I'm not sure if this is something I was blissfully unaware of last season, or a newly developed issue, but my left tip isn't in as much control as my right tip. It kind of skitters a bit during a turn. I've been trying to figure it out the past couple of days. I swapped skis from left to right, and the same thing, so operator error not tuning. I am right handed, so I guess it makes sense that my right side is more dominant, but still. What can I be doing to strengthen/ train my left side?
-
Women skiers, this is the place for you -- an online community without the male-orientation you'll find in conventional ski magazines and internet ski forums. At TheSkiDiva.com, you can connect with other women to talk about skiing in a way that you can relate to, about things that you find of interest. Be sure to join our community to participate (women only, please!). Registration is fast and simple. Just be sure to add [email protected] to your address book so your registration activation emails won't be routed as spam. And please give careful consideration to your user name -- it will not be changed once your registration is confirmed.
Lazy Leg? Good drills, exercises, or tips?
- Thread starter diymom
- Start date
liquidfeet
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I have some questions for you that might offer some clues. You may be able to answer them, or maybe you're usually on autopilot and really not aware of the answers. If the second is the case, go out and see what's going on. You'll need to make turns real slow on low-pitch terrain (maybe beginner terrain) to figure these things out, probably. But that's good; slow travel makes the problematic body movements show up more dramatically, so it helps with diagnosis.
Most people have a better turn and a worser turn, by the way.
1. How do you start your turns? What do you do with body parts to make the new turn happen? Do you do things with your arms, hands, head/shoulders? Do you lean sideways? Do you sorta hop up and twist the skis? Do you do something with one leg and something else with the other leg? Do you do something with your ankles, or feet, or knees/thighs?
2. Which way are your hips "pointing" at the end of the old turn, before you start the new one? Another way of conceptualizing this is which way is your belly button pointing?
3. Which way are your hips/belly button "pointing" at the top of the new turn, once the skis are beginning to point downhill?
4. Which part of the bottom of your foot feels the most pressure at the start of a new turn?
5. Can you feel tongue-shin pressure at the start of a new turn, before the skis point downhill?
6. At any point in the turn do you feel cuff pressure against the back of your lower leg?
Most people have a better turn and a worser turn, by the way.
1. How do you start your turns? What do you do with body parts to make the new turn happen? Do you do things with your arms, hands, head/shoulders? Do you lean sideways? Do you sorta hop up and twist the skis? Do you do something with one leg and something else with the other leg? Do you do something with your ankles, or feet, or knees/thighs?
2. Which way are your hips "pointing" at the end of the old turn, before you start the new one? Another way of conceptualizing this is which way is your belly button pointing?
3. Which way are your hips/belly button "pointing" at the top of the new turn, once the skis are beginning to point downhill?
4. Which part of the bottom of your foot feels the most pressure at the start of a new turn?
5. Can you feel tongue-shin pressure at the start of a new turn, before the skis point downhill?
6. At any point in the turn do you feel cuff pressure against the back of your lower leg?
nopoleskier
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
^^^ Yes to this^^^I agree everyone has a 'strong' side and weaker side.
Also when you turn; think about "pushing" (feeling) your pinky toe and Feel your big toe. .
Don't look down at your tips, head drops, weight goes to back seat. Tips do wobble a bit and seems like more when I look down at mine?
On a flatter easy trail try to ski on 1 ski w/bad leg.. (lift the good leg w/ski on) make gentle turns, see if it's your boots (just having the tongue turned the wrong way in boot can cause issues) or perhaps something else.. maybe not getting your hip joint to start the turn (no to upper body rotation) into the turn? maybe ankle/knee/hip not flexed, maybe a locked straight leg instead of flexed?
Ski slowly on easy green trail. get in skier position, try it no poles, even over exaggerate turns and put your hands on knees so you can feel the turns and feel what your feet/knees/hips/body are doing.. feel the pinky and big toe.
When you turn make sure you have your Hip joint lined up OVER your foot.. Not forward, not back. over your foot.
Also when you turn; think about "pushing" (feeling) your pinky toe and Feel your big toe. .
Don't look down at your tips, head drops, weight goes to back seat. Tips do wobble a bit and seems like more when I look down at mine?
On a flatter easy trail try to ski on 1 ski w/bad leg.. (lift the good leg w/ski on) make gentle turns, see if it's your boots (just having the tongue turned the wrong way in boot can cause issues) or perhaps something else.. maybe not getting your hip joint to start the turn (no to upper body rotation) into the turn? maybe ankle/knee/hip not flexed, maybe a locked straight leg instead of flexed?
Ski slowly on easy green trail. get in skier position, try it no poles, even over exaggerate turns and put your hands on knees so you can feel the turns and feel what your feet/knees/hips/body are doing.. feel the pinky and big toe.
When you turn make sure you have your Hip joint lined up OVER your foot.. Not forward, not back. over your foot.
Divegirl
Angel Diva
@diymom - I can't do the technical explanations that nopoleskier and liquidfeet can but I do have a distinct length discrepancy. Left leg is 1/2" shorter than the right and the left hip is weaker than the right.
I occasionally find that my left ski will "wiggle" around on me at times, usually when I am tired or not paying attention like on a flattish area. For me, this means my weight is not evenly distributed, I am leaning more to the right and I am losing the edge hold on my left ski. I have to redistribute the weight to the left a bit more.
It was pointed out to me last year that I don't finish my right turns but the people who pointed it out couldn't tell me was wrong. I finally figured it out by paying attention to my turns on an easy slope (like Ralph's Run). I discovered I was putting so much more weight on my right ski to compensate for the weaker left, I was digging my right outside edge in and really leaning into the slope so I could not turn the right ski to start the left turn, I was either picking it up or sliding it out from under me. I am working being more conscious of my right ski and making the left hip work more. It was also suggested I keep my feet a bit farther apart.
Off my skis, I try use the left hip more, like going up stairs - I lead w/ the left leg, not the right and so on.
Sorry for the long post. It is rather annoying to be asymmetrical at times.
I occasionally find that my left ski will "wiggle" around on me at times, usually when I am tired or not paying attention like on a flattish area. For me, this means my weight is not evenly distributed, I am leaning more to the right and I am losing the edge hold on my left ski. I have to redistribute the weight to the left a bit more.
It was pointed out to me last year that I don't finish my right turns but the people who pointed it out couldn't tell me was wrong. I finally figured it out by paying attention to my turns on an easy slope (like Ralph's Run). I discovered I was putting so much more weight on my right ski to compensate for the weaker left, I was digging my right outside edge in and really leaning into the slope so I could not turn the right ski to start the left turn, I was either picking it up or sliding it out from under me. I am working being more conscious of my right ski and making the left hip work more. It was also suggested I keep my feet a bit farther apart.
Off my skis, I try use the left hip more, like going up stairs - I lead w/ the left leg, not the right and so on.
Sorry for the long post. It is rather annoying to be asymmetrical at times.
mustski
Angel Diva
What do you mean by skiing with the "whole foot?" I have heard that phrase a lot but I'm not sure what it means.
marzNC
Angel Diva
What the instructor for the multi-week lesson program at Massanutten started out with last season was asking us to pay attention to the bottoms of our feet. The toes, the pad in the center, etc. One question was to try to feel if there was a difference between feet. Also suggested working on keeping the foot flat in the boot. I found that I had a tendency to curl the toes on one foot, but not on the other. Seems to be directly connected to which turn is my bad side.
marzNC
Angel Diva
For sure!
On of my aha moments related to the difference between left and right turns happened when I was working with my Massanutten coach on a green. We'd gone there because the other student in that Over 50 group lesson couldn't do a basic drill on a blue trail.
Still working on getting the bad side to match up to the good side . . . 3-4 seasons later. There are assorted approaches that help.
geargrrl
Angel Diva
Yes. This. If you can get a hold of the now out of print, "How the Racers Ski" by Warren Witherall, he explains this and it was an AHA moment for me.
Yep, that's me. But I started to notice something felt off when turning to the right, and tried to figure it out, but I didn't really know where to start. I figured out that I tend to turn left to scrub speed or come to a stop. Never really thought about that before. I'm glad I decided to post my question, now I have a good list of things to try and to think about when I go out this week.
Yep, that's certainly something I've been working on. I don't think I was looking down the other day... until I felt like something was different between my left turns and my right turns. And of course then I couldn't keep myself from looking down to try to see when the left tip is better or worse. Hmmph. I did decide after a few runs looking down at my tips that maybe I should move from the blue to a green if I wasn't going to be looking where I was going.
I think something like that is going on. If I just stand barefoot and roll my feet to the sides, tipping up onto the side of my feet, my right ankle, knee, hip, etc all have a lot more motion that the left. So if that happens barefoot, it must be the same on snow.
So tomorrow I will be skiing slowly and trying to focus on my body movements without looking down at my tips.
liquidfeet
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Perfect. You can do this on beginner terrain. On a non-crowded Monday. Perfect!
--look ahead (it's very hard to feel what you're doing when you're looking down- it's a mystery why but a fact). You can take a quick peek down, but then get chin up and eyes ahead again fast.
--feel (without looking at your feet) the underfoot pressure on the soles of your feet. instructors will disagree where the pressure should be; I'm in the back-of-the-arch/whole-foot camp/ others are in the ball-of-foot camp).
--feel the cuff pressure agains your lower legs. Is there tongue-shin pressure (best answer)? Or calf-pressure? Is this the same on both turns?
--feel the way your toes are pointed, both feet (then check to see if your feelings were right by looking momentarily down, then look ahead and feel again). Are they staying parallel through the entire turn, or allowing a wedge to form in one turn more than in the other turn?
--most people can't feel which way their hips are pointing. Try feeling whether you are turning your hips along with your feet/skis, then look, then try to feel them again. "Pointed" means is your pants zipper facing straight ahead, to the left, or to the right? Are your hips pointing in the same direction as your skis/feet, or not (best answer is no, skier's hips and torso above stay pointed more downhill-ISH than pointing left/right with the skis)? Is this different in one turn compared to the other?
--feel whether your shoulders are tipping into each turn or not. By that I mean, are you leaning your whole body sideways, banking, with each turn? With one turn? With neither (best answer is neither)
--feel where your hands are relative to your body. Do they swing as in walking, or not (best answer is no)? Does one swing more than the other (a classic problem with asymmetry in turns)? If this is your issue, try to keep both hands forward of your side-seams in your jacket, and swing the poles with your wrists instead of swinging the arms to get the poles to move. Or just don't swing the poles; that's fine too.
--one last thing... are you tipping your feet onto their edges (little toe edge, big toe edge) with your ankles? Ankle-tipping? Can you feel this while not looking down at your feet? Are you tipping the outside foot but not the inside foot on one turn, but tipping both (best answer) on the other turn?
Have fun!
marzNC
Angel Diva
Heard plenty of talk like this from both my Massanutten coach and the Taos instructor last season. Especially "chin up" at TSV.
You might also try a run or two on the green without poles. When I've done that with an instructor, they usually plant the poles in the snow near the top of the lift.
