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Showing content with the highest reputation on 02/20/21 in all areas

  1. 2 points
    As a physio and strength and conditioning coach, I will say there is such a thing as a weak ankle (weak joint). For example, the inability to control the ankle is a contributor to lateral ankle sprains, and the lack of control can either come from poor motor control (poor recruitment), weak(er) muscles or a combination of the 2. For the OP, if your ankles are really weak, you could start off with balance disk work. Try stickhandling on one leg on a balance disk to build that recruitment and endurance/strength. If they aren't weak by normal standards, then honestly just go to a session with skates tied up to one eyelet down. I find that going one eyelet down is a good balance of mobility and stability. You're not going to truly recruit the necessary muscles the right way unless you skate, so that's probably the best way to progress. If you haven't been skating recently, going untied or with loose skates might cause you to really struggle to skate. In motor learning, we talk about degrees of freedom, and a good example is the progression of learning to throw. At the start, one throws with the entire body in one motion as opposed to segmentally like an MLB player, because they haven't learned the motor patterns to control the separate joints. Jumping straight in to skating for the first time in ages, especially after skating for ages in aggro skates, might cause you to skate rather stiffly and will not help your progression at all especially if you go with loosely or untied skates.
  2. 2 points
    Putting aside the neurological aspect (muscle learning and muscle memory ie proprioception) imho it's not strength as per se but endurance. When I first started skating laces untied my calves, especially the outside of the calf, would begin to ache after a period on the ice. The more I trained, the longer it took for ache to come on until it eventually disappeared. I put this down to the stabilising muscles / tendons of the calf and ankle being activated so that the body can balance correctly over the ice blade, in normal life these muscles / tendons do not do a lot compared to skating laces untied. As for the OP, the answer is to go for a skate with your laces untied (loose enough so you can pull your skates on and off without touching the laces). There is nothing else that will build your skate muscles and blade control quicker than doing this. It's easy enough to do, anyone of any age or skill level can skate this way.
  3. 2 points
    Alkali was bought by Tron Hockey, so to a certain extent it's a different brand than it was back when the CA9 and RPD lines came out. That said, I owned a pair of Revel 1s for a while and they are good skates. @wickedslappah mentioned, they do not compare to the top end Missions or Bauer's in terms of the stiffness of the boot (the Curv composite) or the quality of the skate, but they are great skates on the whole. Fairly light, nice fit and comfort, the mag chassis are nice (have heard of people breaking them, but same with kryptoniums, so...). The wheels they come with are way too soft for me, but luckily I know some guys at Konixx who were happy to swap the +0s for a set of +2s. If you're really heavy and a hard skater I don't think they'll last forever, but if you're average and playing house league you'll probably enjoy them. I don't own them anymore, but not because I had any issue with them. [Short story is I moved from NY to AZ in August and for whatever my stuff didn't end up in AZ until November, so I just bought the Revel 1s to use until my gear arrived, and then sold them later]. To answer your question, Wicked Slappah, it's usually about cost. The high end Missions are double the price of high end Tours or Alkalis. Even the second level Missions are a couple hundred bucks more than top Tour/Alkali. I don't disagree that they're not nearly as good, but not everyone has over a grand to drop on skates. Also, a lot of guys I know that are on Tour or Alkali pro teams use Tours or Alkali, but not because they're as good, just because they get them free and don't care if they go soft quick because they can get another pair. Aside from cost, there is a fit issue. Tours fit much deeper than Bauer and Mission, and Alkali's fit close to Mission/Supreme, so some people have no choice but to wear Tours for the fit.
  4. 1 point
    Correct. I've explained this several times before, but what we refer to colloquially as ankle "weakness" really has nothing to do with strength; it's all about neurological learning as a component of the skill of balancing on edges. All of the suggestions about edge work and gradually loosening laces are 100% correct; they just have nothing to do with muscular strength. If it were about strength, experienced skaters coming back after decades-long layoffs wouldn't be able to recover most of their skating ability after only a few hours back on skates, because there's no such thing as a muscle that builds strength back like that in just a few hours or a few training sessions over several days. If you're interested in all the details, use the search function for the threads titled "Why No Laces?" and "Can Someone Explain This?" (Just search the term "neurological" to find those threads easily.) But you're going to have to make a choice between improving your skating quickly by just going to a stiffer boot or improving your skating much more gradually by doing the exact opposite, along the lines of staying with softer boots and/or skipping eyelets on stiffer boots. They both work, but you'll be a much better skater in the long term by doing it the harder way, which takes much longer. If you go the stiff-boot route, your skating will improve almost immediately, but you'll plateau out very quickly and never really become a great skater.
  5. 1 point
    I work with the top skills group in Sweden, JRM Skates and Skills (check out our videos on YT or IG). There's really no such thing as weak ankles, it's not anatomically possible. Just either poor fitting skates or poor body control. Without ever seeing you skate, just basing on your description, I'd say try a new modern skate (way more comfy now), don't lace the top eyelet (today's skate eyelets are much higher), and bend you knees more.



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