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YesLanges

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Posts posted by YesLanges

  2. Posted · Edited by YesLanges · Report reply

    You can just have your own custom stick made, and cheaper than most retail sticks you'd probably be considering; and you can pick your length, curve (including heel curves), flex, kickpoint, and even weight and graphics: https://customhockeysticks.ca/#

    Things have changed a lot since the late1980s when I had to send my last broken Reggie Leach Koho 221 to Christian Bros for them to make Superlight 5000s for me with a one-dozen minimum after Koho stopped carrying them. I think I was paying about $125 per dozen and that seemed like a lot back then. I sold about 6 unused and about 6 used ones on eBay a few years ago (after almost tossing them out as trash), for about $300.

  4. Posted · Edited by YesLanges · Report reply

    Unfortunately, that's the part that you can't really teach someone the way you can teach specific skills. Probably about the most you can do in that regard is teach positional responsibilities and defensive coverages, and then reinforce those with the same basic drills used to teach kids how to play different positions. 

  7. Posted · Edited by YesLanges · Report reply

    Just pick up some of those thin neoprene hand pads that gym rats use and slip one (or a piece of one) in between your ankle and the skate. Any sweat will be enough moisture to hold them in place. If they still shift (unlikely, but possible), just glue a smaller piece over that eyelet and punch a hole in it for the laces. (In fact, if you want to PM a mailing address, I'll save you the $10 and just throw one in the mail for you. I have an endless supply of them that I cut from an 8' x 4' floor mat that came with a piece of home gym equipment that I don't use for anything except this exact purpose.)

    • Like 1

  8. Posted · Report reply

    My guess is that it's got nothing to with weight or with your pads getting in the way. It's probably that you tie your skates differently in pads. I've always been much more comfortable skating in shin pads than without them, because of the way that I like to tape my pads around my skates at the bottom. It's impossible for me to duplicate that exact same feel without my pads on. If you're putting your pads on before your skates, try doing the opposite so that wearing pads doesn't change anything about the way that you tighten and tie up your skates.

    • Like 2

  9. Posted · Report reply

    5 minutes ago, Sniper9 said:

    So your post basically touched on what I said I didn't need to know, since I already get that aspect. But thanks. 

    I addressed your question in my first 3 sentences of my first response. I agree with you that the flex obviously can't be the same in a cut stick, and while you didn't want to discuss that with anybody who believes the opposite, I don't mind having that discussion; and I figured you have sufficient control over your own eyes not to continue reading beyond my first 3 sentences if you didn't want to and that it would be OK to address the opposite belief for anybody else reading this thread. My apologies.

  10. Posted · Edited by YesLanges · Report reply

    13 hours ago, krisdrum said:

    Believe this is the one being referenced:

     

    This video is full of facts that are true in isolation but totally irrelevant, wrong in context, and misleading, along with some strawman arguments.

    Nobody is claiming that cutting a stick shorter "changes" the material farther down the stick. This is a strawman argument. Sticks of different lengths will measure identical ratings simply because the machine holds the stick at the same two points regardless of how long the whole (rest of the) stick is. The flex rating is nothing but a reference tool that can't take into account where players' hands actually are on the stick during use. It's simply a measurement intended to provide a way for players to compare stiffness of the difference in materials that determine how hard sticks are to flex. He even admits that a stick will be harder to flex after it's cut shorter; but he then goes back to saying that the flex rating doesn't change. The only place it doesn't change is on the machine because of where the machine holds it. Players don't care about that; players care about whether the same stick is stiffer and harder to flex with the same hand positioning if it's cut shorter. The shorter it's cut the stiffer and harder to flex it will be in your hands.

    If this isn't obvious to you, all you have to do is imagine two sticks made of identical composite material rated at 100 lbs of flex where one stick is 6 feet long and the other is 100 feet long. Does anybody think you could possibly place a 100-lb weight right in the middle of the 100' stick without it snapping instantly? That same 100 lbs placed in the middle of a 6' stick will only bend it 1." They're both "rated" at 100 lbs because they're held by the machine at the same points. A longer stick will always be easier to bend in the middle by the same amount of weight than a shorter stick made of material with identical properties and characteristics.  

    Some manufacturers even print a guide on the last 8" or so of their sticks, with different flex ratings next to the length in inches indicating what the flex will be if you cut it to specific lengths corresponding to those flex ratings.

     

  12. Posted · Edited by YesLanges · Report reply

    The shorter the stick is cut, the higher its true flex rating will be. That's simple physics that's actually so simple, it's just common sense. I've found that plugs (wooden ones, at least) definitely change the flex and shooting characteristics. That also makes sense, simply because you're replacing some of the more flexible composite material with much less flexible wood. The exact spot of greatest flex will also change for (what should be) similarly obvious related reasons. The sticks may all go onto the flex machine at the same place; but nobody holds the stick at the places where the flex machine holds them: the flex machine simply provides a standardized way of comparing the flex of sticks; but I'd be surprised to find out that one of the contact points is above the plug insert point. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the flex machine measures where on the stick the deflection first hits the 1" mark; it probably just measures the amount of flex necessary for any part of the shaft to deflect 1". I believe that point can't be the same with a plug if your hand is above that cut line, which it obviously is.

  13. Posted · Edited by YesLanges · Report reply

    Recovery time depends substantially on the surgical approach. Posterior approach will require more convalescence, more rehab, more time to resume full activity, and more restrictions during recovery.

    I suffered with this shit for 5 years because I was too afraid to get the surgery and incapable of deciding between THA and BHR. THA surgeons all recommended against BHR because of the potential issues with metal-on-metal hardware; meanwhile, BHR surgeons presented BHR as a no-brainer for several reasons and downplayed (or completely ignored) the MoM issue. I also cared more about the least invasive procedure with the least amount of pain and the quickest recovery. The BHR guys also (mis)represented BHR as less invasive, when, in fact, it's much more invasive because of how much access to the joint it requires. Finally, last year, I found an experienced THA surgeon (Alexander Neuwirth at NY Cornell-Weill) who uses a plastic ball in a ceramic cup and does it with a minimally-invasive anterior approach. Up to that point, the only THA surgeons on my insurance plan used metal components and/or only do the posterior approach. I was still very skeptical about believing what he was telling me about how my being an ideal candidate and my current physical condition meant that I'd recover very quickly; and I was even  more skeptical about being back on the ice in "6-8 weeks." 

    He was right. Surgery was March 12th around 7:00 AM and the only reason I didn't leave the hospital even a few hours earlier than 4:00 PM was because I was still dizzy from the pain meds and because it took me that long to produce any urine to be sure there were no issues with that. As soon as my head cleared, I walked around the ward basically carrying my walker in front of me without needing it. I used it for safety to get to the car and from the car to my apartment and that was the last time I touched it. I spent much of the next week lying on my massage table because it allowed me to angle my head down and feet up to keep the swelling down. Swelling still moved all the way down my leg and peaked at 7 days. Zero hip pain and some minor discomfort in my quads for a few days. Started upper body training after 7 days because I was still feeling sort of weak; but I could have started immediately if I'd wanted to. Zero prescribed rehab because I have my own gym at home and zero post-surgical hip precautions: the anterior approach allows you to bend at the waist and to do everything except torque your hip by twisting your body while standing on that leg. I did nothing besides my normal leg training for rehab (eliptical, leg extensions, squats, leg curls, hyperextensions, and some band work for abductors & hip flexors). For the first 6 weeks of training, I substituted reverse hyperextensions on a big exercise ball for traditional hyperextensions, because I didn't want that pressure directly on the hip joint. I also waited 6 weeks before doing my abs by hanging upside down on my inversion table.

    I started walking up and down the hallway outside my apartment daily for the first two weeks and after my two-week check-up, I got the go ahead to get back on the eliptical and to start light leg workouts. I worked out pretty hard for the next 4 or 5 weeks and at my 6-week follow-up, he told me I could get back on skates. I got on the ice 7 weeks to the day from my surgery and within a few of hours on the ice (over 2 weeks), I was pretty much back to normal. Been going to sticks and pucks 2-3x/week since early May and have my 4th game tomorrow night. I slip some extra neoprene padding under compression shorts over my hip right on the joint, just in case I get knocked off my skates and fall directly on it. He said the biggest risk is a direct impact only because the titanium implant is so much harder than the surrounding bone that the femur could crack if I fell directly on the hip hard enough. Other than that, the only risk is high-impact sports, which my surgeon doesn't recommend (at all, ever) for recipients of THA. That's no issue for me, because I don't do anything high impact and all of my cardio is on the eliptical. I'm mainly a center and while I'm not that great a player, I typically cover more ice in any game than anybody else on the ice. My surgical hip is now one of my only joints that never hurts.

    Ultimately, the long-term results are the same whether you have anterior or posterior THA, and (functionally), even if you have BHR. The posterior approach typically takes about twice as long to get back to full activities, requires rehab, and involves some more pain, especially initially, and there are strict hip precautions (i.e. no bending past 90 degrees at the waist and no crossing legs) for a few months. BHR is also a harder recovery than anterior THA, but is fine, as long as you're not one of the unlucky few who have metal ion issues.

    Let me know if you have any other questions. 

     

     

    • Like 1

  15. Posted · Report reply

    33 minutes ago, Miller55 said:

    you could get the same effect by creasing the boot at teh spot where the hinge is and then just lacing up.

    I don't think so; because once you crease it, that boot becomes less supportive in the lateral plane as well as in the longitudinal plane. My main point was that it's impossible to change the stiffness in only one plane anytime you alter the stiffness of the boot anywhere. With a hinge, the longitudinal flexibility isn't affected by changing the stiffness of the material, whether inherently or by adding supplemental external support, such as by taping above the hinge.

  16. Posted · Edited by YesLanges · Report reply

    On 4/16/2021 at 12:51 AM, caveman27 said:

    Lange was ahead of its time. Using ski boot technology for stiffness, but incorporating a hinge to allow for some forward flex.

    vintage-stan-mikita-lange-hockey_1_ec809

     

    I never truly appreciated that technology until I tried Bauer NXGs and APX 2s to get away from the weight of my Langes. I appreciated the weight reduction and lateral stiffness of the new materials; but I found it impossible to lace them tightly enough for lateral support without restricting my forward flexion. I ended up returning the APXs for a refund and reselling the NXGs on eBay at a 50% loss, because I'd already sharpened and skated on them (once). About a year later, I tried once more with Graf 5035s and after skating in them 3 or 4 times, I resold them at a 50% loss because I decided that it would probably take me way too long just to be able to skate the same way I skate in my Langes and that I didn't want to invest that kind of time trying to do that, practicing in them and playing in my Langes for a full season or two.

    I doubt that flexion zones will provide the solution, because they'll probably only work in a single plane. The problem that gets overlooked in these discussions is that lacing and boot stiffness control movement in the lateral and longitudinal planes simultaneously without any way of adjusting them independently. As advanced as material technology is, I can't imagine that they'll be able to come up with materials that flex differently in different planes simultaneously, much less at any remotely-affordable price for a product that's expected to be flexed hundreds of thousands or millions of times during its intended life.

    That's what's so great about the hinge: I can tape above the hinge for lateral support without affecting forward flexion. 

     

    • Like 1

  18. Posted · Edited by YesLanges · Report reply

    Lange Laser 3s and Lange Comps. Never really wore anything else except to try them out before reselling them immediately after a few hours in them in 2014.

    4 hours ago, greyraven8 said:

    Don't remember much about them but know I had Lange skates as a kid, and our league at the time I started played some outdoor games.

    Tell me what year, whether they had 2 or 3 top eyelets, a soft felt tongue or a thicker protective tongue and whether the highest edge on the boot was straight with no logo near the toe of the boot or with a u-shaped dip at the top and a logo near the toe of the boot and I can probably tell you the model.

  19. Posted · Report reply

    3 hours ago, colins said:

     

    I can't comment on ankle strength but ankle mobility is 100% important. People make fun of 'ankle benders', but elite skaters can (in a controllable way) pronate their ankles to achieve more power in their stride.

    This is neither a mystery nor a contradiction. Accomplished skaters transfer weight back and forth on their edges (and pronate their ankles to their advantage) under full neuromuscular control; novice skaters who lack that neuromuscular control transfer their weight from edge to edge (and pronate their ankles to their disadvantage ) without meaning to and out of their control. The difference isn't whether or not skaters ever pronate their ankles or to what degree; what makes all the difference in the world is whether they're doing it purposely and under control or having it happen to them outside of their control. Generally, the better the skater, the more extreme angles of pronation they can achieve, which is why the best skaters are usually the ones who learned to skate with the loosest possible ankle lock.

    3 hours ago, colins said:

     

    Hell, NHL teams even in recent years have had power skating coaches like Laura Stamm teaching players to swing their arms front to back instead of side to side. Mike Bracko has disproved this and taught the side to side arm swing.

    Exactly. I posted that video.

  20. Posted · Edited by YesLanges · Report reply

    36 minutes ago, salibandy said:

    I never understood the front-to-back swing that Laura Stamm (and many coaches) taught either because it never made sense from a biomechanical point of view. While front-to-back pumping of the arms made sense for runners whose feet moved in the sagittal plane, skaters' feet moved more in the frontal plane, so the arms should as well.

    This I agree with 100%. It should be obvious that the arms should swing away from the body at roughly the same angle as the feet push in relation to the body and that hockey players don't stride straight back. Even the instructors who teach that front-to-back arm-swing shit at $100 per hour every morning don't really do it themselves except when they demonstrate it. As soon as they're actually skating in their own men's-league games, they move their arms just like everybody else. 

    Dr. Mike Bracho's Institute for Hockey Research: Test of Arm Swing Angles

     

  21. Posted · Report reply

    4 hours ago, BenBreeg said:

    1- Dunno what the point is, you need to apply force in a coordinated manner, my point didn’t say you need some high level of maximum strength

    2- I didn’t say anything about conscious or unconscious, many things are learned consciously and then become unconscious. My point was that ankle control isn’t the sole contributor to balance in a system that has multiple pivot points.  That isn’t specific to skating.

    1. The point is that muscle strength and coordination are different things and that balancing on edges is a function of coordination, not strength. (Anytime we're discussing strength, we're always discussing maximum strength, by definition. Some people in this thread are using the terms "strength" and "endurance" interchangeably; but that's inaccurate and it's contributing to the confusion.)

    2. I didn't mean to focus on the distinction between conscious and unconscious: when we walk on ice in shoes or on a narrow beam, we do both conscious and unconscious things to maintain our balance: putting your hands out to the sides is largely unconscious and automatic, but walking much slower than normal is conscious, for example. The mind-muscle connection is the issue in balancing on edges at any and all involved pivot points: the muscular strength of your ankles, hips, back, (etc.) doesn't determine how well you can balance; the mind-muscle connection does.

  22. Posted · Report reply

    1 hour ago, Vet88 said:

    I think you have me mixed up with sailbandy. I have never said it's about strength. I said, wrt skating laces untied, it's initially about endurance. Putting it simply, if you can walk into a rink then you can skate.

    Sorry about that mix-up. Whether or not someone can control or balance on his edges has nothing to do with muscular endurance. Endurance only becomes a factor after muscles begin to fatigue (obviously). The test of that proposition is very simple and consists of whether or not someone can control and balance on his edges in the first minute or two (let's say) of trying to do it when endurance isn't yet a factor. 

    1 hour ago, Vet88 said:

    I would propose that beginners (who I coach on a daily basis) have to use the most strength and energy to get around the rink because of the loads they are putting on their muscles as they skate in a pronated position (barring those who have good bio mechanics from day one). Strength doesn't come into the equation until you begin to push the upper limits of your skating ability.

    I don't coach on a daily basis, but I used to run the NJ HNA 8-week beginner clinics before my 24-year layoff, and lately, since they started doing "return-to-hockey" clinics at my home rink in Westchester during the pandemic, I've been filing in for them again as a backup instructor, on occasion; and I can tell within a few seconds of a skater stepping onto the ice how well he can control his edges. Sure, unconditioned muscle will fatigue much sooner and skating will deteriorate as a result; but that doesn't mean that muscle strength or conditioning determines or is even a factor in the ability to balance on and control edges in the first place. I'd suggest that muscular strength only comes into the equation as the equation relates to acceleration and speed, not balance, even at the upper limits of your ability to balance on edges. That's why I mentioned how much better I can do c-cuts one edge at a time and how quickly I improved transitioning back and forth on one skate after just a little practice, because my leg strength didn't change during the one session in which I made the most improvement.

    There is no doubt that novices (in just about any athletic or physical activity) always do it much less efficiently than someone more proficient at it and can't continue doing it at their current highest execution level (whatever that happens to be) for as long as someone more proficient. However, that would only explain why novices skate their best for a little while and why they may feel soreness after only a few minutes and immediately afterwards; it does not explain or have anything to do with why they can't keep their ankles straight when they first step onto the ice, as long as (as you said) they're strong enough to walk into the rink. 

    The mistake responsible for the conclusion to the contrary is the  assumption that if an activity makes your muscles sore, that means that muscular strength is an important element of performing that skill. That's a fallacy. 

    Here's a perfect example of what I'm saying and of that fallacy:

    3 hours ago, hockeydad3 said:

    For a while I can skate with the loosened laces without any problems, but then I get muscular exhaustion and I get insecure while skating. When I tighten my skates again, I can easily skate for a while longer.

    The portion that I bolded is exactly my point: the test of whether muscle strength is an important factor in performing that skill is, precisely, how well someone can do it before fatigue sets in. Muscular endurance only determines how long you can continue doing it as well as you can currently do it, not how well you can do it before exhaustion sets in.

  23. Posted · Edited by YesLanges · Report reply

    4 hours ago, BenBreeg said:

    Let’s say it’s about controlling a system (the entire body) and that there is a minimum level of strength needed (it may not be that much and is not the sole contributor) paired with coordination of many muscles (the symptom may be unstableness at the skate but that doesn’t mean the solution is local).

    I disagree. We're only talking about people who have normal strength levels in all of their muscles, not anybody recovering from injury or suffering from any pathology causing weak muscles. In other words, everybody we're discussing already has the "minimum level of strength needed" to skate (or ride a bike or juggle tennis balls). The fundamental disagreement in this thread is whether changes in edgework are functions of maximum muscle strength; and I'm saying that maximum muscle strength (and endurance) has nothing to do with it at all.

    4 hours ago, BenBreeg said:

    When i first started doing laces undone, the improvement didn’t come from my ankles as a gross motor skill, but first from the alignment of my body above the skate, literally where my head was which then kind of cascaded to where my hips and knees were.  There was lastly though local feedback from my entire foot.

    I disagree. Body positioning is just the necessary conscious strategy necessary to be able to stay balanced here, precisely because you hadn't yet established the mind-muscle connection in your ankles. The less stable you are, the more aware you need to be about your center of gravity and the more careful you need to be not to move in ways that throw you off balance, exactly the way people walk on tightropes or on ice in street shoes. The more you establish the mind-muscle connection, the more your brain tells all the different fiber clusters in the muscles in your ankles to fire and relax in the coordinated way that manifests itself in improved skating and the less you need to consciously control your head and limbs to avoid losing your balance.

    On 2/19/2021 at 11:21 AM, caveman27 said:

    The weaker you are, the less deep you can go. There's also edge work to help you work on your strength, balance and skating skill, you don't go as deep but hold yourself up on one foot but carving on the inside edge of one blade and then when you are done with the arc, you stay on the same blade and turn in the other direction on the outside edge of the blade. After doing a bunch of arcs, switch feet and do the same thing on the other foot.  

    I think your use of the word weaker in that first sentence is inaccurate (or circular), because it assumes the conclusion that the maximum deepness of your cuts is a function of strength. We may refer to someone as a "weak" skater; but that's not accurate in a literal sense; same with edgework. "Weak" skaters also can't execute a long series of fast crossovers, either; but it's not because their leg muscles aren't strong enough: it's all about balance. All of that carving stuff is precisely the way motor learning works through mind-muscle connection. I can use myself to illustrate: I always worked c-cuts one edge at a time and I can do them pretty hard, loud, and deep on both inside and outside edges for ~270 degrees. Recently, I started doing exactly what you describe by staying on one skate and transitioning from inner-edge cuts to outer-edge cuts instead of doing them separately. Initially, I was unable to do anything but very soft, quiet, and shallow cuts (after the first one) despite having the strength to do them very well one edge at a time. With a little practice, I was able to do them much better because of the new mind-muscle connection that I established, but definitely not because the strength of my legs changed. My right skate is still better than my left, and that's also not because of strength differences between my two legs, either.

    1 hour ago, salibandy said:

    I will say that motor unit recruitment is the activation of contractile units in a muscle, so when the neural adaptations do occur, it is increasing motor unit recruitment to better control the ankle, which ultimately is increasing the strength based on the increased amount of contractile units activated. This is how I understand and interpret how motor learning and muscles work, at least. So yes, edge control changes are related to changes in muscle strength, because strength is a function of motor control, recruitment and activation.

    I think you're mixing up the context of "strength" here, because I think you're using it to describe force exerted. Skating, bike riding, (and juggling) all depend on the right contractile units contracting in the right sequence at the right time to generate balance. That's what the mind-muscle connection does in motor learning. Edge changes are related to changes in muscle activation and the right amount of force generated at the right time and for the right duration; they are not related at all to the maximum strength that the muscles involved can generate. Our brains have to send hundreds (or thousands) of signals per second, like a computer, to activate those contractile units in sequences. That's the neural connection that produces balance on edges.

    1 hour ago, salibandy said:

    I think the bike riding analogy is not the right fit for my example of degrees of freedom, which has nothing to do with weakness. Also, I agree with you that the deterioration of skills over many years isn't solely the function of the strength of the muscles involved.

    I wasn't connecting it to degrees of freedom and I'm not saying that deterioration isn't solely a function of strength; I'm saying it hardly a function of strength at all, because skating well on edges (as opposed to acceleration and speed) isn't based on strength in the first place. Another example would be juggling tennis balls: if you don't do it for a decade, your skill deteriorates but comes back again quickly with practice. It doesn't deteriorate because of weaker arms. Same goes for skating and bike riding. 

    1 hour ago, salibandy said:

    Also, great discussion guys. I wonder though, has @Koopa got what he needed from our combined experience, or is just lost amongst all the discussion haha

    You'll know as soon as someone posts a clip on YouTube of a frozen bicycle chained outside a rink and a guy inside doing c-cuts in untied polyurethane skates while trying to juggle tennis balls.

  24. Posted · Report reply

    53 minutes ago, Vet88 said:

    On this I would completely disagree. If muscle memory is the activation (or even non activation) of a muscle (ie muscle spindle) then proprioception is intrinsically linked. May I suggest a read of this: https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/physrev.00048.2011

    I think that entire article is actually making my (broader) argument and contradicting yours, because I'm saying all along that balancing on edges is all about the brain-muscle connection and that process has nothing little do with muscle strength; you're arguing that edge control changes are related to changes in muscle strength. Yes, of course, functional movement depends on muscles firing, but I don't think we're disagreeing about that at all: you're saying that the strength of those muscles themselves is an important issue in recovering skating balance and I'm saying that (assuming only that we're discussing healthy muscles), everything that produces good edge control or bad edge control is a function of the neurological signals that produce muscle fine motor movement and not muscle strength. In fact, at a quick glance, the study actually seems to identify a link beween weak (i.e. elderly) muscle and poorer proprioception, not the other way around. Your subtler argument seems to be the reverse of that, that poor proprioception is linked to poor muscle strength

    Could I ask you how you respond to or refute my example about bike riding and skating being substantially recoverable within minutes and nearly fully recoverable in days if the deterioration of those skills over many years of non-use is a function of the strength of the muscles involved? You can't recover muscle strength in days, or hours, or minutes; yet we've all seen rusty ex-players go from looking like they can barely skate to skating pretty well in a single skating session. How could that possibly be related to the strength of the "weakened" skating muscles? Same question for bike riding and skate boarding. 

      If he's not too busy, maybe Doctor Mike Bracko could weigh in here to edumacate us?

    Dr. Mike Bracko - Skating Coach & Sports Physiologist
    mail?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimgssl.constantco
     
     
    Dr. Bracko's Top Shelf - Hockey Skating Newsletter
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     Information about how sleep enhances performance
    Please e-mail me if you have any questions - bracko@hockeyinstitute.org
    Thanks for reading the newsletter.
    Mike Bracko

  25. Posted · Edited by YesLanges · Report reply

    19 hours ago, salibandy said:

    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. 

    Clarkiestooth and I are only talking about ankle "weakness" in the context of skating and what you're referring to here (i.e. normal standards). If a person can run and jump and play recreational softball (or just about any other sport) but can't keep his ankles straight on skates, ankle "strength" isn't the issue. It's coordination.

    19 hours ago, salibandy said:

    If they aren't weak by normal standards,

    This is the issue: if they aren't weak by normal standards, ankle "weakness" isn't the reason novice skaters can't control their ankles or their edges. It's coordination and muscle control. 

    20 hours ago, Vet88 said:

    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.

    You can't "put aside" the neurological aspect of anything that involves balance. Likewise, with all due respect, proprioception and muscle memory are two totally different and largely-unrelated things. In fact, even the phrase "muscle memory" itself is a misnomer, because the memory is actually in the brain and in the reaactivation of dormant neural pathways that were formed previously but then unused long enough to deteriorate.   

    Muscle fatigue and soreness and endurance also have nothing to do with strength in relation to balancing on skates, for reasons I'll illustrate below:

    19 hours ago, salibandy said:

    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.

    With all due respect, riding a bike is a much better example when you're talking about skating. Obviously, you need healthy working muscles (and good proprioception) to ride a bike. Likewise, if you haven't ridden a bike in years, your endurance and speed won't be the same as when you last rode regularly; and you'll definitely experience soreness in all the muscles involved. But that doesn't mean that someone who never learned to ride a bike has trouble balancing on wheels because his riding muscles are too weak. Like skating, bike riding is all about motor learning and balancing and proprioception; and just like skating, once you've already laid down the necessary neural pathways involved in riding, you can recover them quickly, even decades later. Nothing dependent on muscle strength can be recovered in hours (or days) after an extended layoff. Both bike riding and skating can be recovered substantially in minutes.

    Loosely speaking, normal skating is analagous to riding a regular bike; skating with loose (or no) laces is analagous to riding a bike without holding the handlebars; and relying on tightly taping your ankles is analagous to riding a bike with training wheels modified to sit a little higher than the bike wheels. 

    19 hours ago, salibandy said:

    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.

    Again, with all due respect to your area of professional expertise, as long as we're talking about individuals whose muslces aren't weak by normal standards, all of this relates to coordination and to learning to do two things at one time, like patting your head and rubbing your belly in circles, and to doing something that challenges your balance in ways that you haven't practiced doing. That's why someone who can do perfect c-cuts and also stickhandle well (separately) won't be able to do either of them nearly as smoothly at the same time without practicing them together: it just takes some practice and it has nothing to do with strengthening the muscles involved either in c-cut edging or in stickhandling. Obviously, if you can do them both separately, you already have all of the requisite muscle development for both of them. 

    The OP should just spend some time skating using skates that are stiff enough and tight enough for him to recover all (or most) of his previous skating ability. After that, if he wants to improve his edge control, he should gradually loosen his laces; and if he also wants to improve his ability to skate and control his edges while stickhandling, he should include some one-legged and/or balance disk work and some on-ice stickhandling on one skate at a time.

     

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