Yes, legs. Between what I've learned skating, and what I've learned from my most fab trainer, Kristen, I have developed a theory of what I need to work on with my legs and how it all ties together when skating. This, of course, is not really new. But it's new to me. And I'm fascinated by how our bodies actually work to make us go. (And from a day to day perspective, Kristen's help with my shoulders has been even more important, because I suffer from long term injury issues and easily lose range of motion which hinders things like getting a bra on or taking off a shirt -- so while working on my legs is cool, and super helpful, and injury preventing, the work on my shoulders is literally a shoulder saver).
So here we go.
Ok, my quads are too strong relative to my other leg muscles. Especially my right quad. Kristen has had me working on watching where my knee goes when doing side to side squats and engaging outside quad and glute muscles to balance out my quads (which make my knees point in a little bit, when doing those squats). Ok, then, the big AH-HA moment came watching Dyna-Mo go down a hill e x t r e m e l y s l o w l y. How did she do it? A beautiful wide legged plow. The key being pushing out as hard as you can through the outside of your heels, and hips. What you are doing is forcing the energy out instead of down (like a snow plow on skis) and it slows you greatly. When I do this, I sort of don't slow down, and oddly enough start to turn. The reason is ....... my glutes! They aren't strong enough. Quads cannot push your legs out while your feet are facing forward. Ahhhhh.
Looking at the diagrams, we talk about our quads and hamstrings, but there are literally a boatload of muscles in our legs. Our quads are actually 3 separate muscles, and if they are not equally as strong or strong in the right proportions, your knee may not be as stabilized as it should be. Seriously, after skating for a while my knee literally starts to feel like it's floating, and I feel it creak and move. Ick! Again, it goes back to the muscles being out of balance. Oh, and the other thing is that if one muscles isn't pulling it's weight (literally and figuratively) another one will jump in and compensate. This is good if the weak muscle is weak for a reason and cannot be stronger, but bad if you are trying to be more balanced and prevent injury.
The cool thing is that if you can figure out which muscles are doing what, you can strengthen the ones that need it. There is an exercise to target everything! I have been doing bridges forever (lay flat on your back, knees bent, flat on the floor, raise your hips), but with a few tweaks and ensuring proper positioning, you can target different parts of your butt. I have been instructed to do those every time I skate to kind of fire up the glue muscles so that my body will use them instead of going straight to the quads.
So while I have always had a love/hate relationship with my legs, maybe I can develop a new appreciation for their ability to change and their willingness to keep me skating.
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