefore tend to end up in a forward position.
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What is your experience in back seat skiing and why? What do you think solved this issue?
What's the difference between cuff neutral and pressing the tongues? Neutral is not on the back of the boot. In the pressure phase you'll be way into the tongue and the boot will flex.
How is "taking pressure off the tongue" related to opening the ankle? Perhaps the forward lean of your boots was wrong for you. And the ramp angle - seems to be a huge culprit but there's very little info in solving what's right for people.
Put a booster strap on and go ski with your top two buckles open but latched, so that at some point the cuff will stop you. I assume your boots are fairly stiff.
You may discover that you actually have better balance. The downside is there's space laterally in the cuff.
People always site this as dangerous, yet they never question the over tightening and complete immobilization of the foot and lower leg. This immobilization likely leads to knee injuries. I know I blew my acl in a fraction of a second when the ski tip dropped in a shallow hole and launched me in the air. It was obvious in the air that my knee was shot. Pretty sure it was from having the lower leg essentially in a cast. Your body can't respond to absorb the forces, it goes to the knee.
When you spend significant amount of time skiing with a loose upper cuff you'll find that the back of the calf is sore. Not the front where the tibialis anterior is. Maybe that tells us something important.
Ankle tippers should be more concerned about this constant "lifting of the toes", "lifting of the foot towards shin" . It inverts the foot - pushes the foot towards supination, and since the attachment of the TA muscle goes to the 1st met and one of the ankle bones, it makes it very hard to tip the ankle towards the medial side - where the turning ski edge is. Supination of the outside foot in a turn is also not what you want.
Pretty obvious from posts that few have read The Skier's Manifesto that discusses the ski boot. It's an extremely frustrating blog to read, but there's very important info in there. He's now decided to stop posting so you should go look before it goes the way of epic ski.
It's worse. I don't know why people advocate lifting one's foot from the ground plane. Your body needs that information to function properly.
Also, the tensioning of the foot for the load phase of the turn is extremely important. I wish I understood all this better. It's very complicated.
The time to start moving to get in the correct position is toward the end of the turn before the next. In the float phase you have an opportunity to readjust feet if necessary.
Yes, saying the ankle opens if you press on the ball of the foot is wrong. I suppose, ironically, I think it's the tibialis anterior that's responsible for maintaining the closed position if that's what you want when pressing the ball of foot. If you want it to open, open it.
I do agree with some sort of tensioning of the system. The foot comments are not correct though. It's important to tension the bottom of the foot. Doing that has consequences in the body the whole way up. Go read the Skier's Manifesto .
Not sure why people think how the body functions while skiing is so different than what over many millennia developed the human body in the first place -walking and running. Just because we're skiing doesn't mean we've become a different organism.
It can behave differently if the skier is stressed or uncomfortable. If you don't trust the equipment, it's not natural.
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Yes, the ski boot is not natural at all and can make reactions totally off. Seems to start with confining the foot from spreading out, and properly loading the arch.
My experience in the back seat is like that of any other developing skier wanting to escape the intermediate trap. I would say that becoming a Stockli fanboy in the last couple of years has magnified my appreciation of the sins of my past. Their skis simply do not respond to instructions from the back seat, so my skiing style has evolved to prevent my being launched into the trees at the side of the run. Like Tony said above, my use of functional tension in dorsiflexing the feet is one of many tools in the box to accomplish that end. Sorry for the brevity of this answer. I do appreciate the thought and effort you put into your post above.
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I'm not only replying to @James, but his quotes were most convenient...
I always took "lift your toes" to not be literal. I.e. it's just one more way to think about getting yourself more forward (assuming that's what you need) that might resonate or "click" with some people. I think it's more "try to lift your toes"... with the assumption being that you won't lift them, you'll just find a way to get more weight forward and over your ball or arch.
Likewise, or maybe the reverse. If you tell someone to literally push the ball of the foot, they are likely to open their ankle. It's the not intent of saying "press on the ball of the foot" (or "pressure" the ball of the foot), but is a possible outcome. I know if I were just standing or sitting, apart from skiing, and someone told me to press the ball of my foot into the ground, I'd be likely to open my ankle.
All of this is to say, I guess, that these kinds of movement-thoughts, or short-hands, are way more useful if the expected outcome is included - the context for why you'd want to do that.
I always took "lift your toes" to not be literal. I.e. it's just one more way to think about getting yourself more forward (assuming that's what you need) that might resonate or "click" with some people. I think it's more "try to lift your toes"... with the assumption being that you won't lift them, you'll just find a way to get more weight forward and over your ball or arch.
Likewise, or maybe the reverse. If you tell someone to literally push the ball of the foot, they are likely to open their ankle. It's the not intent of saying "press on the ball of the foot" (or "pressure" the ball of the foot), but is a possible outcome. I know if I were just standing or sitting, apart from skiing, and someone told me to press the ball of my foot into the ground, I'd be likely to open my ankle.
All of this is to say, I guess, that these kinds of movement-thoughts, or short-hands, are way more useful if the expected outcome is included - the context for why you'd want to do that.
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Yes, reducing things to one word just leads to misinterpretation. As does throwing around medical terms that people don't understand. (When a bootfitter you don't know starts throwing around "valgus" and "varus", likely they're trying to impress you.)
How about," leave your shin angle at the anke as it is, and feel pressure on the ball of your foot"?
But, why are the toes a useless appendage that don't need contact with the ground plane? What effecr do you think this has and is it worth it.
Good god if some clinician told us to fire up our tibialis anterior without pointing out wtf that is, anterior extension of the tibia should be employed to deliver a blow to their posterior.
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Thank you for being respectful.
I am not advocating "gas pedaling". I am "big" on dorsiflexion, however I find it to be a movement of weakness. The body has a better capacity of plantar flexion vs dorsiflexion. Hams and quads have a similar relationship.
What dorsiflexion does is allow your center of mass to remain centered and useful. It allows you to pull your feet back in order to stay in the sweet spot.
Why is your goal to pressure the front portion of the ski? How do you think pressuring the front of the ski is affecting ski performance?
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Both of you are delivering good points. Have you considered that you are each addressing different places on the ski? Cosmolliu's comments are in reference to the center of the ski (under the slip plate). No edge's comments are referenced to the center of shape. Two different places but equally important.
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Consider as you employ this lever arm to push down on the toe, you're lightening the back of the ski. Being so far forward at the wrong time will just wash the tails.
When the path of the body collides with the path of the ski, we can be quite far into the boot tongue and it flexes.
Gas pedaling is a ramp angle change.
Thread Starter
TS
No dorsiflexion while skiing (ankles open), recreational skier:
Dorsiflexion (ankles closed) while standing around, racers (experts) hanging out on the boot tongues:
Ankles open between turns, racers (experts):
Dorsiflexion (ankles closed) while standing around, racers (experts) hanging out on the boot tongues:
Ankles open between turns, racers (experts):
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Thread Starter
TS
Three recreational skiers with open ankles during turns (some no dorsiflexion moments):
Comments?
Comments?
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Thread Starter
TS
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