Igor?s final tips on skating more effectively

Editor’s Note: On January 24, 2014, CXC Head Coach Igor Badamshin suffered a fatal heart attack while skiing on the Birkie Trail near Hayward. He was 47.

The following dialogue is the fourth and final installment of a conversation about Nordic skiing technique between Badamshin and his student, Charlie Dee. The first two Q&A’s – “Early season skiing” in the January 2014 issue and “Ski the Birkie more efficiently” in the February issue – went to press before Badamshin’s death. “Classic ski better,” the third part, was included in the March issue with a sidebar about his tragic passing.

We offer this last conversation between Badamshin and Dee on skate skiing technique as a remembrance and parting gift to a great coach and skier.

Charlie Dee: Igor, I feel like I’m skating more efficiently than I have in the past, but whether I’m racing, training or skiing socially, I seem to climb slower than others who ski roughly my same pace.

Igor Badamshin: Part of this might be my fault. I got you so focused on bending your knees more for skating that you’re not using your hips as much as you should. They work together, but every time you lift your ski off the snow, you need to initiate with your hip.  

If you’ve skated off of your right ski and are transferring weight to your left, concentrate on hiking your right hip up before flexing the knee. 

CD: But when I flex the knee, I end up firing the hip just after.

IB: Yes, but when you initiate with the bigger muscles around the hip and follow with the smaller knee muscles, you’ll have more power and won’t stress and fatigue the smaller muscles as quickly as you do now, with the result that your climbing will be stronger and more efficient. This is true, by the way, for V-2 also.

The entirety of the conversation between Charlie Dee and Igor Badamshin appears in the December 2014 print edition of Silent Sports magazine. Yo order a copy, call 888-706-4045. Or subscribe online and avoid missing another issue!