Great subject! This is the same issue I was working on recently. Q angle is new for me and very good information, it makes it even more understandable. I had a problem when I kept my femurs parallel my hips were kind of stuck and locked when I was changing the turn and my inside leg was always in the way no matter how much I was trying to roll my inside knee into the turn. So my friend recommends keeping the femur V shape or knees crossed as you would A-frame and all started to happen smoothly my hips started moving from side to side easily and quickly.
This might be your best episode yet! I usually listen to your podcast while walking the dog but I needed to go back and watch this on RUclips. As someone who learned to ski on straight skis, rolling the inside knee has been the hardest skill to pick up when transitioning to carving and continually felt unnatural to me. After listening, I’m taking The Cheeky Butt Cheek with me to the slopes this winter! This cue makes so much more sense in my opinion and really looks so much closer to how the racers and deep carvers ski.
Excellent inside baseball episode. Reminds me of years ago when I had a private with Gord Brown at Revy. He called it “hip check” and I always have that running in the background when I’m skiing. 👍
Great chat! I cant stop thinking that in the book Ultimate Skiing, the "A" shape shin thing is mention as something that is not actually wrong, or is not something that you do all the time. You can read it in page 67 "Relative alignment of lower legs", but basically to try to ski with parallel shins works against the fundamental principle of leg independence. Now with your explanation, that chapter makes so much sense now! Great topic! Thanks for the videos!
Tom, interesting conversation about Q angle and rolling ankles and knees. I was reminded that I’d seen a video of Deb Armstrong interviewing racers at Breckenridge. A college racer, Chase Seymour said he was coached to flex his “outside” ankle (not roll the feet and ankles) at the start of the turn. I’ve been working with that movement and noticed that in doing so, that I had to lead with the inside hip and respect the Q angle of the inside leg as a function of biomechanics. Also, I learned from your video, for the first time, that the lowering of the hip is a function of rounding out the turn and thereby controlling speed. Thank you for the insights. Kind regards, Marshall
I need to try your pistol squat idea to get the hip onto the snow, i can't quite visualise what it all means but perhaps it will make sense when I try it. Great video, as always!
Love this podcast! Dont fight your anatomy. When the leg flexes (during gait or any other time) it is FAR more natural to follow the Q. Some would have skiers roll their inside knees so far as to create a potentially dangerous misalignment should one lose the outside ski. Not to mention that the rolled knee does tend to create blocking.
Was fascinating to hear about Demelza's journey -- about how, in recovering from her knee injury, she rebuilt her turn mechanics to become an even better skier. Given this, I would love to have seen a segment at the end where Demelza and Tom did a frame-by-frame comparative analysis of Demelza's best skiing before and after, showing exactly what turn mechanics had changed, and the effect of those changes upon her outcomes. I also would like to see a video of what Tom was describing: Intermediate skiers who are overdoing it on inside foot tipping. I've not seen that myself, so a video would be helpful there.
Tom great discussion as a lifelong 73 year old skier and always working on making fun turns I noticed this in trying the exercise. The inside hip showing more of my butt cheeks than knee too far inside that getting into that position my upper body seem to have a natural counter. Have you noticed that feeling as well?. Made my overall body position more in balance and ready for the next turn. Thxs for the podcasts like them all.
So insightful! I'm saving this to re-watch again later, this video is packed with such interesting topics I've never heard anywhere before. Most of the advice I've been hearing from instructors in the past 2 years has been working on the feet, starting the carve from the feet. However a hip seems like a much more important part that's pretty much neglected. Some instructors try to give some hip advice but it's nowhere near as detailed and precise as this. Will be focusing a lot more on the hips this upcoming season. Q-angle is also new info to me but makes so much sense.
Let us know how you get on. I’d also reiterate that ideally you go and explore movement in your skiing and not always be thinking there is one way to do it. Or one way to think about it.
More stellar content! That was really interesting, especially in conjunction with Demelza's Insta bits on hip stability & movement into a turn. I do have some questions/requests: Can D extend the hip stability program to model how you move your inside leg/knee/foot as you shorten it? Also, can you expand on or model your hip movement guidance in your edge set/traverse exercises, and in ankle/knee roll turns on cat tracks? Along with the Pistol Squat video, these all seem to be incisive drills for helping us "Boxy" skiers get our inside knee out of the way. Thanks!!
Hey John, Glad you enjoyed it! Just out of curiosity have you ever checked out the bps library of videos? I have a whole entire category on movement related to skiing. Yes it’s something you pay for but this is where I put all my best stuff, RUclips is really just a teaser.
Great discussion with Demelza Clay The Subject was hot and provided good clarification, I have a suggestion for BPS, your ''old videos'' please create a life fee for your members . With this fee for a lifetime, we can't have access to all your science...
This was helpful! I spent last year working on pointing my inside knee, but without seeing this I may have started to fall into the trap mentioned where I over-exaggerate and stop focusing on my hips. I would love a video on arm placement, as I don't exactly know the ideal position my arms should be in (how high, low, how far in front, how wide) I watched a video of my skiing and was surprised that my arms are pretty bent at the elbows and tucked up high instead of what I see top carvers doing. Anyway, let me know if you put a video out on that. Thanks
Have you seen the one i have on “pole use 101”. Search that in RUclips. Talks about the arms a bit in there. I have a full tutorial on 3 main points for the arms on my learning platform at bigpictureskiing.com It costs to be a member, but thats where all the best of my lessons live.
Fantastic analysis Tom and Demelza! Could you do an analysis of Taiyo Nakanishi’s turns? He has the most unique and beautiful turns I’ve ever seen. Nobody skis like him and I just cannot figure out the mechanics behind how he does it.
Hey Tom at 34:00 you guy talk about what to say to those people who have been told they bring too much their hip inside... about that what I notice, these peoples then to bring their hip inside on a rotational plan from a conter rotation of there hip action and that's very different than what you are talking, if I understand properly, you talk about pulling the inside leg up and more you pull up the leg more the hip get inside and that little A frame and hip inside action is create from vertical mechanic aspect of pulling the inside. Hope I explain my point of view properly. But it is very interesting information you brought to us... For me, more my skis are in a flat stage, lower joint will be more parallel and more your get high edges more the natural A frame build upThanks.
Facsinating disucssion. Here is a question: Do you think your realization or breakthrough occurred because you have been through the traditional approach? Is there benefit of going through the traditional approach first and then trying the newer approach? Or could the traditional approach be a building block or a foundation for further development?
reverse hips rotation on daiognal from edged skis to flat skis in transition , increased radius under gade direct line , none weight transver from downhill ski to uphill ski , you finish turn on downhill ski , you start new turn on downhill ski , all in hips to to rotate ankles outwords not roll , pelvis to flex ankles to set edges not knees , all pressure center of the skis , squre hips durning lateral never never counter , inclined lower legs inside uphill , anguladet upperbody down hill , upphill hip up downhill down , upphill elbow up , downhill elbow down , arms fallow hips , inside hip uphill inside arm uphill , outsite hip downhill outside arm downhill, its all hips rotation, feet ankles knees elbows arms hands fallow ,
Hip dippers have order of operations wrong. It’s supposed to be 1) shift weight inside turn 2) roll feet and knees 3) then angulate. They angulate before they roll feet and knees
At crossover it’s seems better to flex in transition than extend in transition rather like slalom skiers do. Yet even now most ski instructors still teach extend at crossover a bad technique.
I think the transition doesnt have a bad technique or a good technique. It depends on the goal of the skier. Making a lower transition with flexed legs requires more strength, and more importantly the skier to be going quick and wanting to create higher edge angles early. A quicker carved turn. So it depends. A lower crossover is something i teach for people that can already cleanly carve a turn on a decent pitch. And are happy to go faster. I can make carved turns all day if I extend during the cross over. I am pretty tired after a morning if all I do is ski with a low transition height. The speeds and forces you get from doing this plus the knees being that bent to stay low in the transition is energy draining. But the fun part of it is worth it.
You should not return to skiing 4 months after an acl graft. It has nothing to do with meeting physical benchmarks; the graft in your knee weakens post op and is usually at its weakest 24-36 weeks post op. The melbourne protocol even specifies that most research suggests a minimum of 9 months of recovery and therapy is necessary.
Thanks for this comment, much needed as it important to highlight the variability of rehab approaches that are available to different skiers according to the nature of their injury, pre injury conditioning, strength, rehab approach… and the option we have to ease back into skiing. I agree that 4 months is early and not everyone would be able to do what I chose to do in my rehab. This was just my story, I had a team of experts guiding me through this, and this is where we landed because of my strength and skill specific athleticism. I would not advise anyone to try and copy what I did without similar expert advice. There were many other factors at play that I didn’t detail here that enabled my recovery here, but the largest factor I should point out is that I had not ‘returned to sport’ at 4 months… I had ‘returned to practice’. These are terminologies discussed in the Melbourne ACL Protocol 2.0 that provide a relevant delineation. After I passed the protocol tests, I spent those first months on snow just simply skiing greens and blue runs; very centred, very low performance, on uncrowded runs so I could be sure no one would hit me. I ‘returned to practice’ in a knee brace for added security. Being hit by a bother skiers was deemed the greatest risk for me at that stage. The ‘return to practice’ phase of recovery is similar to the way a ski racer might start doing some light drill work on snow in a roped off controlled environment, to keep their CNS firing on task and their mental health intact. Kkeeping an athlete completely away from their sport until they are ready for the full version; high performance skiing or full contact/collision/crashes etc - is unnecessary, bad for mental health and will cause more skill regression than necessary… especially if you can create an environment that is safe and have the ability to perform your turns in a way that you know you are not going to put the graft at risk. As an instructor who has done more than the 10,000 hours required to ensure the exactness of my execution, this was something I was more than confidant that I could do. So, even though I passed the ‘return to sport ‘ tests at 4 months, I did not start skiing at higher performances until much later, I made a very gradual ‘return to sport’ over the space of 6 - 24 months. In fact, these runs you see me skiing here in March 2022 are at 19 months post op. Great question though, I hope that clears up any confusing messaging for anyone listening.
@@OfficialFishyGameryep I agree, I didn’t expand on that and it may have been misleading so I’m pleased that I’m able to clear it up here. I didn’t really want to spend too much time detailing my knee rehab. The goal was to discuss the inside leg mechanics.
Partly my influence too as I wanted us to focus on the inside leg mechanics as the main topic as opposed to knee rehabilitation and return to skiing. Glad you brought this up in the comments as it gave Demelza a chance to give some more information. We don’t want to give the wrong idea to folks. 👍
Great subject! This is the same issue I was working on recently. Q angle is new for me and very good information, it makes it even more understandable.
I had a problem when I kept my femurs parallel my hips were kind of stuck and locked when I was changing the turn and my inside leg was always in the way no matter how much I was trying to roll my inside knee into the turn. So my friend recommends keeping the femur V shape or knees crossed as you would A-frame and all started to happen smoothly my hips started moving from side to side easily and quickly.
Pleased to hear you found some new information in considering the q angle 📐 thanks for tuning in
Thx for the insights.. As you say many bit of puzzles that needs to fit into an ever changing jigsaw puzzle that will never be finished. 😅
This is the highest level ski technique conversation I’v ever seen on the internet
No roasting necessary 👍
Thanks Joe. That said, I’d be happy to be roasted by you of all people 😜
Loved also your internet conversations🤞
^
Excellent discussion....now I'm gonna play with this all year and feel the ski behavior that goes with this whole discussion.
Excellent and inspiring conversation! The sharing of your personal exploration of this topic made it relatable, and meaningful! Thank you!
Thanks Terry
This might be your best episode yet! I usually listen to your podcast while walking the dog but I needed to go back and watch this on RUclips. As someone who learned to ski on straight skis, rolling the inside knee has been the hardest skill to pick up when transitioning to carving and continually felt unnatural to me. After listening, I’m taking The Cheeky Butt Cheek with me to the slopes this winter! This cue makes so much more sense in my opinion and really looks so much closer to how the racers and deep carvers ski.
I'm glad you liked it! I think the cheeky butt cheek is a fun way to get people thinking about hip /knee movement and the relationship they have
Very good discussion - some solid points.
Each body will find its own fulcrum even with a larger radius / longer ski. Back to old school.
Chill, Otis
Excellent inside baseball episode. Reminds me of years ago when I had a private with Gord Brown at Revy. He called it “hip check” and I always have that running in the background when I’m skiing. 👍
Excellent conversation! Something new to try this season by starting with the moving of the hip to the inside.
Great chat! I cant stop thinking that in the book Ultimate Skiing, the "A" shape shin thing is mention as something that is not actually wrong, or is not something that you do all the time. You can read it in page 67 "Relative alignment of lower legs", but basically to try to ski with parallel shins works against the fundamental principle of leg independence. Now with your explanation, that chapter makes so much sense now!
Great topic! Thanks for the videos!
Very Interesting. A great opportunity to revisit what students are going thru on snow.
Tom, interesting conversation about Q angle and rolling ankles and knees. I was reminded that I’d seen a video of Deb Armstrong interviewing racers at Breckenridge. A college racer, Chase Seymour said he was coached to flex his “outside” ankle (not roll the feet and ankles) at the start of the turn. I’ve been working with that movement and noticed that in doing so, that I had to lead with the inside hip and respect the Q angle of the inside leg as a function of biomechanics. Also, I learned from your video, for the first time, that the lowering of the hip is a function of rounding out the turn and thereby controlling speed. Thank you for the insights. Kind regards, Marshall
Thanks Marshall
Brilliant! Thank you both of you from Canada for this insightful conversation! I'd love to see what you mean by cheeky knees in a video!
Our pleasure!
I need to try your pistol squat idea to get the hip onto the snow, i can't quite visualise what it all means but perhaps it will make sense when I try it. Great video, as always!
Love this podcast! Dont fight your anatomy. When the leg flexes (during gait or any other time) it is FAR more natural to follow the Q. Some would have skiers roll their inside knees so far as to create a potentially dangerous misalignment should one lose the outside ski. Not to mention that the rolled knee does tend to create blocking.
Very timely for what I’m working on!
Glad to hear it!
Was fascinating to hear about Demelza's journey -- about how, in recovering from her knee injury, she rebuilt her turn mechanics to become an even better skier. Given this, I would love to have seen a segment at the end where Demelza and Tom did a frame-by-frame comparative analysis of Demelza's best skiing before and after, showing exactly what turn mechanics had changed, and the effect of those changes upon her outcomes. I also would like to see a video of what Tom was describing: Intermediate skiers who are overdoing it on inside foot tipping. I've not seen that myself, so a video would be helpful there.
Thanks for the suggestions! That's a great idea about Demelza's skiing.
Tom great discussion as a lifelong 73 year old skier and always working on making fun turns I noticed this in trying the exercise. The inside hip showing more of my butt cheeks than knee too far inside that getting into that position my upper body seem to have a natural counter. Have you noticed that feeling as well?. Made my overall body position more in balance and ready for the next turn. Thxs for the podcasts like them all.
Yes I notice it has the effect of just a nice amount of counter.
@@Bigpictureskiing do you ever do a ski camp in USA?
@@PlaneImpactGolf I don’t not at this stage anyway.
Excellent video!
Thank you very much!
So informative and original ❤❤❤
Demelza and I love to geek out about ski technique!
So insightful! I'm saving this to re-watch again later, this video is packed with such interesting topics I've never heard anywhere before. Most of the advice I've been hearing from instructors in the past 2 years has been working on the feet, starting the carve from the feet. However a hip seems like a much more important part that's pretty much neglected. Some instructors try to give some hip advice but it's nowhere near as detailed and precise as this. Will be focusing a lot more on the hips this upcoming season. Q-angle is also new info to me but makes so much sense.
Let us know how you get on. I’d also reiterate that ideally you go and explore movement in your skiing and not always be thinking there is one way to do it. Or one way to think about it.
@@Bigpictureskiing yep, that's true, I just feel like this info was a missing link for me. :)
More stellar content! That was really interesting, especially in conjunction with Demelza's Insta bits on hip stability & movement into a turn. I do have some questions/requests: Can D extend the hip stability program to model how you move your inside leg/knee/foot as you shorten it? Also, can you expand on or model your hip movement guidance in your edge set/traverse exercises, and in ankle/knee roll turns on cat tracks? Along with the Pistol Squat video, these all seem to be incisive drills for helping us "Boxy" skiers get our inside knee out of the way. Thanks!!
Hey John,
Glad you enjoyed it! Just out of curiosity have you ever checked out the bps library of videos? I have a whole entire category on movement related to skiing. Yes it’s something you pay for but this is where I put all my best stuff, RUclips is really just a teaser.
Great discussion with Demelza Clay The Subject was hot and provided good clarification, I have a suggestion for BPS, your ''old videos'' please create a life fee for your members . With this fee for a lifetime, we can't have access to all your science...
This was helpful! I spent last year working on pointing my inside knee, but without seeing this I may have started to fall into the trap mentioned where I over-exaggerate and stop focusing on my hips.
I would love a video on arm placement, as I don't exactly know the ideal position my arms should be in (how high, low, how far in front, how wide) I watched a video of my skiing and was surprised that my arms are pretty bent at the elbows and tucked up high instead of what I see top carvers doing. Anyway, let me know if you put a video out on that. Thanks
Have you seen the one i have on “pole use 101”. Search that in RUclips. Talks about the arms a bit in there. I have a full tutorial on 3 main points for the arms on my learning platform at bigpictureskiing.com It costs to be a member, but thats where all the best of my lessons live.
Fantastic analysis Tom and Demelza! Could you do an analysis of Taiyo Nakanishi’s turns? He has the most unique and beautiful turns I’ve ever seen. Nobody skis like him and I just cannot figure out the mechanics behind how he does it.
He finishes turns so backseat but still remains balanced somehow. I don’t understand what’s happening.
Super low crossover
Ah, that’s it! Thank you so much! So low through transition
Hey Tom at 34:00 you guy talk about what to say to those people who have been told they bring too much their hip inside... about that what I notice, these peoples then to bring their hip inside on a rotational plan from a conter rotation of there hip action and that's very different than what you are talking, if I understand properly, you talk about pulling the inside leg up and more you pull up the leg more the hip get inside and that little A frame and hip inside action is create from vertical mechanic aspect of pulling the inside. Hope I explain my point of view properly. But it is very interesting information you brought to us... For me, more my skis are in a flat stage, lower joint will be more parallel and more your get high edges more the natural A frame build upThanks.
You’re going to need a t shirt that says, “Cheeky Butt Cheek”. Also I have 30m GS skis just to learn from like you suggested.
Facsinating disucssion. Here is a question: Do you think your realization or breakthrough occurred because you have been through the traditional approach? Is there benefit of going through the traditional approach first and then trying the newer approach? Or could the traditional approach be a building block or a foundation for further development?
reverse hips rotation on daiognal from edged skis to flat skis in transition , increased radius under gade direct line , none weight transver from downhill ski to uphill ski , you finish turn on downhill ski , you start new turn on downhill ski , all in hips to to rotate ankles outwords not roll , pelvis to flex ankles to set edges not knees , all pressure center of the skis , squre hips durning lateral never never counter , inclined lower legs inside uphill , anguladet upperbody down hill , upphill hip up downhill down , upphill elbow up , downhill elbow down , arms fallow hips , inside hip uphill inside arm uphill , outsite hip downhill outside arm downhill, its all hips rotation, feet ankles knees elbows arms hands fallow ,
Hip dippers have order of operations wrong. It’s
supposed to be
1) shift weight inside turn
2) roll feet and knees
3) then angulate.
They angulate before they roll feet and knees
At crossover it’s seems better to flex in transition than extend in transition rather like slalom skiers do. Yet even now most ski instructors still teach extend at crossover a bad technique.
I think the transition doesnt have a bad technique or a good technique. It depends on the goal of the skier. Making a lower transition with flexed legs requires more strength, and more importantly the skier to be going quick and wanting to create higher edge angles early. A quicker carved turn. So it depends. A lower crossover is something i teach for people that can already cleanly carve a turn on a decent pitch. And are happy to go faster. I can make carved turns all day if I extend during the cross over. I am pretty tired after a morning if all I do is ski with a low transition height. The speeds and forces you get from doing this plus the knees being that bent to stay low in the transition is energy draining. But the fun part of it is worth it.
She has a great name lol.
You should not return to skiing 4 months after an acl graft. It has nothing to do with meeting physical benchmarks; the graft in your knee weakens post op and is usually at its weakest 24-36 weeks post op. The melbourne protocol even specifies that most research suggests a minimum of 9 months of recovery and therapy is necessary.
Thanks for this comment, much needed as it important to highlight the variability of rehab approaches that are available to different skiers according to the nature of their injury, pre injury conditioning, strength, rehab approach… and the option we have to ease back into skiing. I agree that 4 months is early and not everyone would be able to do what I chose to do in my rehab. This was just my story, I had a team of experts guiding me through this, and this is where we landed because of my strength and skill specific athleticism. I would not advise anyone to try and copy what I did without similar expert advice. There were many other factors at play that I didn’t detail here that enabled my recovery here, but the largest factor I should point out is that I had not ‘returned to sport’ at 4 months… I had ‘returned to practice’. These are terminologies discussed in the Melbourne ACL Protocol 2.0 that provide a relevant delineation. After I passed the protocol tests, I spent those first months on snow just simply skiing greens and blue runs; very centred, very low performance, on uncrowded runs so I could be sure no one would hit me. I ‘returned to practice’ in a knee brace for added security. Being hit by a bother skiers was deemed the greatest risk for me at that stage. The ‘return to practice’ phase of recovery is similar to the way a ski racer might start doing some light drill work on snow in a roped off controlled environment, to keep their CNS firing on task and their mental health intact. Kkeeping an athlete completely away from their sport until they are ready for the full version; high performance skiing or full contact/collision/crashes etc - is unnecessary, bad for mental health and will cause more skill regression than necessary… especially if you can create an environment that is safe and have the ability to perform your turns in a way that you know you are not going to put the graft at risk. As an instructor who has done more than the 10,000 hours required to ensure the exactness of my execution, this was something I was more than confidant that I could do. So, even though I passed the ‘return to sport ‘ tests at 4 months, I did not start skiing at higher performances until much later, I made a very gradual ‘return to sport’ over the space of 6 - 24 months. In fact, these runs you see me skiing here in March 2022 are at 19 months post op. Great question though, I hope that clears up any confusing messaging for anyone listening.
What a great lesson in perspective, expertise, and application.
@@snowlife00 Hey, that makes way more sense. Just thought some of the messaging at the beginning was little confusing but that clears it up.
@@OfficialFishyGameryep I agree, I didn’t expand on that and it may have been misleading so I’m pleased that I’m able to clear it up here.
I didn’t really want to spend too much time detailing my knee rehab. The goal was to discuss the inside leg mechanics.
Partly my influence too as I wanted us to focus on the inside leg mechanics as the main topic as opposed to knee rehabilitation and return to skiing. Glad you brought this up in the comments as it gave Demelza a chance to give some more information. We don’t want to give the wrong idea to folks. 👍
And there goes the ACL.Try to teach skiing movements that can prevent injuries and be more efficient.