 Poster: A snowHead
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Do you have an A-Frame that you're embarrassed by?
Have you magically cured your own, or someone else's A-Frame?
Share your confessions and secrets here...
* FlyingStantoni is a renowned serial A-Framer. After years of trying being told things that didn't help his A-framing he finally thinks he might have found something that helps...
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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yes, even when I think I'm not doing it I've seen photos to prove I am. I once saw a photo of me poling along a flat bit and I was in an A frame 
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Pray tell, what's A-framing?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Zero-G, knees together when cornering
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| Quote: |
* FlyingStantoni is a renowned serial A-Framer. After years of trying being told things that didn't help his A-framing he finally thinks he might have found something that helps...
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Fill us in then!
For me it's a muscle imbalance in abductos / adductors - most likely caused by horse riding every day as a teenager. Pilates instructor can see it even when I stand / sit with my legs dangling.
In terms of how to cure it, not sure - but it's much less off piste / in bumps.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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beanie1, Thank you! I now have a valid reason 
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Patience beanie1, patience!
I want to hear whether anyone's got any insights first...
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Is it always a bad thing? If you're adding a bit of extra edge angle to your outside ski by rotating your femur slightly that will drop your outside knee a little bit closer to your inside knee, but does it stop you having an effective stance? If you're riding on a flat inside ski I think it is a problem, but is a slight A frame always an issue?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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FlyingStantoni, Like you, for years I was an A-framer and it was a real problem for my skiing.
The way I see it is that my feet naturally point outwards, like a duck stance on a snowboard. I always wear out the heels of my shoes and walking boots on the outside so you can see that my normal walking position is the same duck stance. When I’m stood in my natural balanced duck stance, if I flex my knees and ankles, my knees will flex forward in a straight line. But I can’t ski like this or I’d do the splits!
If I flex my knees and ankles with my feet/skis parallel to each other, my knees still follow the same plane in relation to my feet, i.e my knees come together in an A-frame. If, with my feet parallel, I try to force my knees to flex forward in a straight line it is really rather painful with a lot of stress on my ankles.
I’ve often thought that somebody should design a ski binding with a rotating plate like on a snowboard so that I could alter the angle to my normal stance, but no such thing exists as far as I know.
After years of just trying to just force my knees/ankles against their natural flex, I eventually tried visiting CEM and Andi McCann, to see if they had a way of fixing my problems. It turned out that they did. For the last 2 winters I’ve been skiing with shims fitted to the base board inside my boots. The difference was a revelation. Eureka! I’ve no idea whether this would work for every A-framer, but it certainly did for me.
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I've always suffered from an 'A Frame' of some degree or other. Like Wags I'm naturally 'Duck' stance and that's what I ride on a board.
If it's something that bothers you I'd suggest the following to try and 'reset' your stance by habituating a more neutral stance:
1. while riding drag lifts keep a focus on having your ski's 'flat' - I ski a dry slope so get lots drag lift time.
2. while traveling on flattish paths focus on 'railroading' - using the same edge of both ski's rather than defaulting to riding on the inside edges.
As rob@rar says it's not the end of the world, but it could cause problems in powder or 'block' your range of movement.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| david@mediacopy wrote: |
1. while riding drag lifts keep a focus on having your ski's 'flat' |
With my A-frame drag lifts were always one of my worst problems. If you try to relax you go onto your inside edges causing you to snowplough, resulting in being totally cream crackered by the end of the drag. If you try to force your skis flat it's such an effort that you get to the end of the drag in an equally knackered state.
Trying to train my body to work against what was natural(for me) just did not work.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| Wags wrote: |
| Trying to train my body to work against what was natural(for me) just did not work. |
+1
If another ski instructor tells me to '"just" pull your outside leg/knee out' then I'm seriously minded to just punch the f.....
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| FlyingStantoni wrote: |
| Wags wrote: |
| Trying to train my body to work against what was natural(for me) just did not work. |
+1
If another ski instructor tells me to '"just" pull your outside leg/knee out' then I'm seriously minded to just punch the f..... |
FlyingStantoni, welcome to my world! Pretty much the story of my life when trying to do physical stuff...
"Just keep your eye on the ball"
"Just lift one leg"
"Just jump"
etc etc
There is no just about it!!
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You know it makes sense.
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| Quote: |
Is it always a bad thing? If you're adding a bit of extra edge angle to your outside ski by rotating your femur slightly that will drop your outside knee a little bit closer to your inside knee, but does it stop you having an effective stance? If you're riding on a flat inside ski I think it is a problem, but is a slight A frame always an issue?
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No I don't think so - as long as your skis have pretty similar edge angles, then technically speaking it's not an A frame - an A frame is when the position of your legs leads to a very pronounced difference in edge angles.
However, it does look b****** awful, and at L3 it will be an issue to the trainer, no matter how much they tell you and themself it doesn't matter if the skis are working properly! It just doesn't look good, and higher level instructors should look good - plus I think it probably puts a lot of stress on the knee joint.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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I can't help but feel that teaching to try and fix an a-frame directly is a particularly good idea - surely an a-frame is a symptom of a skill/movement deficiency not a cause?
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Poster: A snowHead
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| Quote: |
surely an a-frame is a symptom of a skill/movement deficiency not a cause?
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What do you think it's a symptom of then?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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A root cause in technique - gear and individual body type can cause biomechanical issues, but I think technique has to be the main "problem a-frame" cause. Getting on the front of the boot and closing the ankle so the outside foot gets left behind and brings the knee in, poor rotation somewhere, not flexing proportionally, I'm sure many others. Usually saying something like "keep your shins parallel" or "don't let the knee collapse in" aren't cues that are going to stop it happening, because something else is forcing it to happen.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Wags,
| Quote: |
| For the last 2 winters I’ve been skiing with shims fitted to the base board inside my boots. The difference was a revelation. Eureka! I’ve no idea whether this would work for every A-framer, but it certainly did for me. |
Glad you found a solution. Out of interest, after the equipment mod, do you still have any reduction in your range of movement ?
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| Trying to train my body to work against what was natural(for me) just did not work. |
I was thinking more in terms of changing what is 'natural'. Depending on the situation yoga or physio will help to free up more flexibility & range of movement. Given that we are trying to overcome a lifetime of muscle memory & development it's not likely to be an instant solution.
little tiger In your case, was it any one thing that made the 'big difference' ?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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david@mediacopy, Hmmm - I'm still discovering new ways the body is adapting to getting used to brain driving muscles better...
A-frame for me is partly alignment and partly habit and partly learning(skills based)... My alignment in boots is better since I saw the podologue at Sidas in Grenoble, and the current bootfitter to fine tune those footbeds... My ankle is mangled(repeated strains due to dodgy proprioception) enough that my right foot naturally sits at about a 45 degree angle to my leg(inwards) - and I have a significant leg length discrepancy as well...
My job involved standing for long periods of time without a break - so I have long term habits of where I place feet/leg/hips to offload strain etc... This is pretty common I think - we have ways we like to move. My instructor for much of my development had me focus on how I stood/moved etc while 'doing nothing' eg standing in lift queues. Plus lots of work when on flats to develop the sense of what I was doing and learn better movement patterns - hence the 'Don't waste the flats' cue is one I relate to well - I know how being hammered to ski well on those roads and run outs changed my skiing...
I think mostly though it was the small gains in technical skills that helped... Correcting hip and leg movements over and over eventually lead to them being natural... this season my first day skiing was off to film the Beaver Creek WC... I only needed to remind myself to focus on inside leg to have that feeling of good edge angles on both skis back... It has taken years though of focus on balance, rotational state, etc etc to have me in the right positions for that to be easy... I'm looking forward to the leg becoming natural and not needing thought soon...
Oh when I say correcting - the work was on correcting other alignment stuff - balance in all planes and rotational alignment were big... my legs were a minor focus of that work so while I did work on the leg alignment I spent a lot of time fixing the rest so it was easier to adjust the legs... Eg I started skiing in a VERY wide stance - my instructor deliberately left that as it was my balance 'training wheels'. Stance adjusted as balance skills grew. I know other instructors wanted to tell me to narrow my stance - which he felt would have been detrimental to me getting the time to develop my balance and learn my own stance... You cannot focus on everything - he chose how the skis travelled over how I 'looked'
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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little tiger, Cheers for the info. Sounds like your hard work is paying off.
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My name is Marc.
I A frame.
Usually more when terrain challenged
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Me too, worst when turning left I think - and I'm not remotely terrain challenged here.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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pam_w - it's hard to tell from just one photo, but if I saw you skiing like that in my lesson I wouldn't be remotely concerned about the A frame - it looks like it's either a result of your outside foot being left behind or that you're not balanced to the outside ski (ie, a bit inside). A framing itself seems like it gets a lot of hype and distracts people from other problems...
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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DaveC. Hmm, interesting. This close up sees most of the snow coming from under the outside ski - but maybe that's deceptive?
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Video is much more telling, so this is pretty much all just conjecture - but my gut feeling on the one photo is that it's a balance issue. Wouldn't worry about the spray, it's not really that relevant imo (if your outside foot wasn't there, your inside ski's spray would be much more obvious too). I could throw all sorts of guesses out there, but I don't have enough faith to say anything for sure - given the cause can stem from a lot of places, it'd be easy to give you a red herring. There's a myriad of things that'd probably fix it, but the main thing I really feel about this thread is that A-framing is just a symptom, worrying about it will get you nowhere.
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pam w, I'm with DaveC in that I doubt the 'A Frame'* is a key issue at this stage.
* looking at the ski's, the i/s ski angle is not far off that of the o/s one. You can also see daylight between your legs hinting that your movements are not being 'blacked' by your i/s leg. However there's a hint that the i/s ski is tracking a different line to the o/s ski.
And of course, being a Lady has implications too 
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You know it makes sense.
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Skiing with too wide a stance can also cause an A frame. Many instructors will tell you to get your legs further apart, but if you're a lady with narrow hips this will be counter productive.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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david@mediacopy, yep pam w appears to have quite a decent Q angle there...
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Poster: A snowHead
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little tiger, Your getting all technical on me now  ( rushes of to google / wikipedia to revise Q Angles....)
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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david@mediacopy, angle of the femur from vertical.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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david@mediacopy, check our glossary 
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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rob@rar, I understood more or less angle of femur to tibia(uses knee cap and tibia to determine the intersecting line)... you can measure it in manners that femur is non-vertical IIRC (physios measured mine a few ways and it was a while ago and they had other stuff to do as well)
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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quoting from wikipedia
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| ".....the Q angle, which is the angle formed by a line drawn from the anterior superior iliac spine through the center of the patella and a line drawn from the center of the patella to the center of the tibial tubercle." |
Which after looking at the pics could be described as the angle at the knee between the upper and lower leg bones.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| FlyingStantoni wrote: |
| * FlyingStantoni is a renowned serial A-Framer. After years of trying being told things that didn't help his A-framing he finally thinks he might have found something that helps... |
Did you let us in to the secret ?
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david@mediacopy, you have to pay him large sums of money over a period of years... 
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FAQ
