POSTURE

A Swedish study revealed that the majority of recreational cross country skiers suffered back pains.

As someone who has broken his back and now lives with back pain, I have spent a lot of time studying the cause of back pain in skiing so that I can avoid it.  The number one cause of back pain in skiing is hyper-extending of the back.

Personal trainers do a butt toning exercise called Donkey Kicks.

You can see that her back is arched when her right leg kicks back and up.  Diagonal stride technique, if done incorrectly, is very similar to this movement.  Worse yet, cross country skiers will do hours of hyper-extension as opposed to a few sets of donkey kicks in the gym.  The end result is lower back pain.

The correct posture in skiing, both classic and skate, is not to arch the back but to do the opposite, to be in a soft "C" posture.  The soft "C" means the tailbone is tucked under slightly and the shoulders are rolled forward.  When you are lying on the ground doing crunches, you are actually in the soft "C" posture.

With your lower back flat to the ground and your shoulder blades off the ground, you have the ideal power ski posture.  If you took the drawing of the ab crunch and rotated it so that the lower back was parallel to the skier's back angle, you can see, particularly in the middle frame, that the skier has the ab crunch posture!

 



The single move that causes back pain during skiing is pulling the shoulders back.  As you bring your poles forward (double pole, diagonal stride, one-skate) do not stand up tall and bring the shoulders like the Nordic walker pictured below.  It is this move that creates the hyper-extension or arching of the back.

Look again at the 3 frames of the diagonal stride skier and you will notice that his spine angle (and thus his shoulders) is forward through the entire stride sequence.  He never arches his back!

The soft "C" posture is maintained in both skating and classic.

Enjoy pain free skiing by maintaining the right posture!