Key points to strong cornering
Tue, Dec 8, 2015 - By Mike Muha
U.S. Nordic Ski Team men's Head Coach, Jason Cork, has four great tips for getting around corners fast:
- Setup the corner: Wide-Narrow-Wide keeps your speed up. Be on the outside of the corner as you enter it, cut to the inside, then exit toward the outside of the corner. Essential, you're taking a longer but faster line than hugging the inside of the corner from start to finish.
- Lean into the turn: lean counteracts centrifugal force and sets the edges of the ski
- Arm swing: Pole through turn - the poling adds speed, and the swing forward maintains momentum.
- Be light on your feet: This means making quick movements through the turn - don't stay on a ski too long but change direction by quickly moving from ski to ski quickly. Gallop around the corners!
He recommends skiing circles as a drill. And second drill that I recommend is to skiing in a figure 8. You'll need a more open area, such as the grooming near the lodge. The key to the drill is cadence: like biking, your leg movements can have a slow cadence to a fast cadence. The faster the cadence, the faster you'll get around the turn, and the more tight you can go around a curve. The faster the cadence, the shorter and skate.
The video: