I've got my junk miles in my trunk. I've got raccoon eyes from wearing sunglasses and more meat on my backside to prove it. Now it's time to focus on technique and some more intensity.
Last week we worked on balance and now it's time to insert timing to get it all blending together smoothly. I said I'd explain how to get from the base position to the nose knees toes triangle and back again. This is so central to everything about efficient speed-skating because it involves the elusive "fall" and "push" and "recovery."
Dianne Holum said that a speedskater gets 90 percent of her power from the "fall," which was her term for gravity-assisted weight transfer. She would demonstrate how difficult it was to push someone over from a vertical base position as opposed to one that is diagonal, where a skater weighs more and simply adds a push on top of the work that gravity is already doing for her.
Remember the game of "trust" you used to play as a kid, where you fell backwards and hoped and prayed that your friend or sibling would catch you before you hit the ground? Remember how difficult it was not to twist around and try to catch yourself? The skating fall feels the same, only you are playing by yourself, and must trust your own leg and skate to be there to catch you.
The fall is free speed. It's like a tree going "timber." A marathon skater falls sideways with their knees together until reaching about 11 degrees of lean before the knee of the landing skate separates and the push is completed. When the fall and push and landing and recovery gets put together on both sides, it resembles a tick-tocking vertical pendulum (metronome), not a tree falling in the forest!
Getting from the base position glide to the nose knees toes triangle requires a courageous fall with knees glued together until the last possible second. And just when you want the security of setting your skate down to catch yourself, my coach counseled me to lift my landing skate a little higher to delay the set-down and increase the power of the fall!
The double bonus of delaying the knee separation is that you are focusing all your aligned body weight through your push, and when you do actually separate your knees and put your skate down, it's right underneath your center of mass (bellybutton) and not outside your shoulder.
Landing the skate under your body means you are pre-balanced in your nose-knees toes position and don't have to strain your back moving your weight to find your balance over your gliding skate. You have time to execute a nice, slow semi-circular recovery of your pushing skate to bring you back to your base position on the other side. And that's when the shooby dooby doo wap is complete!
Even if you haven't put in all the miles you intended to, take heart: A lazy skater is a fast skater. That's because a lazy skater uses the external forces of gravity to generate power and speed with the fall, not just internal leg strength. If you rely on good technique instead of strength and fitness, you can still hit a homer and have the best marathon of your life.
Read this article a few times to see it all in your mind's eye. Don't worry if there's lag time between understanding it upstairs and putting it together downstairs. Perfecting technique time. I'm going on 28 years of skating and still searching for the best blend.
Next week I will talk about my interval training regimen and give some tips to take your speed to the next level. Happy skating until then!
Last week we worked on balance and now it's time to insert timing to get it all blending together smoothly. I said I'd explain how to get from the base position to the nose knees toes triangle and back again. This is so central to everything about efficient speed-skating because it involves the elusive "fall" and "push" and "recovery."
Dianne Holum said that a speedskater gets 90 percent of her power from the "fall," which was her term for gravity-assisted weight transfer. She would demonstrate how difficult it was to push someone over from a vertical base position as opposed to one that is diagonal, where a skater weighs more and simply adds a push on top of the work that gravity is already doing for her.
Remember the game of "trust" you used to play as a kid, where you fell backwards and hoped and prayed that your friend or sibling would catch you before you hit the ground? Remember how difficult it was not to twist around and try to catch yourself? The skating fall feels the same, only you are playing by yourself, and must trust your own leg and skate to be there to catch you.
The fall is free speed. It's like a tree going "timber." A marathon skater falls sideways with their knees together until reaching about 11 degrees of lean before the knee of the landing skate separates and the push is completed. When the fall and push and landing and recovery gets put together on both sides, it resembles a tick-tocking vertical pendulum (metronome), not a tree falling in the forest!
Getting from the base position glide to the nose knees toes triangle requires a courageous fall with knees glued together until the last possible second. And just when you want the security of setting your skate down to catch yourself, my coach counseled me to lift my landing skate a little higher to delay the set-down and increase the power of the fall!
The double bonus of delaying the knee separation is that you are focusing all your aligned body weight through your push, and when you do actually separate your knees and put your skate down, it's right underneath your center of mass (bellybutton) and not outside your shoulder.
Landing the skate under your body means you are pre-balanced in your nose-knees toes position and don't have to strain your back moving your weight to find your balance over your gliding skate. You have time to execute a nice, slow semi-circular recovery of your pushing skate to bring you back to your base position on the other side. And that's when the shooby dooby doo wap is complete!
Even if you haven't put in all the miles you intended to, take heart: A lazy skater is a fast skater. That's because a lazy skater uses the external forces of gravity to generate power and speed with the fall, not just internal leg strength. If you rely on good technique instead of strength and fitness, you can still hit a homer and have the best marathon of your life.
Read this article a few times to see it all in your mind's eye. Don't worry if there's lag time between understanding it upstairs and putting it together downstairs. Perfecting technique time. I'm going on 28 years of skating and still searching for the best blend.
Next week I will talk about my interval training regimen and give some tips to take your speed to the next level. Happy skating until then!