What to do with ankles as you ski

[geepers]

Nothing in particular. I am not an instructor, so unlike most instructor here, I don't really think when I am skiing. So I really have no clue what is going on.
I often ski with my boots unbuckled. About 90+% of the time. Just wondering.

Doesn't the snow get in?

BTW I know of a ski patroller who has his DIN settings really light - just enough to stop the ski from falling off riding the chair. Reckons it makes him ski very softly. Maybe you could add that to the unbuckled boots?

 

[KingGrump]

Doesn't the snow get in?

BTW I know of a ski patroller who has his DIN settings really light - just enough to stop the ski from falling off riding the chair. Reckons it makes him ski very softly. Maybe you could add that to the unbuckled boots?

I have my pants over the top of the boot. I am not from Brooklyn.

Just have the booster strap. Medium tightness. My DIN is set at 10. The lowest I can go without walking out of the skis.
Chart said 7.

 

[Scruffy]

If one is to unbuckle the boot. All four buckles. What would the flex be?

I also ski with the top buckle loose ( on a 3 buckle boot ) so my tibia can rotate without interference of a stiff cuff.

Amazing that some fairly extreme skiing was done in the 1930's with low cut leather boots with little to no auxiliary ankle support needed Wimps we all are relying on stiff inflexible boots.

 

[Dakine]

Put your boots on, sit in a chair and try to flex your boots using ankle musculature.
(Telemarkers excluded)
You can't much.
Stand up, and the force of gravity allows you to flex your boots a lot by putting fore aft torque on the upper boot.
Skiing is much more complex but boots are flexed when we can feed gravitational and momentum forces into the upper boot resulting in tongue pressure sufficient to flex the boot.
What you do to create these forces is the subject of a lot of talk in this thread, but ski boots are not sneakers and the little muscles that flex your ankle can't bend them much.

 

[Dakine]

I have my pants over the top of the boot. I am not from Brooklyn.

Just have the booster strap. Medium tightness. My DIN is set at 10. The lowest I can go without walking out of the skis.
Chart said 7.

....
Let me tell you how I felt when I skied all day on a pair of skis that I forgot to set the bindings up on as the season started.
DIN 3 all day.
Glad there were no bumps.
Anybody that can ski bumps at DIN3 is really good!

 

[François Pugh]

....
Let me tell you how I felt when I skied all day on a pair of skis that I forgot to set the bindings up on as the season started.
DIN 3 all day.
Glad there were no bumps.
Anybody that can ski bumps at DIN3 is really good!

I skied in my usual devil may care fashion one whole morning on an opening day, before realizing at lunch time that I had forgotten to reset the bindings from 1 after turning them down the spring before. I no longer turn them down for the summer.

As to boots, the job of stiff boots is to help you manage the forces of high speed high performance skiing by taking most of the load.

 

[HardDaysNight]

As you begin to extend the inside leg in preparation for the edge change, you focus on making the femur more vertical and moving the hips ahead of the feet.
COM moves diagonally across the skis into the new turn.


pliny the elder

The point that I was making is that the movement one makes to “move the hips ahead of the feet” is precisely the same as that to pull the feet back. It’s a distinction without a difference.

 

[François Pugh]

Yeah, it's just a matter of perspective. Move forward of your feet, or move your feet behind you. One clue might work better for someone and another clue might work better for someone else. Close the ankle might be the clue for the next person.

 

[geepers]

You cannot flex a boot much by using muscle forces in your ankle.
Flexing a boot takes tongue pressure.
I pay a lot of attention to tongue pressure and relaxing into the boots when skiing.
Other folks have an issue with this so lets discuss.
I'll be back with some data after I get my snow blower mounted and stuff....

Came across this vid - relevant bit is 5:52 to 7:05. This is from a CSIA workshop at Interski 2011. At this point at least seems CSIA othodoxy was center of the ski, not so much fore/aft as some other nations. What he says at 6:58. Likely to still be that way as not hearing anything otherwise on recent CSIA courses.

 

[geepers]

My DIN is set at 10. The lowest I can go without walking out of the skis.
Chart said 7.

That makes me wonder if there's something wrong with your binding spacing between toe and heel pieces. Or problem with boot heel/toe wear. Or ....

Doesn't seem to be what the manufacturer intended.

 

[markojp]

I'm quite a bit larger than the King and ski at DIN 10.... I fall out of them. At 30mph. After I hit the deck.

(Don't take that the wrong way, KG, it's meant as a shot across my own bow and my personal attainment of 'suck'.)

 

[nesneros]

Here’s a good test at home:
Sitting in a chair, with your feet in front and legs flexed at a 90 degree angle, without moving your feet, stand up and notice which muscles are used.
Next try the same while pulling your feet back underneath your COM while standing up.
Much more efficient.
There’s a YouTube video of former USST head coach Phil McNichol describing the importance of the transition. At one point he describes the skis like a ball rolling down the hill, every time you release you’re letting the “ball” (your skis) accelerate faster than your body.

Without a muscular action to counter, you will often be out of balance. The “feet back” muscles are a big part of the chain.

It’s a good demonstration. I think what is lost in a lot of the comments, however, is there’s a difference between simply letting the ankle bend (say as a result of letting your knees bend and letting your weight pressure the boot) and actually using ankle muscles and foot angle to try to bend/balance/influence your skiing.

From what I can tell just from doing your exercise and doing others like trying to lean forward, bend my knees, etc, the majority of ankle and foot muscle use involves reinforcing/tightening/locking the ankles and feet in varying positions to make them stiff enough to counter the weight shifting. The ski boot takes a lot of the brunt in this regard; you can actually bend your knees, lean forward, and relax your ankle at the same time in boots.

I think the majority of my ski angle and edging involves knee and leg/hip rotation, but I also think ankle muscles are still employed within the boot to provide some degree of cantilever, etc as you’re trying to push against the boot in various ways. You’re not going to bend the boot at the ankle joint laterally, for example, but the pressure you’re putting on the boot from within is a part of the puzzle. Sometimes your heel is pressing the boot, sometimes the top of your foot, sometimes the arch, etc and that wouldn’t work without employing the ankles within the boot to tighten your foot and use it as a lever on occasion.

 

[oldschoolskier]

That makes me wonder if there's something wrong with your binding spacing between toe and heel pieces. Or problem with boot heel/toe wear. Or ....

Doesn't seem to be what the manufacturer intended.

Side note:

Some skiers transmit a lot of energy rapidly into a binding at times just when the binding loads to max at a specific setting. This extra impulse that is applied causes the binding to release. Hence the higher required setting. Remember settings are about retention values as much as they are about release values.

Personally I tend to run higher settings for the same reason.

So stock binding settings in this regard are a guideline as a good safe starting point for these type of skiers. And no its not the fault of the binding or the skier.

Safety note: Those that do this know the risk and do so according. No I do not recommend this even though I do it.

 

[jimtransition]

The point that I was making is that the movement one makes to “move the hips ahead of the feet” is precisely the same as that to pull the feet back. It’s a distinction without a difference.

Is it though? To me it seems like moving my hips forward would be opening my knees, engaging the quads, whilst pulling the feet back would be closing the knees and engaging my hamstrings. Different movements with different results. If you're sitting in a chair, think about the difference in moving your feet back under you relative to getting up out of the chair.

 

[geepers]

Side note:

Some skiers transmit a lot of energy rapidly into a binding at times just when the binding loads to max at a specific setting. This extra impulse that is applied causes the binding to release. Hence the higher required setting. Remember settings are about retention values as much as they are about release values.

Personally I tend to run higher settings for the same reason.

So stock binding settings in this regard are a guideline as a good safe starting point for these type of skiers. And no its not the fault of the binding or the skier.

Safety note: Those that do this know the risk and do so according. No I do not recommend this even though I do it.

Poster wrote "...walking out of the skis". Does not seem to imply "...transmit a lot of energy rapidly into a binding...".

 

[KingGrump]

That makes me wonder if there's something wrong with your binding spacing between toe and heel pieces. Or problem with boot heel/toe wear. Or ....

Doesn't seem to be what the manufacturer intended.

Yeah, must be manufacturer defect. All 30+ pair for the last fifteen years.

Poster wrote "...walking out of the skis". Does not seem to imply "...transmit a lot of energy rapidly into a binding...".

Some walks with a bit more alacrity than others.
I can ski with a lower DIN setting in the bumps than on the groomers.

 

[oldschoolskier]

Poster wrote "...walking out of the skis". Does not seem to imply "...transmit a lot of energy rapidly into a binding...".

@geepers I worry about you and your true understanding of concepts and ideas that are different than your own. You should read the entire post to get the reply.

Any release (or lack of retention) is about the amount of energy transfer (“a lot“ just means it is higher than normally envisioned ). Generally, to achieve these at higher settings than normal, the term impulse (ie significantly more rapid than normal ) sums it up pretty good.

 

[François Pugh]

I think some poetic license is allowed when using the term "walking out", maybe walking out was a slight (poetic license applied by me) exageration for effect.

Also the body and neuron pathways are complex and interlated with intent. It helps IMHO to want and try to move ankle appropriately, even when the boot requires additional forces be applied.

 

[Lauren]

Is it though? To me it seems like moving my hips forward would be opening my knees, engaging the quads, whilst pulling the feet back would be closing the knees and engaging my hamstrings. Different movements with different results. If you're sitting in a chair, think about the difference in moving your feet back under you relative to getting up out of the chair.

They are the same. From your chair example... Think about moving your feet under you as you described and your new position. Now think about being in a rolly chair, sliding the chair to be closer to your feet and your CoM forward from where it was before...

Same end result.

 

[Tony S]

A life time ago when I was a young racer we used to do this thing to the outside ski at the bottom of the turn where we’d open the ankle on the outside ski, thrusting it forward (also at the end trying to get across the laser beam a 100th of a second faster) we called it stepping on the gas.

You'll see this at the finish line of just about any xc ski race.