Uphill Ski Run: Technique Breakdown
Most of us have seen the hilarious Forest Gump spoof video on Youtube of the 23-year-old Norwegian mocking his own unique uphill skiing technique. Johannes Klaebo exploded onto the World Cup scene in 2016 and before many of us knew what had happened he was the top ranked sprinter in the World, his dominance definitely not a spoof. Is his running ski technique simply better than any other classic technique out there?
Asking definitive questions about ski technique can be misleading and is actually something I discourage athletes to do. Instead I encourage them to ask why? It’s clearly an effective technique for Klaebo, but breaking down why it’s so effective can help us train and incorporate the right changes into our own technique. Is it effective because he lifts his heels up higher than anyone else? Or is it because he is moving his limbs quicker than other skiers? Surprisingly I would say probably neither. The secret to Klaebo’s effective uphill technique is grounded in basic running mechanics. Decreased ground contact time + more power into the ground = speed. To achieve this, Klaebo brings three major aspects of running technique to the snow: dorsiflexion, glute and hamstring recruitment, and elastic energy.
Dorsiflexion is the movement at the ankle joint where the toes are brought closer to the shin, curling upwards, and decreasing the angle between the dorsum of the foot and the leg. The hind legs of animals like cats or rabbits illustrate dorsiflexion at its best, a trait that allows them to accelerate and move with speed. Decreasing the angle between the foot and the shin has a lot of benefits when it comes to moving quickly. First, an athlete with a strong dorsiflexed foot can cycle their legs much more quickly and efficiently than an athlete with ‘lazy’ ankles. Dorsiflexion also allows an athlete to maintain a more stable and upright body position by keeping the feet underneath the hips and driving the knee forward. Dorsiflexion puts the foot back on the ground under the center of mass, not in front of the body, so that the foot is striking the ground as close to the midfoot as possible. Striking closer to the midfoot drastically decreases the ground contact time and is often what gives the illusion that someone is moving his or her limbs faster while skiing. A skier with good dorsiflexion spends less time on the ground , which is a huge advantage in sprint racing. With the foot and ski striking the ground underneath the center of mass and in a good upright body position, Klaebo sets himself up well to apply a lot of power directly into the ground. This position also enables him to recruit a more powerful group of muscles than those used in traditional classic striding.
Traditional striding relies heavily on the quadriceps and the body position limits the recruitment of the hamstring muscles, and more importantly the glutes. Our butt muscles can be some of the strongest in the body but unfortunately they are also pretty lazy (huh what?). Unless activated and trained to fire, the glutes often fail to engage well in forward movement and athletes miss out on a huge source of potential power and speed. In order to adequately use their 'core' while skiing athletes must train the use of hip and glute muscles.
Glute recruitment and activation is nothing new in skiing and is something we have been working on in both classic and skate skiing for years. However Klaebo’s body position and foot strike tie it all together in a more dynamic movement. In athletics when we have a dynamic movement applied with as little ground contact as possible we get elastic recoil.
The tendons in the body, such as the achilles tendon, store an incredible amount of kinetic energy when shortened, stretched, and applied to the ground with a quick foot strike. Muscle tendon elasticity is another way power can be improved while skiing and is something that Klaebo ‘s technique utilizes well. Practicing dynamic movements on and off the snow will improve a skier’s speed by leveraging the power of elastic energy and incorporating that power into their ski technique.
Training dorsiflexion, glute and hamstring recruitment and elastic recoil is something I have been working on a lot this year with elite juniors all around the country. As with all ski techniques, it’s important that we don’t just blindly copy Klaebo’s skiing style without understanding why it’s effective. This helps us identify what to train and apply those principles to refine our own skiing technique. There will always be a place in ski racing for a long smooth stride with lots of glide, but every skier should have a trained uphill running technique in their arsenal and be confident enough to use it their advantage.
