Historically, a group heads out for a short post-meeting rollerski after each annual Michigan Cup Committee meeting. It was our good fortune that Eli Brown, former Nordic coach for the University of Utah, attended, and joined Frank Rylanski, Curt Peterson, and I for the rollerski.

We rollerskied north on North McMasters Bridge Road, starting at the canoe parking lot where the road crosses the North Branch of the AuSable River. Eli set a pretty fast pace right from the start. This is Curt's first day out on rollerskis for the season, and my third. Frank, on the other hand, is being coached by Eli and has tons of rollerskiing under his belt.

McMasters Bridge Road has pretty nice pavement all the way to Down River Road where it ends. We headed west on Down River for a few minutes before turning around and heading back. (Down River Road's pavement is not the best....)

Since southeast Michigan has exactly zero coaches, I was not going to let this opportunity pass...

Frank Rynalski, Eli Brown, and me on North McMasters Bridge Road east of Grayling Michigan. (Photo by Curt Peterson)

"Coach Eli," I say as we turn south on McMasters, "You've seen me ski now. Anything I should be doing differently?"

No hesitation: "You need to make two fundamental changes to the way you ski..."

Yikes!

"You need to start your doublepole arms higher and generate much more force at the beginning of the poling, and you need to skate directly out to the side rather than back".

A discussion on technique ensued...

Doublepole

I will paraphrase here, and hopefully won't misrepresent what Eli said.

The older style of doublepole had a more even distribution of power starting with the abs crunch, the use of the lats, and a follow through with the triceps. The hands would end up well behind the skier.

The new doublepole is all about an aggressive pole plant initiation, with the elbow at a 90 degree angle, the upper arms at a 90 degree angle out from the body, and a forward lean at the ankles. At this point, the poles tips are well above the snow (or pavement in this particular case). Then BAM! the upper body drops hard on the poles at a high velocity. Power is at the peak spike as the poles hit the snow, followed by a hard pull by the lats. The triceps do little. The hand movement ends beside the body instead of behind it. Immediately, the hands go back up high for the next pole plant.

The old style of doublepoling, because the power phase last so long, limits the cadence of poling.

The new doubelpole, because the power phase is powerful and short, and because the arm movement ends sooner, allows for a much faster cadence, up to 90 pole plants per minute.

So I spent the next mile or trying to get my poles high enough and the pole plant powerful enough. I realized right away that the muscle used to raise my arms high were going to need some strength work.

Skate to the side

The second tip was to push the skating ski directly to the side and not to the rear at all. This surprised me, not that pushing to the rear was wrong, but that I was not already pushing to the side. I have certainly practiced this. We did not discuss skating very much, but pushing back loses power.

I actually knew about the new doublepole and about pushing to the side, and I have worked to change my technique, but it's really hard to know if you're doing things right unless you have an expert looking at you. Obviously I need additional technique work. Thank goodness I asked an expert!

Advice to anyone: if you have the opportunity to ski or rollerski with a coach like Eli Brown, or Cassidy Edwards, or Nick Baic, or any other coach, ask them for a quick review of you technique: "What's the one thing you'd recommend I change to be a better skier?"

If you have an opportunity to attend a technique clinic, take it. Better technique means faster more efficient skiing.

And if you live near a coach who provides long term coaching, try to take advantage of it, especially if you're serious about becoming a better racer.