From: qinyi@uk.ac.man.cs (Yi Qin (BCW PhD))
Newsgroups: rec.skate
Subject: Re: questions on skating technique
Date: 8 Oct 92 12:21:44 GMT
Organization: University of Manchester, UK
In-reply-to: grr@cbmvax.commodore.com's message of 8 Oct 92 05:30:32 GMT


>When skating casually, you can do all kinds of fun things, but for
>speed you want to remember that your skate are mechanically working
>as an inclined plane.  Force exerted to the side allow a fairly short
>movement to result in a long forward travel.  Just pushing back means
>you foot is trying to move as fast as you are moving forward, resulting
>in faster leg motion and lower efficiency.

An excellent point!!! 

It might be also noticed that the frequency of
strokes in speed skating is significantly less than that in running,
where you stroke backward. In running, your foot sticks firmly to the
ground in a stroke (that's why people use nailed shoes), your top sprint 
speed can hardly exceed 9'78. So imagine how much a backward stroke can 
contribute to your getting forward when your forward speed is already
faster than this limit. It's just like pushing a car which already has
got enough speed to leave you behind. The speed of the backward stroke 
simply can not match the speed of your body moving forward in skating. 
Here is some idea of the difference in speed, 100m sprint (running) takes
about 10sec, 500m in skating takes about 37sec. So, people have to
turn to other method. As in skating, the stroking foot doesn't stick to
the ice, you can get relatively longer time to let the smaller backward
force to contribute to your forward velocity. If I could have unlimited
power to stroke, I'd rather run with a pair of nailed shoes on ice than
"skating". :-) 

>On crossovers, if you think about thrusting sideways and back, you
>insure that your body is rotating to follow the curve and not skewing
>outward.

Not sure what you mean by "your body is rotating to follow the curve". But
in ice speed  skating, your body should always be in parallel with the
forward direction. It's a mistake to let the body  be in the line of
the curve or trace of the skate. 'Cos you'll waste too much energy in
keeping to move the body sideways. The important point is, keep the body
line (centre line of the body) straight with the track lines (when you
are not doing bend). When the centre of weight moves from one foot to
another, ensure that the centre of the body does not move up and down.
This is a bit difficult for the beginners.

>>    b) place your foot directly under you, or even a little beyond
>>       that, when starting a new stroke.

I don't quite get what you mean here. But as my experience, I always
place the blade (real blade, not wheels) almost in parallel with the
other blade which supports my centre of weight. You can achieve the so
called stroke a bit forward effect by moving the centre of weight a little
bit backward, just like the tendency to sit, then start the stroke.

Another important thing for those who want to do speed skating seriously
(and don't know the following point yet) is that, try to get the angle
of your knee (of the leg supporting the centre of weight) to be about
90 degree, like <, and keep the shoulder low, but a couple of inches
higher than hips (sorry for that, I can't find other words). But if you
do dashing, the shoulder should be a bit higher. In a word, never speed
skate in the way those figure skaters and hockey players do, as they
almost keep their body straight upward. Get less wind resistence
just like the way the cyclists do.

*** I don't think one can simply transfer the techniques of roller skating
to ice skating. There are many important aspects which are different.
In-line skating is closer to ice skating anyway. Any comment on this?***

Yi Qin
qinyi@cs.man.ac.uk
Newsgroups: rec.skate