<>UNICYCLING FOR MYSLELF TOO<><

Ken,>>Since I've criticized your technique, here's a link to a video of me.>>http://www.ski­nnyski.com/tools/vid­eoclip.asp?path=/rac­ing/results/2007/vid­eos/mora2007-3>>The first guy finishing (the 30 km race) was Bjorn Battdorf, the>second guy was Andy Schakel, and then me (bib 2001). There's gaps>between the skiers, so no need to sprint, but I'm certainly pushing to>finish fast (almost a sprint).>>You and I have taken completely different routes to working on>technique. You have video taped your technique, analyzed it, and then>tried to make refinements. I applaud your efforts. It's certainly more>scientific than my method.>>I simply watched the 1992 4x10 Olympic relay a million times,>imitated, skied, worked on balance(!), being smooth, and trying to>"feel" my way to better power. This was the route recommended to me by>a former national team member. (Basically, watch the video and>imitate.) Some other info is that I alpine skied as a kid, and have>been xc skiing about 15 years. I think this is the first video I've>see of myself skating on snow. What I'm saying is I don't video tape>myself (but I probably should).>>Another difference was that I was trying to learn by doing technique>like the 4x10 video, and I _think_ you're trying to apply more>iconoclastic ideas that certain unusual movements should give more>power, speed, etc.>>Jay>

Looks nice to me!>>Question: why does the announcer feel he has to say "Minneapolis>MINNES­OTA" (my emphasis). Aren't they in Minnesota? Is there more>than one Minneapolis in another state somewhere?>

http://www.skinnysk­i.com/tools/videocli­p.asp?path=/racing/r­esults/2007/videos/m­ora2007-3

http://www.jt10000.­com/images/special/j­tv220070218.wmv

http://www.jt10000.­com/images/special/j­tv120070218.wmv

Nice shots of you. On the V1, I noticed that you are "C" curving. In

other words, your upper body goes to the left when you are poling

left, but your hips stay towards the middle, which makes a "C" curve

in your body.

The way to correct this is to shift the hips more to the outside so

that they are over the ski, allowing for greater glide on each stroke

and a flatter ski.

Your upper body and ab compression look pretty good.

V1: A bit too much side to side with the shoulders, even a little tipping

...

Someone pointed me to a V1 video recently of Chad Giese's

coach on the Twin Cities Ride and Glide site . . .

http://rideandglide­.bizland.com/ - Ahvo V1 video on right.

rm wrote

I'm not getting how it is that reducing "tipping" of the upper body,

or reducing side-to-side movement of shoulders, will increase

sustainable speed. What's the physics or biomechanics of that?

Looks to me like the skier in that video is showing significant

tipping and side-to-side shoulders. Also the video on "Ride and Glide"

linked from the "V1 skate technique article" shows at least as much

shoulder-tipping as John Tomlinson's V1. There used to be a video on

SkinnySki.com of Chad Giese doing V1 on rollerskis, and he showed

noticeable tipping of upper body and side-to-side shoulder movement.

(Carl Swenson's V1 showed more.)

I could imagine that reducing "tipping" might be useful as a

developmental learning stage, for simplifying the upper body, in order

to develop perception and accuracy for other motions. But for final

race performance, seems to me the physics indicates that well-timed

sideways shoulder motion can add propulsive power to skating -- by

Newton's Third Law: accelerating more mass away from the push on the

ski adds force to the push thru the ski (provided the additional force

is transmitted, and that other side-effects don't cancel it out).

Ken

P.S. Interesting in that video on "Ride and Glide": Just after

set-down of the poling-side leg , the hip fails to "keep up" with the

sideways move of the knee, for a very short time -- but then soon the

hip "tracks" together stably with the knee. However in the V1

rollerski video (once on skinnyski.com) of Chad Giese himself, the

sideways hip-knee configuration was completely stable _immediately_

from set-down -- so Chad Giese's knee-relative-to-fo­ot sideways motion

is smaller, but fully transmitted to the rest of his body mass.

A video on http://rideandglide­.bizland.com/ which shows pretty good

sideways hip-relative-to-kne­e stability is the one linked from the "V1

skate technique article", with filename "v1_positions.mov".­