stride length

[gopens67 0]

do you think it has more to do with your leg muscles or really your ankle strength/flexibility?

[NashvillePreds 1]

how about how long your legs are...

[Kobe 0]

Both. Using your feet doubles the output of your strides. Your feet are the last points of contact to the ice. All of that power generated by strong thighs would be wasted when it gets transferred to weak ankles/feet.

[MDE3 0]

It's a relative thing, but for each individual skater...the deepest knee bend possible along with an extended toe kick will yield maximum stride length. Using your hips to shift your weight and preload your flexors can even extend the stride farther. Exaggerate your stride when practicing as described above, and you will rapidly identify what muscles need work.

[biff44 0]

At the end of a long stide, you ankle is not all that bent, so I think it has little to do with ankle flexibility. I does have a lot to do with hip flexor and hamstring flexibility. If you can't get a full extension of the leg (ie your knee is still very bent at the end of the stide), work on improving those two.

[MDE3 0]

Actually you are not "bending your ankle" but extending the toe as a "push off" and therefore the ankle does pronate quite a bit..not really "bending" as such. But if you are not doing this, you are giving up about 10- 15% of your power..and speed.

[flaming_june 2]

hmm.. good tips..

[biff44 0]

Well, when I push off with the tip at the end of a stride, my ankle is 90 degrees to my leg when I am flicking it (ie not bent at all). After the flick, your ankle bends a lot, but that is when it is already in the air and not doing anything. I could be wrong, but I still don't think ankle flexibility has that much to do with stide length.

There are probably 20 other good reasons to want good ankle flexibility, though.

[Edge 0]

Bent knees give you the longest stride. Also, a lot of people push back in their stride rather than "out" I don't mean out completely to the side, but I mean you shouldn't be pushing behind you. You dont get enough power when you push off behind you. My team works with the skating coach for the Phoenix Coyotes and he does an excecise on the ice where our toes of our skates should be level with the front of one of the neutral zone lines, and for the stride, you striding foot's toe should touch the back of that line. So basically, that striding leg is about a foot or so behind your front leg. This info coming straight from an NHL skating coach.

[Chadd 916]

And skating coaches from different teams have different beliefs as to what is the "proper stride".

[MDE3 0]

Well, when I push off with the tip at the end of a stride,  my ankle is 90 degrees to my leg when I am flicking it (ie not bent at all).  After the flick, your ankle bends a lot, but that is when it is already in the air and not doing anything.  I could be wrong, but I still don't think ankle flexibility has that much to do with stide length. 

There are probably 20 other good reasons to want good ankle flexibility, though.

Learn to extend it fully while still in contact with the ice..this will increase your speed significantly. However your push angle is also critical..as is mentioned in another post...the angle of your driving leg thrust should not be to longditudinal..but angled at about 35 - 40 degrees or so to the direction of travel. Using this kind of angle in your stride, will allow you to extend your toe push and increase your skating efficiency.

Actually the point about using the correct thrust angle is important for various reasons, and is the more common method of teaching skating efficiency these days..This is known as the three part stride, actually using hip motion to preload your hip flexor muscles as the first part of the stride, followed by the upper leg thrust, and lastly the "toe kick". The deeper knee bends allow your "springs" to uncoil fully. Your "recovery foot" (lead foot) actually should start the stride on the outside edge using this method where the body's center of gravity is actually almost outside the leading foot at the beginning of the stride.. The old "traditonal" method of using more longditudinal thrust, with your feet tracking forward and back as though they were on RR tracks, is falling by the wayside, as the three piece stride is considered quite a bit more efficient from both an aerobic as well as productive viewpoint(faster).

If you want a good exagerated view of this ..watch any video of speedskaters from various angles.