Improvement 5 — Teaching shin pressure

Why shin pressure?

Shin pressure is the pressure exerted through the shin bone on the tongue of the boot (the front of the boot cuff). Its purpose is to transfer the body weight to the center or front part of the ski. That facilitates turning. Shin pressure is also called:

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

However, 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: it's easier to sense than ankle flexion. Also, it does not equal being/moving forward, as you can easily feel yourself with the following test.

Stand straight on normal shoes or barefoot. Squat a bit and see that your knees move forward. That will already generate (forward) shin pressure. However, your heels will stay in place on the ground. For your whole body to move forward, you also have to move your center of mass (COM) slightly forward of your feet, so that you'd fall forward if you didn't take a forward step.

We will see on other pages that some parallel techniques require a forward stance, some a central stance with shin pressure and some a central stance without. So, shin pressure is a separate entity. But neither it nor any of its alternative terms are mentioned anywhere in the curriculum of the Austrian School^1-2.

Further substantiation

Further substantiation for the inclusion of shin pressure in ski instruction comes from the following matters.

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 highly regarded book on the (bio)mechanics of skiing, Ultimate Skiing⁷. Its author, Ron LeMaster (who unfortunately died in a skiing accident), gave courses that were accredited by the Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA). In chapter 10 of 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 has been a device called Forward Ski System, which gave direct feedback on the shin pressure. Its own website https://forwardski.com is down, but it contained statements from a number of high-ranking American coaches on the topic. You can find them 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 a large 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 flexion) OR (shin pressure) OR (lean forward)) .

Material requirements

To be able to generate proper shin pressure, you need two material things: sufficient ankle flexibility (i.e. dorsiflexion), and ski boots with a high cuff that's properly buckled up. The ankle dorsiflexion is best measured with the Knee to Wall Test (ignore "unaffected"):

For optimal results, you should have at least 4 inches/10 cm. If you don't have that, mobilize your ankle with the same (slow, sustained) movement.

Regarding the high boot cuff, children's boots don't have that. The smallest sizes (with only one cuff buckle) have a low cuff, those with two buckles without a power strap have a medium cuff, and there are even adults' boots with a medium-high cuff even though they do have such a strap.

These matters should be taken into consideration in ski instruction, up to the point where instructors teaching young children should do so with their own power strap and upper cuff buckle unfastened.

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 section 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.
• V. 2.2: moved some sections to other pages, edited some other sections.

Continue to Improvement 6 →