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POSTED IN 01/10
EPA MILOUCHEVA
Contributing Editor
Pepa Miloucheva is the head coach at the Craftsbury Nordic Ski Club. Over the past years she has coached some of the fastest skiers in the country. A World Champion in Ski Orienteering, she is also an experienced Masters coach.
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This article isn’t about what the right technique is, it’s about how to get there.
There are many articles about cross-country ski technique. Most are very good, with emphasis on important technique points and drills to help you get there. The problem? Making changes is not easy to do.
I’m sure all athletes have experienced frustration when, after trying to change their technique, they’ve seen minimal or no results.
Over the past ten years of working with many athletes, including BKL, juniors, seniors and tons of masters, I have found that two things really help me accomplish technique changes.
The timing of changes.
With all the talk about improving and changing technique, we have to understand the process of movement. Any movement we do is a neuromuscular relationship.
We’ve been trying to establish this relationship through the process of learning, and trying to strengthen it through the process of practice, developing a habit, a very strong and efficient neuromuscular relationship, where we can do things with no thinking, no effort and no energy loss.
The longer we have been skiing the stronger the habit is, and as we all know, habits are very hard to break.
So the point of making any technique changes comes to this: we must break old habits and develop new ones in their place.
To make this process easier, we need to do this when the current neuromuscular relationships are weak. The best time is right at the beginning of summer, or the first days on snow.
Regardless of how long we have been skiing or how much we have roller skied over the summer, the first few days after a transition are a little shaky. This is because our neuromuscular relationships are weakened; we haven’t done these exact movements for some months.
After a few days on roller skis in the summer, or skis in the winter, all the old habits will be resealed, and changes to technique will be much harder to make. So now is the time to do it!
More or less, once fast workouts starts, it will be too late; you will most likely have to wait until the next season, or the beginning of the skiing season, to try to change.
So the first important thing to remember: the moment you get on your roller skis this season, start working on the technique changes you need to make.
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