Pilates rotating discs for femur rotation training?

[TheArchitect]

OPTP Pro Rotating Discs | Fitness Balance Discs | OPTP

Purchase OPTP Pro Rotating Discs: Rehabilitation and training tool for balance, push-ups, hip rotator work and more. Sold as pair or single.

www.optp.com

I was wondering if using these might help with training to keep my hips straight while rotating my femurs in my hip sockets. Has anyone here tried using them?

 

[LiquidFeet]

Feet in socks on the kitchen floor work just fine. Piece of paper beneath each foot works too. Spray the paper with furniture polish if the paper won't rotate freely. Prop a mirror on the floor to see what your hips are doing as your feet turn.

 

[Tricia]

OPTP Pro Rotating Discs | Fitness Balance Discs | OPTP

Purchase OPTP Pro Rotating Discs: Rehabilitation and training tool for balance, push-ups, hip rotator work and more. Sold as pair or single.

www.optp.com

I was wondering if using these might help with training to keep my hips straight while rotating my femurs in my hip sockets. Has anyone here tried using them?

Yes.
We did a similar excercise with @Chris Geib a few years ago.
Not sure if you should be impressed with the goggle tan, the balance of margaritas or the actual attempt at peforming the excercise while doing a multitude of things.
@DeAnn Sloan

@TheArchitect this proves, skiing is fun!

 

[Chris Geib]

OPTP Pro Rotating Discs | Fitness Balance Discs | OPTP

Purchase OPTP Pro Rotating Discs: Rehabilitation and training tool for balance, push-ups, hip rotator work and more. Sold as pair or single.

www.optp.com

I was wondering if using these might help with training to keep my hips straight while rotating my femurs in my hip sockets. Has anyone here tried using them?

Not sure what those are but they do look like they would do it! The ones in the photo @Tricia posted are made from inexpensive LazySusan bearings from HomeDepot and some scraps of wood. They will in fact work for you to learn separation if you have a coach or can accurately self coach with a mirror.

That particular set has the center of rotation point marked and will reinforce correct rotation about the tibial axis when the feet are positioned on them properly, which is a benefit over the socks or paper on hardwood as those will allow you to pivot about any point; most default to pivoting at the ball of foot.

Good luck!

 

[TheArchitect]

Feet in socks on the kitchen floor work just fine. Piece of paper beneath each foot works too. Spray the paper with furniture polish if the paper won't rotate freely. Prop a mirror on the floor to see what your hips are doing as your feet turn.

I hadn't thought of that but sure, that would work!

Yes.
We did a similar excercise with @Chris Geib a few years ago.
Not sure if you should be impressed with the goggle tan, the balance of margaritas or the actual attempt at peforming the excercise while doing a multitude of things.
@DeAnn Sloan
View attachment 107687
@TheArchitect this proves, skiing is fun!

That IS an impressive feat of multi-tasking! And yes, skiing is fun!

Not sure what those are but they do look like they would do it! The ones in the photo @Tricia posted are made from inexpensive LazySusan bearings from HomeDepot and some scraps of wood. They will in fact work for you to learn separation if you have a coach or can accurately self coach with a mirror.

That particular set has the center of rotation point marked and will reinforce correct rotation about the tibial axis when the feet are positioned on them properly, which is a benefit over the socks or paper on hardwood as those will allow you to pivot about any point; most default to pivoting at the ball of foot.

Good luck!

That's a good point about the center of rotation. I hadn't noticed that.

 

[James]

Yes.
We did a similar excercise with @Chris Geib a few years ago.
Not sure if you should be impressed with the goggle tan, the balance of margaritas or the actual attempt at peforming the excercise while doing a multitude of things.
@DeAnn Sloan
View attachment 107687
@TheArchitect this proves, skiing is fun!

Hey, that was my ski bag behind DeAnn. I believe that one was ruined by the ground crew at DIA or LGA. Dragged on the tarmac at speed.

 

[LiquidFeet]

....That particular set has the center of rotation point marked and will reinforce correct rotation about the tibial axis when the feet are positioned on them properly, which is a benefit over the socks or paper on hardwood as those will allow you to pivot about any point; most default to pivoting at the ball of foot.
....

The lazy susan type thingies you stand on can help you stand over a specific spot within the arch of your foot, sure. But those things won't allow you to mimick one very important element of separation - and that's the fact that one foot needs to be uphill of the other. On the hill this happens naturally as you rotate the feet because there are skis attached and they will knock into each other if the feet stay side-by-side. One foot simply has to move uphill of the other, and when the skier controls the movement of the inside ski (left for rotation to the left) that puts the inside foot slightly uphill of the CoM. This keeps the skier from allowing both feet to move downhill of the CoM in the second half of the turn, or pivot slip, or whatever you're working on.

If you are standing on a slippery floor in the kitchen, you can move those feet as you rotate them so they aren't lined up one directly, one in front of the other, but one "uphill" of the other. You can actually practice this important part of separation when your feet are not stuck in place by those rotating supports. Without the supports, as pointed out, you do have to give up the ease of rotating rotating them under the tibia at the back of the arch.

 

[Tricia]

Hey, that was my ski bag behind DeAnn. I believe that one was ruined by the ground crew at DIA or LGA. Dragged on the tarmac at speed.

That was at the ski house with the hidden wine cellar. Didn't you sleep in the wine cellar?

 

[James]

That was at the ski house with the hidden wine cellar. Didn't you sleep in the wine cellar?

No, I slept on the leather couch in the pool table room.

 

[Chris Geib]

LF,

True enough when doing a pivot slip that will be the case. In the grand scheme of all that goes wrong in a pivot slip I put it farther down the list. I would say it is generally achieved by anticipation.

Opinions vary I'm sure!

Enjoy the summer

 

[Chris Geib]

I thought @James slept on the pool table!

 

[Tricia]

I thought @James slept on the pool table!

At least it wasn't a taco.

 

[Tricia]

The lazy susan type thingies you stand on can help you stand over a specific spot within the arch of your foot, sure. But those things won't allow you to mimick one very important element of separation - and that's the fact that one foot needs to be uphill of the other. On the hill this happens naturally as you rotate the feet because there are skis attached and they will knock into each other if the feet stay side-by-side. One foot simply has to move uphill of the other, and when the skier controls the movement of the inside ski (left for rotation to the left) that puts the inside foot slightly uphill of the CoM. This keeps the skier from allowing both feet to move downhill of the CoM in the second half of the turn, or pivot slip, or whatever you're working on.

If you are standing on a slippery floor in the kitchen, you can move those feet as you rotate them so they aren't lined up one directly, one in front of the other, but one "uphill" of the other. You can actually practice this important part of separation when your feet are not stuck in place by those rotating supports. Without the supports, as pointed out, you do have to give up the ease of rotating rotating them under the tibia at the back of the arch.

There is something to be said for the sensation of what happens with your femurs and hips during this flat/dry land excercise.
Quite often people learn differently and getting that sensation on these dry land tools can translate quite well.
It did for me.

 

[David Chaus]

I have a set of those OT/PT discs, and they are great for isolating your upper body while rotating the femur.

It is way different than socks on a hard floor, as you have to work to control your movements. Since there isn’t the friction and therefore resistance from your foot against the floor, it helps develop greater awareness of what your movements are.

If you really want you can place one disc on something to raise it a bit and simulate a slope, but to me this is only useful to initiate turns from a traverse on a steep slope, whereas in actual skiing I’m not typically turning all the way to a traverse orientation.
So I find the discs really helpful as they are.

 

[LiquidFeet]

....
True enough when doing a pivot slip that will be the case. In the grand scheme of all that goes wrong in a pivot slip I put it farther down the list. I would say it is generally achieved by anticipation.

Opinions vary I'm sure!
....

The kitchen floor is the underdog. I'm championing the underdog just because. I'm sure the rotating foot platforms work well, and offer less risk than learning this movement standing on bar stools. Having both feet pointing in the same direction while they are lined up one directly in front of the other is a precarious position.

I do think the relative position of the rotating feet to each other, and by default to the CoM above them, deserves more attention than people usually give it when teaching/learning femur rotation. This position of the new inside foot is especially important.

I too speak from personal experience. It took me forever to realize good skiing did not mean getting my hip low - with both feet out from under the body. Focusing on keeping that inside foot up under the body was an important part of figuring out how to fix my hip-dumping. Learning to manage the foot/sk's position relative to the outside foot/ski certainly functions as the golden nugget for learning pivot slips. Moving it uphill of the CoM keeps those pivot slips moving downhill in that required narrowest of corridors. This focus translates into excellent results when making super short radius turns on steeper terrain, and when skiing New England's hard bumps.

So I guess I disagree with Chris Geib about how high on the list this focus should be.

 

[Chris Geib]

Fair enough but your description - if I follow correctly - strikes me as being 180 degrees out of phase.

When the ski's are across the fall-line this would be the time of greatest friction under foot and the COM would be uphill of or over the feet to balance against the resistance underfoot, then when the skis are pointed down the hill and straight running in the fall-line would be the time of least resistance and when the COM would be down hill of or over the feet - it is at this point when some feel they need to pull the feet back to keep the skis from running away.

Nonetheless, the center of pressure under foot remains the tibial axis with fore/aft management required to keep it there; while standing on a flat floor in your socks these dynamics are not in play so I'm not sure how one accurately moves the feet fore/aft unless artificially moving the base of support from foot to foot after putting one in front of the other.

I do not at all disagree at all with the need for accurate fore/aft management in pivot slips. However, it is not what the OP is asking about.

 

[cantunamunch]

Without the supports, as pointed out, you do have to give up the ease of rotating rotating them under the tibia at the back of the arch.

Unless you lift your toes.

 

[LiquidFeet]

@Chris Geib, I'm addressing the tendency of recreational skiers, intermediates, to allow both feet to be downhill of their CoM when the skis are pointed across the hill. They don't flex that inside leg enough to keep it back up under them, to keep it "contained" so to speak..

Yes, I know that foot, at high angles, ends up downhill of the CoM just after the fall line. But at that point such skiers start to bring the feet back up under the body (I'm seeing Bob's sideways figure eight in my mind as I say this). They aren't dropping the hip after the fall line.

Advancing skiers can learn to hold that inside foot back when learning to do femur rotation for upper body lower body separation. It's a good thing to bundle the two together. This focus will help skiers achieve an appropriate platform angle for grip. That's all I'm talking about. Surely you don't disagree about that?

 

[Tricia]

@LiquidFeet I believe TheArchitect is looking for a tool to stay ski fit during the off season and perhaps get some dry land training in at the same time.
Also, I've skied with him and he's definitely not intermediate. He's also very light on his feet.
I believe this is him at Big Sky with us.
So many people there and trying to remember usernames with real names and helmet/goggles vs in the meeting room without....ya know.
Note: this image is posted to show that he's comfortable in moguls and is not intermediate.
NOT for MA, so don't go there.

 

[TheArchitect]

@LiquidFeet I believe TheArchitect is looking for a tool to stay ski fit during the off season and perhaps get some dry land training in at the same time.
Also, I've skied with him and he's definitely not intermediate. He's also very light on his feet.
I believe this is him at Big Sky with us.
So many people there and trying to remember usernames with real names and helmet/goggles vs in the meeting room without....ya know.
Note: this image is posted to show that he's comfortable in moguls and is not intermediate.
NOT for MA, so don't go there.
View attachment 107727

Awww, thanks for the compliments, @Tricia Yes, that's me at Big Sky with you. I like to think I'm in the advanced category but I definitely have flaws in my technique that need to be addressed. I'm asking about the discs for both fitness and trying to learn what it feels like to consciously rotate my femurs. I know it won't translate exactly but knowing what if feels like in general will help me when I'm on the snow.

Too much leaning in that photo! I'm working on it though. Last year at Alta below. Less leaning but I'm still having a hard time forcing myself to separate my legs and get some long leg/short leg going. I do long leg/short leg more often now but a lifetime habit of keeping my legs glued together is hard to break.