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Koopa

building ankle strength

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So I dont play much anymore as there arent any beer leagues near me and the local teams are either pro level or under 21 junior development teams. However, I do love to skate and enjoy getting out on the ice when I can. 

Coming from the old school pre 2000 era, I grew up wearing what most would consider by todays standards - horribly unsupportive soft skates. For my sins I also got heavily into aggressive skating when I was in my late teens and used to skate with pretty much zero ankle support to be able to ride rails on the edges of my chassis. 

My ankles are probably a lot weaker now and as my preference is for 90s skates with nice slipper like leather uppers (currently using a pair of unused CCM 652 pump tacks) I know I need to build the natural strength up in my ankles to regain the skating ability I had from many years ago.

My question is - other than just regular skating, does anyone do anything in particular or have any tips for building up ankle strength faster? I read on another post that juniors in sweden etc get made to skate with most of their top eyelets undone in practice to help build ankle strength before lacing all the way up for game time. 

Any tips would be gratefully appreciated! Thanks

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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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thanks for the response. Interesting that you say it isnt anatomically possible to have weak ankles, I wasnt aware of this.

I like the comfort of my current skates and they are still pretty stiff as they havent been used. I think the pump tack was a highish level boot in its day so should still hold up. I am not super heavy - 6ft 2 190lbs and dont break skates down too quick. 

Ive tried taking longer strides and trying to extend the time I am gliding on one foot to try and build balance back up. 

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5 hours ago, Koopa said:

So I dont play much anymore as there arent any beer leagues near me and the local teams are either pro level or under 21 junior development teams. However, I do love to skate and enjoy getting out on the ice when I can. 

Coming from the old school pre 2000 era, I grew up wearing what most would consider by todays standards - horribly unsupportive soft skates. For my sins I also got heavily into aggressive skating when I was in my late teens and used to skate with pretty much zero ankle support to be able to ride rails on the edges of my chassis. 

My ankles are probably a lot weaker now and as my preference is for 90s skates with nice slipper like leather uppers (currently using a pair of unused CCM 652 pump tacks) I know I need to build the natural strength up in my ankles to regain the skating ability I had from many years ago.

My question is - other than just regular skating, does anyone do anything in particular or have any tips for building up ankle strength faster? I read on another post that juniors in sweden etc get made to skate with most of their top eyelets undone in practice to help build ankle strength before lacing all the way up for game time. 

Any tips would be gratefully appreciated! Thanks

There's an ice skating thing called "edge work", figure skaters and hockey players do them. You can look it up on youtube or google it. Basically, you carve deep turns on one foot and try to hold yourself steady through the turn. It works on the variety of muscles used to hold yourself up through the turn or arc. 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.  

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Can we have some data to back up the assertion that you can't have weak ankles, or are you talking semantics?  We don't say you have weak knees or course, but have weak muscles that control the joint.  The ankle is a joint.

One point though, there are multiple joints above the ankle transferring the weight of your body to the skate blade.  Hips, knees, overall skating posture are all factors that come into play.  Just try balancing on one foot in your socks on dry land and bend your knee, hold that for a while and you'll start to feel how many different body parts contribute to balance.

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I use this balance board:

https://www.challenge-disc.com/en/

The exercises in the app and the digital feedback give me the motivation to practice more and to compare my improving scores. Twice five minutes of exercise a day cause reproducible muscle soreness in me. You can certainly use an analog board with an exercise book / video. My balance and the associated muscles have improved significantly.

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18 minutes ago, hockeydad3 said:

I use this balance board:

https://www.challenge-disc.com/en/

The exercises in the app and the digital feedback give me the motivation to practice more and to compare my improving scores. Twice five minutes of exercise a day cause reproducible muscle soreness in me. You can certainly use an analog board with an exercise book / video. My balance and the associated muscles have improved significantly.

I was going to suggest something similar.  Not as tech heavy.  Most places call them "balance disks".  Basically a squashed ball you inflate.  Do one foot balance exercises on it.  Once you are comfortable, you can stickhandle and do other things to make it more challenging. 

https://www.amazon.com/Body-Sport-ZZRVDBL-BodySport-Balance/dp/B00CV4X6PY/ref=asc_df_B00CV4X6PY/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=194945998049&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=14018454177132143299&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9003519&hvtargid=pla-316259129675&psc=1

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15 hours ago, clarkiestooth said:

There's really no such thing as weak ankles, it's not anatomically possible. Just either poor fitting skates or poor body control.

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.

 

 
 
Edited by YesLanges
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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.

Edited by Vet88
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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.

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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.

 

Edited by YesLanges

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If you have access to ice, the one drill that I love doing is slow, simple step overs. I loosen the laces at the top of my skate and basically walk sideways. As I shift my weight to one side out of an A-stance, I role my ankle over transferring from inside edge to outside. As I step over, all my weight is on my outside edge, and I try to maintain as much control as possible and not rush things. I start with small steps then work my way up into larger steps, creating more separation between skates. The larger separation makes it harder, and as I get more comfortable, I loosen the laces a bit more. 

When you're doing this, you have to maintain good posture, with good knee and ankle bend, with your feet always facing forward, and you have to be well balanced on your edge otherwise it falls apart, so I find it's a good check to see if something is off. I find this give me a really good edge and posture workout. 

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@YesLanges You're not talking about different things from what I am - coordination comes from 2 things, motor control (recruitment) and strength. In the context of the skater, being able to control the ankle muscles comes from motor learning, in the absence of weak muscles. With reference to ankle weakness in relation to skating, it is still weak in that it is not able to be used for its intended purpose. 

With regards to ankle weakness as to normal standards, that was a comment to the OP that addressed muscular weakness, not coordination. They are different things - the muscles controlling a normal ankle without weakness may have the cross-sectional area to develop neuromuscular strength and motor control for skating, but a weak ankle may not. The comment addresses the latter, while my first paragraph here addresses the former.

I don't disagree with you - for anyone without weak ankles by normal standards, a balance disk may serve no purpose, therefore go and skate with one eyelet down, which is what I also mentioned. Don't confuse what I said though. While adding in stickhandling may or may not be an added cognitive task, don't let that aspect distract from the notion of using balance disks for building ankle coordination and strength, and again strictly in the context of a (for lack of better word) truly weak ankle. It's not about learning 2 things at once.

Also, you may have missed the point about motor learning. What I am talking about is freezing degrees of movement when learning something new. Meaning one does a movement with the whole body, think a new skater on ice, instead of skating with the objective to learn to control their ankles. This is applicable to the OP because he hasn't skated in soft boots in awhile and mostly skated in aggro skates (basically ski boots), therefore he shouldn't skate with laces untied or even loose at the moment. This is exactly as you said in your last paragraph.

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6 hours ago, salibandy said:

This is applicable to the OP because he hasn't skated in soft boots in awhile and mostly skated in aggro skates (basically ski boots), therefore he shouldn't skate with laces untied or even loose at the moment. 

I have to disagree with this for a number of reasons. 1st, what the OP said, he skated in soft boots and aggro with "pretty much zero ankle support". So all of his experience for skating isn't based around a stiff boot with laces done up or even one eyelet dropped. 2nd, putting him in a stiff boot with a different pitch, radius and boot design and lacing up and he will effectively be learning how to skate (admittedly based on a past learnt skill) as opposed to just reactivating what he knows. Going unlaced in a current generation boot will be about as close he could get to what he already knows and has learnt. 

Now if the OP hadn't said "pretty much zero ankle support" then I'd agree, start at 1 eyelet down and then go from there. In fact there is no reason why he couldn't do this regardless but given his opening statement I'd stand by my approach that he could start effectively with laces untied as the closest approach to what he used to do.

11 hours ago, YesLanges said:

Likewise, with all due respect, proprioception and muscle memory are two totally different and largely-unrelated things.

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

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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?

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On 2/20/2021 at 1:24 AM, 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. 

For the OP, if your ankles are really weak, you could start off with..........

I don't really understand the analogy. In a hockey skate, your ankle/lower leg are bound.  Again, there is no such thing as "weak ankles" when it comes to skating.

8 hours ago, salibandy said:

@YesLanges You're not talking about different things from what I am - coordination comes from 2 things, motor control (recruitment) and strength. In the context of the skater, being able to control the ankle muscles comes from motor learning, in the absence of weak muscles. With reference to ankle weakness in relation to skating, it is still weak in that it is not able to be used for its intended purpose. 

With regards to ankle weakness as to normal standards, that was a comment to the OP that addressed muscular weakness, not coordination. They are different things - the muscles controlling a normal ankle without weakness may have the cross-sectional area to develop neuromuscular strength and motor control for skating, but a weak ankle may not. The comment addresses the latter, while my first paragraph here addresses the former.........
 

I don't know if you've ever taught ice skating, but it has nothing to do with the feet/ankles. We don't even really consider them. Teaching comes from the head down, the edges/feet are the biproducts of proper body control. @YesLanges has it correct.

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Lots of nuance and semantics being argued.  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).

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.

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@Vet88 you're right - I completely read that wrong and thought I saw 'aggro skates with full ankle support'. Totally missed the plot on that one.

@clarkiestooth I do teach skating, both Learn-to-Skate and powerskating. Edge control can absolutely come from an ankle control strategy, and some players use it more than others (McDavid with one eyelet down and loose skates). In agility and cutting movements, we speak of ankle, knee and hip strategies - the same can be said for skating, that different skaters utilise different control strategies. 

Your philosophy of teaching skating is different from mine, that's fine. Although I would find it hard to accept that 'skating has nothing to do with feet/ankles'. I come from a speedskating background with low cut boots and loved the Mako skates, and my philosophy towards skating is probably at the opposite end of the spectrum from yours, which seems to be solely global and not also considering the role of the ankle.

@YesLanges I know you were replying to Vet88, but yes I do mostly agree with you. 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 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.

@BenBreeg yes, a lot of semantics involved. I like discussions like this, it makes you think and connect with how others think in their head. I do agree with your experience - when I first tried skating with my laces undone, I had to fix my hip positioning. Ankle control was the last thing I worked on, because without fixing the hips, changing the ankle angles made little difference in my technique.

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

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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.

Edited by YesLanges

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30 minutes ago, YesLanges said:

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.

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.

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.

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Interesting discussion.

From the point of view of an untrained, overweight beginner who stood on skates for the first time in his life at the age of 50, it has something to do with building muscular strength. Of course, the development of neuromuscular automatisms is at least as important.

An example is a skating session with tightly laced, stiff skates during which the laces loosen a little. 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.

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9 hours ago, YesLanges said:

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.

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. 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.

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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.

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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.

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