Ice Skating and Skiing

[pushgears]

Do the skills required to ice skate apply to skiing?
Can an NHL hockey player slap on a pair of skis and, without lessons, tackle any intermediate run on the mountain?
Is ice time well spent for someone who wants to learn to ski?

What do you think?

 

[crgildart]

Do the skills required to ice skate apply to skiing?
Can an NHL hockey player slap on a pair of skis and, without lessons, tackle any intermediate run on the mountain?
Is ice time well spent for someone who wants to learn to ski?

What do you think?

100% yes with some caveats. Skates are essentially tiny full rockered skis and a lot of sideslipping and "hockey stops" are no longer how modern skis are best managed. "any intermediate run" depends on the resort. The hardest intermediate run at some areas might be a harder than the toughest black trail at other more mellow places.

Skating is definitely one of the best off season activities for skiers IMHO. I try to go a couple times every season before the resorts open to find my legs. And, Minnesota youth hockey really did make learning to ski a lot easier for me. Again though, in the straight ski days the two activities were more similar than today.

 

[Steve]

Yes and somewhat yes.

Skating is imo harder than skiing. If you can skate you can learn to ski pretty easily. Vice-versa not so much. I skied for years before I took up skating and found it very hard at first. It didn't take me that long to be an OK skater, and yes the skating helped my skiing.

When I teach someone who is a good ice skater they learn to ski quickly. As to the NHL player skiing Intermediate trails the first day without lessons. I think a 1 hour lesson would be very helpful, but after that I wouldn't be surprised if they could do OK on a Blue trail.

 

[scott43]

To start, I'm not a ski instructor but I have done some skate and hockey instruction. I'd say, yes, they're similar, but nuance counts. Skates are much more sensitive to inputs but at the same time can require a lot of muscle power. Skis are less receptive to inputs and require a generally higher level of input. Not unexpected..skis are 2m long..skates are .3m long and have no flexibility in the blade. I'd say skiing is kind of a mix between skating and being a jockey. Ice is flat..maybe a less regular surface would be more equitable..like inline skates in a skate park..force the 3rd dimension into your skating.

 

[Steve]

I have been told many times that the best thing for skiing is inline skating, with poles, slightly downhill.

 

[Jilly]

I've taught figure skaters to ski. Yes, some of the skills translate. The big one is balance and movement in motion. They can do that.

Years ago there was a TV special with Peggy Fleming and JC Killy. They talked about just this. And we're talking straight skis!!

And yes to inline skating!!

 

[Mendieta]

Do the skills required to ice skate apply to skiing?
Can an NHL hockey player slap on a pair of skis and, without lessons, tackle any intermediate run on the mountain?
Is ice time well spent for someone who wants to learn to ski?

What do you think?

Besides the insight being shared here, you might wanna look in this older thread:

Ice skating as preperation for the ski season

I enjoy skating, and if the mountain did not call with such weight of gravity, I would ice skate three or more times a week through the winter season. I find the ice skating tunes up those little muscles in the lower legs and ankles like nothing else (well maybe some gym exercises come in)...

www.pugski.com

The short of it, IMHO? I would choose a ski day over a skate day anytime. But if skiing is not at option, I would love to be skating. Definitely helps me (I only skated a few days in my life) with balance, particularly for-aft.

 

[cantunamunch]

I have been told many times that the best thing for skiing is inline skating, with poles, slightly downhill.

One big problem with that is that no outdoor surface has enough wheel grip to sustain high speed and high angles both - and when the outside skate gets loosey-goosey the skater instinctively two-foots, putting pressure on the inside skate and moving their weight to the inside. Yes, there are specialty soft wheels and specialty downhilling skate designs; none of those are fit for general skating use - too lossy, too slow, too heavy.

Indoor skating (with 90A++ durometer wheels on polyurethane polished surfaces) absolutely does have enough grip, but to get skill transference to skiing, one has to develop way past beginner skater. Every one of those indoor guys gains speed while cornering, more than on the straights. Every one of them can do bicycle speeds around a 15-20 foot chalk circle.

The one area where both ice skating and inline skating excel for skiers is muscular conditioning. Glute activation? You bet. Back muscles? You bet. Abductor/adductor training? Cosmic. Hip joint motion? Superb. Complete range of motion in quads and hamstrings, that will take months to recreate in gym environments? You bet.

But it all requires work, and not stopping/plateauing at basic skills. Basic skills themselves may not completely transfer, but the muscles you've built using those skills will.

 

[LiquidFeet]

I have been told many times that the best thing for skiing is inline skating, with poles, slightly downhill.

This guy's in ski boots, going downhill on wheels. He's been working all summer on his turns on this bit of asphalt. Here he is with poles and cones. His speed appears to be slower than he'd be going on snow, so I'm concluding that staying balanced is more difficult than it would be at speed. Plus, those rollers he's on don't offer any support if his fore-aft goes kaflooey. Asphalt hurts, too, and he's got armor on in case. He's clearly being careful. I'm impressed with the similarity and potential for carryover to skiing.

 

[crgildart]

Hurts more to fall on pavementthan on ice or snow when carrying some speed. Skiing typically has lower penalties for mistakes than either kind of skating, but especially inline on asphalt.

 

[LuliTheYounger]

I haven't skied with a lot of skaters, but I've helped out with skiers that were learning to skate, and there's enough crossover that they skip ahead on a lot of the beginner lessons. They seem to get the general concept of keeping your body over your feet really intuitively.

As far as whether it's useful for skiers – like cantunamunch said, the conditioning is really applicable. I think it's good for getting a better sense of your edges, too. I feel like my figure skates kind of tattle on me if my balance is a little off - there's no real room to get forward of the sweet spot, and no room to get back, either. You better stay dead on or that's it. Ice skates also "lock" into their edges in a way that I never really got with rollerblades, so you can re-create relatively high edge angles.

It's hard this year, but I do kind of wish that more skiers would take Basic Eight skate classes. Skating laps is pretty doable for most people, but there's a lot to learn from some of the more finicky edge work that skaters do.

 

[hFLYman]

In short, Yes.
I played hockey growing up, starting at age 8. My first time on a mountain (age 12) I wanted to learn to snowboard and struggled with lessons for a week. The next year I figured I'd try ski. I was doing blues in days.
Understanding and building the muscle memory of how to stop on skates, make sharp turns leaning with your weight and keeping the blades on your feet parallel transfers directly to skiing. Being a good skater and playing around with a puck and stick is a lot of fun. I highly recommend it. It will feel like you can run with skis on!
I think even the dumbest hockey jocks at my high school, might fall getting off the lift but make it down the mountain no problem.