• For more information on how to avoid pop-up ads and still support SkiTalk click HERE.

Inside leg in carving

Henry

Out on the slopes
Skier
Joined
Sep 7, 2019
Posts
1,229
Location
Traveling in the great Northwest
I think I should be shortening the inside leg (and/or lengthening the outside leg?) more when trying to carve medium to long radius terms - to get more angulation vs too much inclination, but not sure how to think about / approach it. Do people have good drills and/or cues for focusing on this?
Back to the question: Yes, you must get the inside leg out of the way. The more weight you put on the outside ski the more it will bend and the more it will turn you. Look at a photo of any great racer. Their inside foot is near the outside knee. Pulled way up and pulled way back. I strongly disagree with trying to get angulation from the knees. As one with gimpy knees, the knee is not made to bend sideways. Keep a bit of sideways flexibility available in it to absorb shocks. Inverting the inside foot (tipping it toward its little toe edge) impels the body toward more angulation. When one is properly angulated and countered if the skis hit an icy patch the body stays balanced over the skis as they skid. If inclined the skis skid out from under the body and you go...splat! The feet should be spread wide only if one is going fast enough to need to tuck.
Here's Marcel Hirscher, maybe the best skier in recent years. What is he doing that you should be doing? Note how his skis are going to his right while his hips & chest are aimed to his left.
1641876067617.png
 

Attachments

  • 1641875993008.png
    1641875993008.png
    189.6 KB · Views: 20

Noodler

Sir Turn-a-lot
Skier
Joined
Oct 4, 2017
Posts
6,314
Location
Denver, CO
Back to the question: Yes, you must get the inside leg out of the way. The more weight you put on the outside ski the more it will bend and the more it will turn you. Look at a photo of any great racer. Their inside foot is near the outside knee. Pulled way up and pulled way back. I strongly disagree with trying to get angulation from the knees. As one with gimpy knees, the knee is not made to bend sideways. Keep a bit of sideways flexibility available in it to absorb shocks. Inverting the inside foot (tipping it toward its little toe edge) impels the body toward more angulation. When one is properly angulated and countered if the skis hit an icy patch the body stays balanced over the skis as they skid. If inclined the skis skid out from under the body and you go...splat! The feet should be spread wide only if one is going fast enough to need to tuck.
Here's Marcel Hirscher, maybe the best skier in recent years. What is he doing that you should be doing? Note how his skis are going to his right while his hips & chest are aimed to his left.
View attachment 154711

One point of clarification, a ski will not "bend more" purely by putting more weight on it; the "earth" gets in the way. What must come along with the weight (actually proper balance/pressure) is tipping the skis to ever higher angles to be able to increase the amount of ski bend.

The challenge is that skiers hear this "weight" thing over and over and think they can just smash on the ski to make it work. The funny thing is that it's actually detrimental to good skiing to approach making turns from this perspective. For most adult-sized folks, simply balancing correctly over the skis, managing both fore/aft and lateral position, is enough to bend most any consumer-level ski. Avoid trying to push the skis and instead just manage your balance over them, the turn forces will auto-magically generate all the pressure you need. The bigger challenge is managing the rebound energy that comes back at the skier so that you do not lose your balance. It's critical to maintain and/or get forward as you enter the new turn so that there is sufficient tip pressure to have the ski engage in the top of the turn.

Management of the inside leg (via flexion/retraction) can be a game changer for many skiers' skiing. However, when first attempted it usually exposes balance problems in your skiing. Inside leg retraction does not play well with leaning into the hill, banking, etc. In the image of Marcel, there are many other critical elements happening in his ski turns that go hand-in-hand with what's happening with the inside leg.
 

jimtransition

Out on the slopes
Skier
Joined
Nov 15, 2016
Posts
473
Location
Niseko/Queenstown
Back to the question: Yes, you must get the inside leg out of the way. The more weight you put on the outside ski the more it will bend and the more it will turn you. Look at a photo of any great racer. Their inside foot is near the outside knee. Pulled way up and pulled way back. I strongly disagree with trying to get angulation from the knees. As one with gimpy knees, the knee is not made to bend sideways. Keep a bit of sideways flexibility available in it to absorb shocks. Inverting the inside foot (tipping it toward its little toe edge) impels the body toward more angulation. When one is properly angulated and countered if the skis hit an icy patch the body stays balanced over the skis as they skid. If inclined the skis skid out from under the body and you go...splat! The feet should be spread wide only if one is going fast enough to need to tuck.
Here's Marcel Hirscher, maybe the best skier in recent years. What is he doing that you should be doing? Note how his skis are going to his right while his hips & chest are aimed to his left.
View attachment 154711
You 'strongly disagree' with knee angulation, but then post a photo of Hirscher doing exactly that :huh: Knee angulation isn't the knee flexing sideways, it's just the femur rotating whilst the knee is flexed. Also angulation and inclination are not a dichotomy, they are complementary movements. In the second photo he is very inclined, and moderately angulated, 1st photo more angulated, less inclined.
 

Yo Momma

Making fresh tracks
Skier
Joined
Mar 29, 2016
Posts
1,775
Location
NEK Vermont
Management of the inside leg (via flexion/retraction) can be a game changer for many skiers' skiing. However, when first attempted it usually exposes balance problems in your skiing. Inside leg retraction does not play well with leaning into the hill, banking, etc. In the image of Marcel, there are many other critical elements happening in his ski turns that go hand-in-hand with what's happening with the inside leg.
I found that Tele skiing actually helped "wake up" my inside leg. That "awakening" transferred over to my alpine technique. Freeing my heel also seemed to wake my feet up to the point whereby now I do proprioceptive foot (ankle, toes) movements during yoga sessions. Just the "awakening" transferred.... not necessarily all aspects of the technique per say. The transition to Tele forced me to reconcile my inside leg movements as I experimented w/ which style of Tele I preferred. It remains an interesting dynamic movement experiment that enhanced my overall available toolset. Lots of good info @Noodler Thank you! :beercheer:
 
Last edited:

Sledhead

Putting on skis
Skier
Joined
Sep 30, 2021
Posts
41
Location
New York, US
When coaching A framing/stemming skiers to use the inside ski, I tell them that the ideal goal is equal tipping and fore/aft pressure migration from parallel shafts in both frontal and sagittal planes in order to create the refined ski to snow interaction outcome sought. However, to do that I ask them to apply the concept of “leading with inside tipping” but only as a developmental modality in order to eventually achieve the goals and benefits of simultaneous tipping and equal bending of both skis. I find the idea of leading the tipping with the non-dominant inside ski as an ultimate technical goal to be very questionable to say the least. I coach the exaggeration pattern of a “V” frame to eradicate the “A” frame to, ideally, end up with an “H” frame. Reserving 10 - 20% pressure for the inside ski is what provides the feedback as to what the inside foot is doing and whether the skier is actually tipping and bending the skis equally. This dual application of matching skis allows the skier to use the pair as a more unified base of support that provides more stability, while working them together is also quicker than moving them separately in different directions with different dirt, etc. More stability and mobility, attributes more commonly found on the opposite ends of the spectrum of movement attributes from the very same concept? Yes.

Furthermore, inside pressure also allows the skier to “pin” the inside ski back under the CoM where it belongs without the onerous hamstring involvement so often touted. With a modicum of pressure on the inside ski, we can control its tipping and fore/aft pressure with a ‘similar’ boot pressure scheme as the outside foot. There should be no need for bending, softening, flexing the inside leg in order to tip the ski. Instead, tip the ski with your feet and allow the resulting vertical separation and ground reaction force to bend your inside leg for you. Lack of inside development tends to be a cause of higher end plateaus for skiers that find committing to the inside ski this way as daunting. It challenges their balance because putting any pressure on the inside ski requires the ability to regulate that without falling too far to the inside. I would say that a developing skier should have already learned to ski with 100% pressure to the outside before working on this.

All these instructions for operating the chain from the top top-down results in bypassing the development of passive outcomes by describing them to be direct inputs. There is an alchemy to advanced separation that gets ignored with instruction. Understandably, it is just too difficult to teach what cannot be seen in typical instructional environments. About 90% of my technical focus is on what happens inside the boot and is not something that can be taught very well outside of a well developed rapport. While I can certainly see some developmental benefits to using direct inputs, such as examining the required mobility, etc., it would be only in order to tease out their ultimate form of efficiency in their passive state. Otherwise, we are leaving skiers to flex their inside leg a certain amount in order to tip the ski a certain amount in order to turn the ski a certain amount. Ugh! I much prefer to choose all the DIRT that is going to flow up the chain with the feet and ankles. The beginning of the human kinetic chain is at the bottom and the end of that chain is at the top. Yet creating inputs up the chain that are supposed to produce outcomes down the chain has us using the chain backwards which does not work nearly as well as the other way around. Again, teaching top-down movement schemes makes onerous inputs out of what are much more beneficial passive outputs, the DIRT of which is allocated by the turn rather than the direct initiative of the skier. Every movement we produce above the BoS (feet, ankles, boots, skis) is simply for putting the CoM in a location relative to the BoS that empowers the feet to do what they want. In this case, it can help to think of the BoS as the needle and the CoM as the thread.
 

markojp

mtn rep for the gear on my feet
Industry Insider
Instructor
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Posts
6,601
Location
PNW aka SEA
I found that Tele skiing actually helped "wake up" my inside leg. That "awakening" transferred over to my alpine technique. Freeing my heel also seemed to wake my feet up to the point whereby now I do proprioceptive foot (ankle, toes) movements during yoga sessions. Just the "awakening" transferred.... not necessarily all aspects of the technique per say. The transition to Tele forced me to reconcile my inside leg movements as I experimented w/ which style of Tele I preferred. It remains an interesting dynamic movement experiment that enhanced my overall available toolset. Lots of good info @Noodler Thank you! :beercheer:

The really cool thing about teley is that you learn how to find the cuff of the boot without levering out over the ski, particularly after apex.
 

Atomicman

Out on the slopes
Skier
Joined
May 6, 2017
Posts
843
When coaching A framing/stemming skiers to use the inside ski, I tell them that the ideal goal is equal tipping and fore/aft pressure migration from parallel shafts in both frontal and sagittal planes in order to create the refined ski to snow interaction outcome sought. However, to do that I ask them to apply the concept of “leading with inside tipping” but only as a developmental modality in order to eventually achieve the goals and benefits of simultaneous tipping and equal bending of both skis. I find the idea of leading the tipping with the non-dominant inside ski as an ultimate technical goal to be very questionable to say the least. I coach the exaggeration pattern of a “V” frame to eradicate the “A” frame to, ideally, end up with an “H” frame. Reserving 10 - 20% pressure for the inside ski is what provides the feedback as to what the inside foot is doing and whether the skier is actually tipping and bending the skis equally. This dual application of matching skis allows the skier to use the pair as a more unified base of support that provides more stability, while working them together is also quicker than moving them separately in different directions with different dirt, etc. More stability and mobility, attributes more commonly found on the opposite ends of the spectrum of movement attributes from the very same concept? Yes.

Furthermore, inside pressure also allows the skier to “pin” the inside ski back under the CoM where it belongs without the onerous hamstring involvement so often touted. With a modicum of pressure on the inside ski, we can control its tipping and fore/aft pressure with a ‘similar’ boot pressure scheme as the outside foot. There should be no need for bending, softening, flexing the inside leg in order to tip the ski. Instead, tip the ski with your feet and allow the resulting vertical separation and ground reaction force to bend your inside leg for you. Lack of inside development tends to be a cause of higher end plateaus for skiers that find committing to the inside ski this way as daunting. It challenges their balance because putting any pressure on the inside ski requires the ability to regulate that without falling too far to the inside. I would say that a developing skier should have already learned to ski with 100% pressure to the outside before working on this.

All these instructions for operating the chain from the top top-down results in bypassing the development of passive outcomes by describing them to be direct inputs. There is an alchemy to advanced separation that gets ignored with instruction. Understandably, it is just too difficult to teach what cannot be seen in typical instructional environments. About 90% of my technical focus is on what happens inside the boot and is not something that can be taught very well outside of a well developed rapport. While I can certainly see some developmental benefits to using direct inputs, such as examining the required mobility, etc., it would be only in order to tease out their ultimate form of efficiency in their passive state. Otherwise, we are leaving skiers to flex their inside leg a certain amount in order to tip the ski a certain amount in order to turn the ski a certain amount. Ugh! I much prefer to choose all the DIRT that is going to flow up the chain with the feet and ankles. The beginning of the human kinetic chain is at the bottom and the end of that chain is at the top. Yet creating inputs up the chain that are supposed to produce outcomes down the chain has us using the chain backwards which does not work nearly as well as the other way around. Again, teaching top-down movement schemes makes onerous inputs out of what are much more beneficial passive outputs, the DIRT of which is allocated by the turn rather than the direct initiative of the skier. Every movement we produce above the BoS (feet, ankles, boots, skis) is simply for putting the CoM in a location relative to the BoS that empowers the feet to do what they want. In this case, it can help to think of the BoS as the needle and the CoM as the thread.
THIS!!!
 

James

Out There
Instructor
Joined
Dec 2, 2015
Posts
24,419
Conceptually as a thought or goal, parallel shafts and equal edge angles are good, but at some point in high level skiing reality is different.
Or else Hirscher is just another who needs to work on parallel shafts and equal edge angles.
 

Atomicman

Out on the slopes
Skier
Joined
May 6, 2017
Posts
843
Conceptually as a thought or goal, parallel shafts and equal edge angles are good, but at some point in high level skiing reality is different.
Or else Hirscher is just another who needs to work on parallel shafts and equal edge angles.
They do what ever they have to do to get through the course as fast as possible. We have the luxury of keeping edge angles and shafts parallels. 2 different universes!
 

newfydog

Making fresh tracks
Skier
Joined
Nov 23, 2015
Posts
834
I'm not going to engage in the tech discussion, but I thought I'd tell a story some might find entertaining.

Fate, friends and luck found me having a few beers in a bar in Italy during the World Cup Finals/Pre- Olympics in 2005. Chad Fleischer, 10 year veteran of the US Ski Team was covering the events for TV, and somehow he ended up drinking with me instead of all the more interesting people in the room. I mentioned that with the then newish slalom skis, some of the courses were showing two matching ruts, and that I was struggling to get a good arc out of the inside ski.

Chad confirmed what I have seen in the real champions----they tend to be very nice people.

He cleared some chairs and tables, had me angulate away from the bar, and crawled around positioning my various shins, knees ankles and feet while walking me through the sequence of getting the inside ski to engage. He added some info on equipment set-up etc. while other skiers in the bar stepped over the contorted appendages to get a refill.

It helped, thanks Chad.
 

James

Out There
Instructor
Joined
Dec 2, 2015
Posts
24,419

Noodler

Sir Turn-a-lot
Skier
Joined
Oct 4, 2017
Posts
6,314
Location
Denver, CO
It's a good thing that Dave doesn't need to use any of that "onerous hamstring involvement"...

 

razie

Sir Shiftsalot
Skier
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Jan 18, 2016
Posts
1,619
Location
Ontario
When coaching A framing/stemming skiers to use the inside ski, I tell them that the ideal goal is equal tipping and fore/aft pressure migration from parallel shafts in both frontal and sagittal planes in order to create the refined ski to snow interaction outcome sought. However, to do that I ask them to apply the concept of “leading with inside tipping” but only as a developmental modality in order to eventually achieve the goals and benefits of simultaneous tipping and equal bending of both skis. I find the idea of leading the tipping with the non-dominant inside ski as an ultimate technical goal to be very questionable to say the least. I coach the exaggeration pattern of a “V” frame to eradicate the “A” frame to, ideally, end up with an “H” frame. Reserving 10 - 20% pressure for the inside ski is what provides the feedback as to what the inside foot is doing and whether the skier is actually tipping and bending the skis equally. This dual application of matching skis allows the skier to use the pair as a more unified base of support that provides more stability, while working them together is also quicker than moving them separately in different directions with different dirt, etc. More stability and mobility, attributes more commonly found on the opposite ends of the spectrum of movement attributes from the very same concept? Yes.

Furthermore, inside pressure also allows the skier to “pin” the inside ski back under the CoM where it belongs without the onerous hamstring involvement so often touted. With a modicum of pressure on the inside ski, we can control its tipping and fore/aft pressure with a ‘similar’ boot pressure scheme as the outside foot. There should be no need for bending, softening, flexing the inside leg in order to tip the ski. Instead, tip the ski with your feet and allow the resulting vertical separation and ground reaction force to bend your inside leg for you. Lack of inside development tends to be a cause of higher end plateaus for skiers that find committing to the inside ski this way as daunting. It challenges their balance because putting any pressure on the inside ski requires the ability to regulate that without falling too far to the inside. I would say that a developing skier should have already learned to ski with 100% pressure to the outside before working on this.

All these instructions for operating the chain from the top top-down results in bypassing the development of passive outcomes by describing them to be direct inputs. There is an alchemy to advanced separation that gets ignored with instruction. Understandably, it is just too difficult to teach what cannot be seen in typical instructional environments. About 90% of my technical focus is on what happens inside the boot and is not something that can be taught very well outside of a well developed rapport. While I can certainly see some developmental benefits to using direct inputs, such as examining the required mobility, etc., it would be only in order to tease out their ultimate form of efficiency in their passive state. Otherwise, we are leaving skiers to flex their inside leg a certain amount in order to tip the ski a certain amount in order to turn the ski a certain amount. Ugh! I much prefer to choose all the DIRT that is going to flow up the chain with the feet and ankles. The beginning of the human kinetic chain is at the bottom and the end of that chain is at the top. Yet creating inputs up the chain that are supposed to produce outcomes down the chain has us using the chain backwards which does not work nearly as well as the other way around. Again, teaching top-down movement schemes makes onerous inputs out of what are much more beneficial passive outputs, the DIRT of which is allocated by the turn rather than the direct initiative of the skier. Every movement we produce above the BoS (feet, ankles, boots, skis) is simply for putting the CoM in a location relative to the BoS that empowers the feet to do what they want. In this case, it can help to think of the BoS as the needle and the CoM as the thread.
We'll, I am glad someone found the shroom box... Good ones, too, must be locker 666.

The psychedelic analysis necessarily following the top down decomposition of the chain of thought would take an equaly screwy amount of word badassery, of which practice I have been deprived of lately, so I'll get straight to the point, using common English.

The gist of it: you're focusing on what moves inside the boot, to drive the chain top down, turning outputs into inputs because why not tip the ski on edge the precise amount to have the snow push it up into the hip socket, but without actually tipping it, because that's an outcome, of weighting it 15% instead of unweighting it 85% (excuse the estimation)?

The assumptions are the following set of alternative facts:
  • The unrelaxed leg only pressures 15%
  • The unshortened leg is shortened by the snow, without the skier wanting it
  • The shafts tip equal amounts at big angles
  • The unweighted skier moves the COM not the BOS... presumably In preparation for the BOS moving the COM at a later date
  • Large angles are possible while the snow pushes the unrelaxed inside leg against the skiers will, while the hip remains indiferent
  • There is no such thing as natural tip lead.
I'm guessing you also like to sit down by focusing on convincing the ground to push your legs up, rather than relaxing and flexing the legs to bring the hips down. That will make for interesting practice.


Excuse me while I go try some actual big angles in front of a camera, and play that backwards to see what I did...

:geek:
 
Last edited:

markojp

mtn rep for the gear on my feet
Industry Insider
Instructor
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Posts
6,601
Location
PNW aka SEA
I thought sledheads comments were interesting. There's alot of nuance in them that often goes sideways on the webz if others are looking for fault.
 

Noodler

Sir Turn-a-lot
Skier
Joined
Oct 4, 2017
Posts
6,314
Location
Denver, CO
I thought sledheads comments were interesting. There's alot of nuance in them that often goes sideways on the webz if others are looking for fault.

I guess there isn't much that separates "nuance" from gobbledygook then...
 

Atomicman

Out on the slopes
Skier
Joined
May 6, 2017
Posts
843
We'll, I am glad someone found the shroom box... Good ones, too, must be locker 666.

The psychedelic analysis necessarily following the top down decomposition of the chain of thought would take an equaly screwy amount of word badassery, of which practice I have been deprived of lately, so I'll get straight to the point, using common English.

The gist of it: you're focusing on what moves inside the boot, to drive the chain top down, turning outputs into inputs because why not tip the ski on edge the precise amount to have the snow push it up into the hip socket, but without actually tipping it, because that's an outcome, of weighting it 15% instead of unweighting it 85% (excuse the estimation)?

The assumptions are the following set of alternative facts:
  • The unrelaxed leg only pressures 15%
  • The unshortened leg is shortened by the snow, without the skier wanting it
  • The shafts tip equal amounts at big angles
  • The unweighted skier moves the COM not the BOS... presumably In preparation for the BOS moving the COM at a later date
  • Large angles are possible while the snow pushes the unrelaxed inside leg against the skiers will, while the hip remains indiferent
  • There is no such thing as natural tip lead.
I'm guessing you also like to sit down by focusing on convincing the ground to push your legs up, rather than relaxing and flexing the legs to bring the hips down. That will make for interesting practice.


Excuse me while I go try some actual big angles in front of a camera, and play that backwards to see what I did...

:geek:
Razie, I am not sure you understood a thing he said!:rolleyes:
 

Sponsor

Staff online

Top