Improvement V — Teaching shin pressure

What is shin pressure?

Shin pressure is the bodily pressure exerted through the shin bone on the tongue of the boot. Its purpose is to load the front part of the ski (via the rigid boot cuff), and unload the back part. That facilitates turning (both direct and indirect turning).

Other instructional terms that are used for it are:

1. ankle (dorsi)flex(ion);
2. 'closing (down) the ankle';
3. forward pressure;
4. pressuring the tongue of the boot;
5. being/moving forward.

Shin pressure is the best term because it's short, easy to understand (also for people without medical background), and leaves little room for error in the execution. Neither shin pressure nor any of its first four alternatives are mentioned anywhere in the instructional parts of the official Austrian, American or Canadian instruction books^1-6.

Being or moving forward is, but in practice, in beginners and lightly advanced, that generally does not result in shin pressure. (More on that below.)

The importance

The importance of shin pressure becomes evident from the following:

1. The history of the ski boot shows that it has become higher and stiffer over the years. That's because the makers discovered that that made turning easier, even though they might not have known why exactly. Also, modern ski boots come in degrees of cuff stiffness (80-130), and athletes want them as stiff as possible.

2. There's a book on the (bio)mechanics of competition skiing, Ultimate Skiing. Its author, Ron LeMaster, gives courses that are accredited by the Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA). In chapter 10 in his book, LeMaster describes the essential movement of the lower leg, whereby he takes the left leg creating a turn to the right as example:

   [the skier] presses his left shin into the inside front corner of his left boot cuff to make the ski bite and turn [right]

3. There's a device that gives direct feedback on the shin pressure. Its website, www.forwardski.com, contains comments of a number of American high-ranked coaches on the topic. Visiting the website is difficult because it hasn't yet changed from http:// to https://, which makes browsers give a security warning. But you can find all the comments in this PDF document. And these are the most important ones:

   We look for athletes that can maintain ankle flexion as a basic skill. — Sasha Rearick, U.S. Ski Team, Men's Head Development Coach

   As we all know, ankle flexion is a critical skill and we talk about it all the time with our athletes during video analysis. — Todd Brickson, Program Director and Head U16 Coach

   Being able to use the front of the ski and stay in balance is a cornerstone to great technique and successful ski racing. — Michael Rogan, Fundamental Skills and Technique Coach

4. YouTube contains quite a number of videos by ski coaches and instructors that stress the importance of it. They can easily be retrieved with this search query: skiing ((ankle AROUND(2) flex) OR "forward pressure" OR "shin pressure")) .

The requirements

There are two things you need, to be able to generate sufficient and timely shin pressure: at least normal ankle flexibility (i.e. dorsiflexion), and ski boots with the right forward angle. The ankle dorsiflexion is best measured with the Knee to Wall Test (ignore the "unaffected"):

For optimal results, you should have 4 inches/10 cm, or more. If you don't have that, mobilize your ankle with the same (slow, sustained) movement. If you do have that, go on to test your boots.

How much?

How much shin pressure totally depends on the situation — there are even situations in which you should have none. That may sound complicated, but the following pointers should make it quite easy:

• In general, you need a pressure that will make your heel come off the ground a bit when out of the skis:
• The shorter or quicker the turn has to be, the more or faster (the) pressure is needed.
• It should not be continuously high. That's uncomfortable and can cause skin irritation (even with expensive socks), and even shin bang.
• If you want to descend down an icy slope with a low downhill speed (= doing short turns within a narrow corridor), you should forcefully drive the ski into the icy snowdeck at the end of each turn, with a powerful 'sitting down' motion. That will relieve the shin pressure, even cause a light calf pressure. And that's how it should be, because the biggest down force can be delivered with the heel.

How to generate it

Generating it may seen simple, but your center of mass (COM) must be a little forward of your base of support (BOS), and that's not always easy. Fortunately, there are some tricks for that:

1. Start off with the Alpine forward posture (AFP) rather than the Alpine basic position (ABP). The difference between the two is the being slightly forward plus the shin pressure — enough to make the heel come off the ground when out of the skis — that's already built in in the AFP.

2. Move the (new) outer ski backward when making the actual turn. That's not mentioned anywhere in the official Austrian instruction books^1,2, but is in their American counterpart^{4 (p. 27-8)}:

   A skier may move the COM forward or backward relative to the BOS. Alternatively, they may move the BOS forward or backward underneath the COM. (...) This can be done with both feet or with one foot.

   Also, athletes clearly do it:

   

   Pinturault's posture is shared by all athletes, when it comes to the Giant Slalom, as this page shows. However, the fore-aft separation should be (much) smaller in narrow-corridor turns, moguls/bumps and powder.

3. The traditional way: come up and forward just before the turn:

   

   This option is listed last for two reasons:

   • It's the most difficult. That's because 'throwing' one's COM forward (= partly downhill!) this much takes self-confidence from the learner. Something that beginners don't have, because they cannot yet make quick turns, which makes them stay 'in the back seat' or brace (see here for the whole story).
   • It's not suited for fast-rhythm turning (short turns within a narrow corridor), simply because there isn't enough time between turns for it.

References

1. Wiener Ski- und Snow­board­lehrer­verband/­Snow­sports Academy. Ski Lehrer Buch, 2nd edition. Austria, 2016. [link]
2. Österreichisher Skischul­verband/­Snowsport Austria. Vom Einstieg zur Perfection. In vier Stufen zum Erfolg, 2nd edition. Austria, 2018. [link]
3. Professional Ski Instructors of America/­American Association of Snowboard Instructors (PSIA/AASI). Adult Alpine Teaching Handbook. USA, 2015. [link]
4. Professional Ski Instructors of America/­American Association of Snowboard Instructors (PSIA/AASI). Alpine Technical Manual. USA, 2014. [link]
5. Professional Ski Instructors of America. The Official American Ski Technique. USA, 1970. [link]
6. Canadian Ski Instructors Alliance (CSIA). Canadian Ski Teaching Manual. Canada, 2016. [link]
7. LeMaster R. Ultimate Skiing. USA, 2010. [link]

Change log

• V. 1.1: renamed and moved the initial Improvement V to Improvement VI.
• V. 1.2: added paragraph about one or both feet.
• V. 1.3: added section about scissoring.
• V. 2.0: renamed and rewrote the page; made the former main topic the last section of the page.
• V. 2.1: deleted remark about fore-aft scissoring.

Continue to Improvement VI →