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YOU AND YOUR DESIRES YOUR HOST TELLURIDE SKI RESORT VISITOR'S QUICK LINKS |
 Measuring skier alignment. |
 Planing the boot sole. |
| Biomechanics Have you ever wanted to blame your equipment for not being the skier you want to be? You may be right! Usually it's not the equipment but rather how your skeleton lines up on it. God did not create us all equal as far as our skeletal alignment goes. In fact very few people are naturally, skeletally aligned for skiing. This can sometimes have a profound affect our our skiing. Things like tails washing out at the end of our turns or ski tips getting away from us at the beginning of a turn or difficulty balancing on one ski are indications of alignment problems. When we are not aligned we must constantly compensate and fight and force our equipment to work marginally. If we are properly aligned we can work in harmony with our equipment. Okay, so exactly what is alignment and why is it important? Well it is how or where the knee lines up over the foot while balancing. If the knee naturally lines up inside or outside of the foot then it is more difficult to maintain balance on skis. It's really too complex to address on one web page but generally speaking, if the knee lines up inside the balance point on the foot then we have difficulty getting enough edge to control our turns. We try to roll the ankle or knee in but the skis still skid more than carve and the tails wash out. If the knee lines up outside the balance point of the foot then we find it difficult to start our turns without excessive upper body movements. Alignment can be assessed by observing skier movements on snow and can be quantitatively measured in a qualified ski shop. I spend a significant amount of lesson analysis assessing skeletal alignment issues for skiers. If there are significant skiing difficulties related to alignment they can often be fixed with minor equipment modifications or sometimes with minor changes in skiing techniques. |
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