Efficiency

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Re: Efficiency

Postby jbotti » Fri Mar 25, 2016 3:11 pm

Roundturns wrote:For me it's still a thrill to ski on a real mountain and I try to go "bell to bell", and probably some of that is motivated by the challenge of doing that,



I did exactly that for quite a few years. When I got to the point that I could really arc high G turns and I focused on making those turns all the time, the legs and body get tired much faster. It still took me a couple of years to truly know and understand when my body was getting tired and when the muscles could no longer fire at the same level. Good PMTS coaches can spot almost immediately when a skier starts getting tired. I can now see it easily as well in someone else's skiing. You will improve faster and enjoy your skiing more if you will ski more focused and get off the mountain when your body is needing to back off. 40,000 vert is nearly impossible for even the strongest and best skiers to ski well in a day (anyone can cruise it), not to mention how much they would be borrowing from the next day.
Balance: Essential in skiing and in life!
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Re: Efficiency

Postby h.harb » Sat Mar 26, 2016 10:17 am

This makes me think of an analogy from splitting wood. I split a lot of wood in my day. Living in Vermont, N.H. and even a year or two in Colorado, I spit a lot of wood for the fire place. Spitting wood is a very satisfying activity. There are many ways to go about it, just like there are many ways to ski. You can try to split wood too early while it's still green and destroy yourself, your back, your arms and your wrists. You can wait until the wood is right and dry and get a great workout splitting with an axe. You will be wasted the next day and you won't have nearly enough wood. However, if you wait until the wood is frozen and use a splitting maul, it's like magic, the wood literally falls in half when the maul descends into the log.

This is very satisfying and the height of efficiency, for wood splitting that is. Skiing is exactly the same. You can hack at it all day long and get what you think is a wonderful workout, and it can seem to be very satisfying, right up until you get to be about 50 years old. What you don't know is, you are wearing out your joints with inefficiency. You may feel accomplished, but you won't know how really off you are until you ski with someone who can go all day; day after day and get as much or more vertical, while skiing with energy and grace.

You can either take the preventive measures now, quit skiing when everything starts to hurt or pay for your surgeon to repair your body. Life has many choices, few make the right ones.
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