Guest Randy S. Posted October 14, 2005 Report Share Posted October 14, 2005 OK all you coaches, visionaries (and great visualizers), techies, etc. I'd love to see a good discussion of skeletal alignment as it relates to snowboarding, especially carving. Here's a link to an interesting page on the subject. Link Here How should your upper body be aligned w/ respect to lower body throughout a turn? How should your lower body be aligned w/ respect to your feet/angles. How should your feet/angles be aligned w/ respect to one another. Should you set up your boots/footbeds with a totally neutral stance or does it make sense to cant things if you pronate/supinate? How does all this alignment stuff figure into the injury picture? I've been injured a number of times. Some from impacts, but from from just hard riding. As I age, I really need to find ways to minimize injuries while still riding. I'm also not as strong as you yunguns and need to find as many ways as possible to use physics to my maximum advantage. Here's a cool pic: Note the smile on the skeleton! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BDZal Posted October 15, 2005 Report Share Posted October 15, 2005 I just wanted to point out how important it is to do various stretches, both lower and upper body, and to get some other exercise in order to counterbalance the asymmetry involved especially in alpine boarding. And/or switch between regular and goofy, I suppose, which I will be doing from now on when I get back to snowboarding. I began noticing this summer how much asymmetry and twisting there is in my body after a few years of alpine snowboarding. When consciously aligned from the head down, my feet were comfortable at about a 40 degree angle to the rest of my body, along with a bit of torso twist from all those super angulated toesides and not so spectacular heelsides (although they did get a lot better over the past couple of years). I have noticed that good racing technique specifically avoids some of this. Now I never quite got it all right by any means, but I rode really hard most of the time, probably beyond my level of strength, and I believe some people's skills suffer because they are unknowingly protecting themselves from such injury. Also it seems apparent to me that riding regular-footed actually avoids some of this, for reasons which are probably better left unsaid, at least by myself. One thing is that good alignment as far as your setup goes makes a huge difference in being able to properly pressure the board so as to ride with good performance without hurting yourself over the long term. I have noticed that extreme angulation on the toeside can actually make heelsides more difficult and hurt your alignment as a whole. At least this is my experience as a 24 year-old,goofy-footed rider who grew up with a bit of asymmetry anyway, along with some right-ear problems. My body rebels against goofy-footed now, and regular footed feels refreshing. We shall see, I will be skiing for a little while at least, but will give snowboarding a try again at some point with my left foot forward this time. If the right side of your face is/was a little lower than the left side, be careful with goofy-footed snowboarding. You will have trouble looking into the heelside turn without some fear... man that was hard to get over. ON a related note, during the spring I had an extremely vivid instance of sleep paralysis which served to wake me up as to what was going on with my body (including my head). Yikes!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest nic Posted October 15, 2005 Report Share Posted October 15, 2005 Randy there is some truth to this. It is very important to keep you shoulders in line with your hips in a natural position. By twisting your body in the turn it does not let the side cut of the board stay 100% on the snow. So i juess you could say you would be only using 60% of your side cut. When this happens your board is not a solid platformin your turn, instead its very unstable. Its late i can explain better tomorrow if you still have questions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Posted October 15, 2005 Report Share Posted October 15, 2005 Here are two threads from 2003/2004 that where some of these questions were beat to death. http://www.bomberonline.com/VBulletin/showthread.php?t=1135 http://www.bomberonline.com/VBulletin/showthread.php?t=1078 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobby Buggs Posted October 15, 2005 Report Share Posted October 15, 2005 Randy, great site. I saw this picture and said I think I can do that so I looked through some of my archives. Sorry about the pic quality from my gallery Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philfell Posted October 16, 2005 Report Share Posted October 16, 2005 Close Bobby, but one subtle but BIG differance between the two pics, from what I can tell from a 2-d image. Look at the position of your right hand versus the guy running gates. Let me know what you see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobby Buggs Posted October 17, 2005 Report Share Posted October 17, 2005 Yeah I know, its far from perfect and thanks for keeping me in line :p Lets hope after my recent back operation I can get back to that level. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kent Posted October 17, 2005 Report Share Posted October 17, 2005 I'm not replying to any (1) post in particular....but did want to chime in about this myth about "level" shoulders. They should be level with the terrain direction you and riding...not the opposing (usually across the hill) direction. Therefore...there should be little/no "trunk twist"......which is a basic difference between skiing and snowboarding. Scrap that pix of the racer above...my guess is that "static" shot is simply overstating how he going to transfer edge (as he's ending his turn). It's REALLY hard with pix to demonstrate...but here's a few which are mostly closely aligned with fast riders.... Jim is a sixtysomething year old ripper. His son Dave is/was (IMO) the fastest SL racer around.. Some might say his shoulders are level with the hill, but a close inspection shows otherwise... Reversed for you viewing pleasure..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philfell Posted October 17, 2005 Report Share Posted October 17, 2005 You're using Klug as a heelside example???? He has a text book toe side, but his heel side initiation is legendary for being less than ideal. Find a Fuzzy heelside and now we can all look with awe. Good pics though to get your point accross. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kent Posted October 17, 2005 Report Share Posted October 17, 2005 You're using Klug as a heelside example???? He has a text book toe side, but his heel side initiation is legendary for being less than ideal. Find a Fuzzy heelside and now we can all look with awe.Good pics though to get your point accross. Well...IMO, CK's toeside sucks too, but the results speak for themselves. Interesting how he puts on the breaks (tosses the board sideways) for turn initiation. The result is that he takes the most direct path down the hill and lets his mass get him down the hill...a la 747. You won't see that from Garrett this year! The good and bad of Fawcett.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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