Classic skiing 101: Fundamental body position

Tue, Dec  1, 2015 - By Mike Muha

U.S. Ski Team coach Bryan Fish, in the video below, shows the fundamental body positions and movements for classic skiing technique. he breaks down the video into two main parts:

Fundamental body position

1. Weight comes forward on balls of feet
2. Be nice and relaxed and supple at the ankles
3. Knees and hips are in a relatively neutral position
4. Shoulders shold arch forward (think Neanderthal position)
5. Hands just hang down to the side
6. Chest is open
7. The head is facing actively forward - not facing up, not facing down.
8. The eyes should be looking about 15 feet (4.6 meters) in front of you.

Fundamental movements

1. Core compression: Flex at upper torso, not flexing (hinging) at hips. Do a crunch!
2. Pendular arm swing: Swing from the shoulders, straight forward and straight back. Drive from the shoulder.
3. Pendular leg swing: The lower body is more challenging that skating. There's a pendualar swing of the leg, driving from the hip. 
4. Quick impulse kick: Second, there's weighting one foot. It's a flexion of the knee and ankle down as a quick impulse kick, as if you were trying to squish a bug. Strike down not back. You need to set the wax. A forward lean at the ankles will make the body go forward.
5. Extension: There's an active release. Drive and release and relation of the arms and legs. This active relaxation lets the muscle re-oxygenate.

Here's the video: