Forceful can be smooth too.
I meant that there's a fair amount of hamstring pullback to minimize tip lead.
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Foot pullback drills?
- Thread starter Prosper
- Start date
I meant that there's a fair amount of hamstring pullback to minimize tip lead.
Getting forward...muscular ankle flexion, or pullback with the hamstrings, or repositioning the hips? How about some of all of the above? I say practice them all. Maybe the tibialis anterior is pretty weak, maybe it's not capable of creating a large rebalancing movement all by itself, but engaging it will stop you from actively plantar flexing, which would defeat correct movement. Once you can make all of the contributing movements at will, you'll be free to mix them as needed in any situation. For ankle flexion, try raising your forefoot and jamming your toenails into the top of your boot. For hamstring pullback, click out of your skis, stand on one foot, have a friend hold onto the back of the heel of the other boot from behind, and push that foot back forcefully against resistance. Then click back in, stand on one ski, pick up the other one, and use the same muscular engagement and movement to whack the ski tip down on the snow. Hard!
Hello folks. Just wondering when in the turn should I be pulling my inside foot back. Is it at the end or beginning? Not sure if this is the correct thread to ask?
For someone just learning how to use inside foot pullback correctly, I say that it's best to pull it back and keep it back. Never get in the back seat on your skis. If you can actually start skiing where you can fully stay forward throughout the entire turn, then you can consider more advanced turn technique where you allow the skis to jet forward in the last half of the turn. The challenge in this technique is being quick enough and strong enough to pull the skis back in time for the start of the new turn. Most folks cannot do this correctly, which is why I advise to not even bother. Keep your hips ahead of your heels the whole time.
The inside foot pullback is part of the "little toe edge" tipping movement of your new inside ski.
I may be wrong (someone will let me know, right?) but I don't think you can be too early. Right at transition, as soon as you establish a platform on the new outside ski, the inside leg gets shorter, the ankle rolls over to the little toe edge and you pull the foot back from the knee down and bring it in close to the stance ski. It all happens sequentially but from a practical standpoint it's all one motion.
You can't be in the back seat and expect this to work very well. For me a good pole plant sets up my overall body alignment in the right place.
I spent a long time thinking I was unweighting the inside ski enough, but over time I realized I was putting too much weight on the inside. There are lots of drills to isolate this factor that you could explore.
You'll know you're on the right track when the turn gets magically tighter and your edge angles increase. An added benefit is that the tension you put on that inside ski keeps it from wandering around, especially in chopped up snow. It makes difficult snow conditions much more skiable.
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Just to pile on... focusing on an 'as early as possible' lateral pressure shift (ie to the new outside ski as you roll from LTE to BTE) will require the old inside leg be in the right place. So the pullback is something done subconsciously to facilitate the lateral shift. If the ski is too far forward, it will retard how quickly you can move to it.
I used to think about pulling the inside leg back but it actually created some tension that was not useful to my skiing. It blocked me in some ways.
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I find it works best to start the pullback while lightening rhe old outside ski, before the skis have "untipped" to flat. Probably best to experiment, and find what works best for you, as you may not succeed in totally dialing it in just from a description or from watching a very good skier. Ultimately you have to feel it.
Thank you for your replies. I will experiment with pull back and see how I get on.
I was thinking about this today when I was groomer zooming around WMR. Was it the "thinking" part that created a mental tension or did the fact that your foot was pulled back create a physical tension?
I definitely have a problem when I think too much. I have a tendency to drag my pole after the pole plant - so I was thinking about it this morning and nothing else was working. I had to laugh at myself for not having enough bandwidth to keep my left pole from dragging! No walking and chewing gum for me.
The physical aspects of the inside foot pull-back are pretty obvious, you're creating an area (not a point) where your downhill ski can more easily pivot around. This tightens the turn radius if the rest of your body mechanics are good. I do sometimes feel "blocked" by pulling the inside foot back but it's usually a result of being on my stance foot heel instead of properly centered over the ski and moving through the turn.
There's nothing wrong with dragging your poles so long as you don't lean on the suckers.
Excessive focus on foot pull back was creating issues in short turns and pivot slips. Efforts to remove all tip lead in every situation were counterproductive. I may have also been keeping the inside leg to straight as well - efforts to pull the inside back blocked flexion of that leg.
You need to work more on this. Short turns, by pulling the inside foot back, you are ready immediately to start the next turn because you are centered on the old inside ski.
And there's no reason why you can't flex the inside leg while pulling it back.
It is "foot" pullback, not "leg" pullback. The inside knee is not moved back along with the foot.
^^This.
Pull foot back by bending at the knee. Everything from the knee up is uninvolved.
Tip lead will not be eliminated with the new inside foot pull-back. That's not the point. More pressure will go to the tip of that pulled back ski as the foot is pulled back.
For those not familiar with the term, "new inside" is the same as old outside. The word "new" indicates you are talking about initiation movements, those that happen as the old turn is ending.
Lightening the new inside ski, pulling the new inside foot back, flexing the new inside leg, releasing the new inside ski -- all are related. One can work on one at a time then combine then in different ways to see what happens.
Yeah, that mistake took me about a year to figure out and eliminate. It wasn't a focus with the weekly group lessons I was doing at the time so I had to figure it out on my own.
This is a new one for me. Sounds useful. Thanks.
Another thing to consider when trying to get a terminal intermediate to do this correctly is that people have 2 feet. All this pulling and tipping of the inside foot is of little value unless you are already committed to moving to the new downhill ski by shortening the inside leg.