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female and male racers, technique and muscle

liquidfeet

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I've heard from different sources that watching World Cup women racers sometimes yields a better picture of perfected racing technique than watching WC men, because the men often muscle their way through difficulties while the women rely on perfected form to get them through tough spots. I'd like not so much to argue the validity of this point, but instead to take it as a starting point for a discussion about power and finesse in racing. I'm a newbie to racing and watch lots of WC videos, but cannot determine where muscle replaces technique. I've also read that once racers get the technique and strategy down, the major thing holding them back is strength. So here's my question for those of you who have more experience than me:

When racing, at what point in the turns might muscle power compensate most effectively for failed technique?
 

liquidfeet

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Clarification:

I don't think WC women are small at all, and certainly don't want to imply that I think they are weaklings. I also have absolutely no aspirations for high level racing; I'm a beer league racer trying to increase my speed any way I can.

The comment about strength or lack thereof being the major thing contributing to speed or holding one back comes from Lisa Densmore's book How to Ski Faster, and she was there and she should know. The comments about studying the work of WC women for fine points of technique comes from several sources, the one I remember the most being Ron LeMaster's book The Skier's Edge and his various writings.

Being a racer, I know the apex of the turn is where maintaining a strong hold against the enormous centrifugal forces that the high speed generates is where the strength comes in.

Does anyone think there's anything more to what Densmore and LeMaster are saying, or is that all they mean?
 

Pequenita

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I've two thoughts. The first thing I thought of had nothing to do with skiing, but rather, rock climbing. Less experienced male rock climbers tend to muscle (with arms) and pull their way up routes whereas women use arms to hang and the legs to push up a route. I guess, now that I write this out, my analogy of rock climbing to skiing falls apart, other than women look like they have a lot more finesse then men when both are beginning climbers.

As to skiing, I'm inclined to believe that men are more likely to muscle their way through a turn when, for instance, they start a turn too late. Whereas my poor technique would cause me to miss a gate, a guy may be able to make up for the late turn by holding it longer than me? This makes me think about when I once skied with a guy who was the ugliest skier on the planet. He was going down some challenging trails, and the only reason I went on them was because I saw him and thought, "Man, I ski so much better than you!" Now that I think about it, he probably used strength to compensate for technique.:confused:
 

ISki

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Nonracer.

1. When turn timing is off or wrong, skis can still be turned by muscle. For example, you suddenly want to turn IMMEDIATELY. You can muscle your skis to turn. You're giving up the beauty and ease of a pure turn, one that uses the whole torso and a sequence, but the skis get turned in time. You use muscle power to do this.

2. When you get surprised by terrain and thrown out of balance, muscle strength helps to recover and stay upright.
 

pinto

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Tennis analogy, because it's similar here: muscles don't have too much to do with hitting the ball hard. (That's why you don't see too many bulky players.) It's racquet head speed, which has mostly to do with technique. One of the hardest hitters I know is about 90 lb. I've played with some ranked junior girls who were probably 70 lb and just creaming the pahoowee out of the tennis ball.

But when technique breaks down -- say, you are running for a ball and stretched wide, and can't set up properly -- that's when you can muscle it back over. Someone weak will have a hard time doing it, whereas a bigger guy can use those forearm muscles to flick it back across the net.

Now, you wouldn't want to do it that way all the time (one thing that causes tennis elbow is poor technique, and that would be "flicking"), but, like turning immediately on your skis, it's very similar.
 

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