This post is not about skis or wax. A big part of our involvement with the sport is our work with athletes. Since most of our customers and readers are also skiers, I figured I’d share a bit of explanation about some of the technique work that Noah Hoffman has been doing lately.
I often see technique recommendations from coaches for athletes to be “as ______ as possible”. You can insert your own instruction in the blank – “as forward as possible”, “hips as high as possible”, “as quick as possible”, etc. The reason for this is obvious and consistent; when an athlete is deficient in a certain area, any effort to exaggerate the area of focus will result in something that looks better to the coach. And so the instruction is just to do that “as much as possible”. The problem with that concept is that any motion that is exaggerated to a true extreme lacks quality and economy. For technique to be efficient, it needs to incorporate motions that are comfortable and sustainable. Doing anything to the furthest extent possible is seldom a recipe for success in any circumstance.
Noah’s skate technique has always been characterized by high tempo and staccato motions. Many helpful observers have pointed out that he looks “hurried” or “tense”. In the past two years Noah has spent a huge amount of training time focused on building the position, strength, balance, and fluidity to skate with longer motions and get more glide. Throughout that time he has clearly increased his capacity to ski with long motions, but he has remained more economical at his characteristic higher tempo.
During his recent solo training camp at Stelvio glacier, we felt that the time was right to push things a little further. Noah set-up a progression of technique focal points based on exaggerated motions, followed by his own best interpretation of the terrain and technique. Over the 45 hours that he spent on snow, he repeated this progression about 1.2 million times. Or maybe it was in the hundreds, but it was a lot. And the needle clearly moved; the exaggerated motions went from looking just about right, to looking…, well, exaggerated. And at the same time, his interpretation of the most economical motions also shifted toward more supple leg work and longer glide.
“Interpretation” is a major concept in Noah’s ongoing technique work. One of the primary objectives heading into this season has been to shift ownership of technique application and race execution squarely onto Noah’s shoulders. He needs to be more consistently good at making the best use of his available tools. That means that he needs to practice understanding the task. Interpretation is a cornerstone for success among most of the best athletes in the world. Soccer players might have a “nose for the goal”, and basketball players might have superior “court sense”, or “eyes in the back of their head”. Great cross country skiers seem to make sense of a chaotic environment and changing conditions by consistently applying themselves in just the right way. That is not a quality that anybody has ever accused Noah of possessing, and it’s something he’s been working on hard this year.
With regard to technique that means broadening the available “bandwidth”, and using his active and ongoing interpretation of the terrain, the conditions, and his available technical tools, to make better decisions and more effective motions. But the concept of interpretation carries over into other aspects of sport as well. Choosing skis, as I outlined in my previous post, is a form of interpretation. Executing training sessions with optimal focus on the right qualities, and making good decisions to prioritize recovery at an appropriate level… All of these are interpretive tasks. When you get down to it, ski racing is a much less complex puzzle than global politics or personal relationships. But you still need to approach it with sensitivity, intelligence, and the right attitude!