Handbooks for cross country skiers – skate and classic.
“Drive your foot forward!”, “Push your foot forward!”, “Drive your knee!” Those are coaching cues you might hear for the classic technique, diagonal stride.
Do they help, or do more harm than good? Here we make the case against these cues, demonstrating with video evidence how they often negatively impact a skier’s overall body position.
We also show what “Foot Drive” should look like and talk about when it’s an appropriate skill to work on.
Strong forward body lean is one of the keys to advancing your cross-country ski technique. But how do you do it? You have to lean in, but keep your hips forward at the same time. Many skiers struggle to do both those things at the same time. “Hips forward” makes them stand upright and “lean in” makes them bend at the waist and stick their hips back.
Preloading refers to movements which stretch activate muscles before they contract. Preloading is important because pre-activated muscles generate greater force than muscles that are simply contracted…
Learn how to cross-country ski smoothly from one classic ski track to another. Change tracks like a pro and maintain your speed as you pass other skiers. It’s easy to learn if you break the skill into 5 steps and learn them one at a time.
Video demonstration of how to ski from one track to another when classic cross-country skiing.