Pole plants

A snowHead

Prompted by the edge evolution video & something I'd been thinking re timing when skiing last weekend.

Is there a threshold speed/ radius of turns at which pole plants (or kisses) become counter productive as your arms can't keep pace with your feet?

I think this is the case for me but I put this down to clumsiness &/or not being a boxer. Presumably slalom racers work very hard on having "fast hands".

A snowHead

fatbob, I wouldn't say so. Look at some of the bumps skiers. Pretty fast hand action. Though, that said, part of the hand action is also anticipating the body movement.

Also, if you watch slalom racers/bumps racers the upper body is generally (I think?) facing downhill and the hands aren't doing a huge range of motion (I think).

Here's a good
example

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

This maybe better
here

You need to Login to know who's really who.

I see your point but pro mogul skiers seem to "cheat" a bit by not wrist flicking or reaching which increases their speed. Plus it looks slightly artificial for them, like a learnt behaviour for style rather than an essential part of the turn e.g. the second clip after the second jump.

I know remembering Warren Smith's chicken wings drill improves my mogul skiing which helps to speed up pole plants.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

fatbob, I also see your point about minimal movement but I do believe that it's not artificial - it's not a style element but a functional one.

I'll go out on a limb and suggest a. that I can lay down some pretty high frequency trurns and b. I can't turn fast enough that my poles/plants can't keep up.

You'll need to Register first of course.

I think speed/radius have a bearing, but for me, turn type would probably be a trigger.

For the sake of ease, I'll class terrain as part of turn type. Bumps and steeps, always good to have a plant for timing and balance. The touch is pretty productive on the sort of steered turns that most put down on a blue or a red.

I've rarely (if ever) seen someone skiing fast carved turns pole plant. However, the hands still do something - top GS skiers will bring their hands forward and together as they go round the gate, partly, I suspect, to get them out of the way of the gate, but predominantly because when you're skiing like that you have to use everything you can to get the most effective and efficient performance out of your skis.

Interesting thought - maybe the split occurs when you go from a predominantly pivoted turn to one based more or less soley on creating angles to use your edge. Accepting that some specific terrains require a plant/touch to aid technique (e.g. bumps).

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

David Murdoch, But we know you're a mogul god. Maybe I have to accept its not a skill I have naturally.

The plant looks functional at the start & middle section but e.g. the first turns on landing the first air at 0.04 and the latter section at 0.14 look less functional but more timing driven.

After all it is free

fatbob, Is timing not a key function though? (Unless I've mis-interpereted your point).

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

AIUI, the purposes of a pole plant are a) timing b) stabilisation and c) triggers for body mass movements. Those in the moguls vids are a) and most definitely b). On the rare occasions I've managed a half decent mogul run, the poles have made a very definite contribution to keeping the body steady, preventing any undesired rotation and tipping of the upper body. The upper body and hands stay in a pretty much static position, but the forces on them are pretty substantial. I think you can see that in those mogul vids too, with the hands being moved up very sharply as the pole connects - the degree of stabilisation the guys use will be controlled by how much they resist that motion.

In a slalom course the pole plant frequently becomes just a touch, or becomes something much more substantial if a larger correction is required. There was a vid put up by veeeight some time back of Raich on the Wengen(?) slalom course with very definite pole plants - but that was in the steepest section where the turns were very much pivots and locks. For a flatter section of the course the more important part of the pole plants is the arm/hand motion (as you come through the cross-block) to initiate the cross-over part of the transition to get your body mass moving into the next turn. The connection to the ground is much less important then, but the arm movement much more so. I can assure you that it becomes much harder to get around SL turns if you don't have sticks - even though I'm really bad at pole planting in a course myself. There's certainly no problem with time to make the move, except in a verticale/flush (a series of very close gates directly down the fall-line) - where you just keep a still hand and hit each gate with the same hand as you wiggle through the gates. That would probably count as your threshold (in a royal flush the WC guys probably hit 4 gates in a second).

Poles would generally be used much less though in DH and SG - but that's just a matter of speed rather than lack of time.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

Just one observation reading these post.

For pure timing type of plants, I would imagine it works with or without poles. So, it can probably be replaced by the simple hand movement.

But for stability purpose, the skier will be out of balance if he expect the pole plant for supoort which turn out not to be there. Sad

I can see mogul being one such place...

snow reports

Sorry, i thought this was about gardening. Embarassed

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Here's that Wengen sequence (if you remember, you probably want to turn the sound off)
http://youtube.com/v/JGQ9egMTW9s
Note that all of the turns are pretty heavily pivoted - and loads of poleplant in there.

Here're two SL runs from Janica Kostelic
http://youtube.com/v/n1ykMU_CMNk . The course is probably flatter, the turns are more carved and the plants are more like touches - but a smooth arm extension pretty much as or just before she extends the new outer leg into the new turn. The more visible run starts at 4:01. Very definite plants around 4:30, and note the 3 element flush at 4:53 where she just used the left hand to block three successive poles (and you sometimes see flushes taken much quicker than that).

A snowHead

Just came across this again

http://youtube.com/v/2KAtSx0SnPs&eurl

Help!!

Pole plants

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