MEC Running Envoy Ed McCarthy is as comfortable in Nordic ski boots as he is in trail running shoes. He spent years as acompetitive ski racer, so he’s got a solid grip on how you can improve your kick and glide this ski season.
Cross-country skiing is a sport I really enjoy, and one I’ve done since my dad used to ply me along the trails of Gatineau Park with the promise of Mars chocolate bars. (To this day, it feels wrong to eat a Mars bar that isn’t frozen hard enough to risk chipping a tooth.)
Since I love sharing things I enjoy with others, it’s always a thrill to hear people say they’re learning to cross-country ski. But there’s one misconception that bothers me: the idea that skiing fast or for fitness is exclusively the domain of skate skiing, and that classic skiing is a slow, pedestrian activity.
While it’s true that the learning curves for skate and classic skiing are different – and going faster with bad technique is easier with skating than with classic – I’ve always found classic skiing way more rewarding. I may be biased, as I was a bit of a classic specialist in my ski racing career, but with a bit of practice, you might come around to my point of view.
The first thing to realize is that classic skiing isn’t the same as walking. It’s got two distinct phases: kick and glide. Here are some tips to make the most of both phases.
Shift your weight
In my mind, the whole joy of skiing is around the smooth gliding sensation, so don’t rob yourself of that glide! All your effort and power output is compressed into the kick, and the glide is when your body relaxes and coasts on the forward momentum from the kick.
Gliding in Canmore at a past race
In order to kick effectively, and to have a nice long glide, it’s very important to shift your weight completely from one ski to the other. One of the most common beginner mistakes I see is constantly keeping weight on both skis.
Balancing on one foot on a long, skinny chunk of plastic, wood, and fibreglass that’s moving forward on a slippery surface is kind of an odd thing to get used to – so practice balance. Be a kid. Stand on one foot, hop on one foot, balance on the edge of the curb – get used to the sensation of having your weight all on one foot, and the slight shift in upper body position that it takes to move that weight, and you’ll find gliding will become easier.
Get a grip
Kicking is the part of the stride that creates forward push. A solid kick does two things: it creates good contact between the ski and the snow, and it uses this contact to move you forward.
Creating good contact with the snow can be range from pretty easy to next-to-impossible, depending on the snow, your skis, and your wax (or lack thereof). If you’re using waxable skis, you’ll need to have the right grip wax for the snow conditions applied to appropriate length of the ski under your foot. This part of the ski, normally off the snow because of the ski’s camber (or stiffness), gets pushed into the snow at the start of the kick so the grip wax (or waxless surface) can grab the snow.
To make your skis grab the snow and get “grip,” think of your legs as a pair of springs. When you start to kick by pushing the ski down to grab the snow, bend at the knee and ankle to drop your body weight onto the ski, like a compressed spring. The more weight on one ski, the more grip. Now that your ski is gripping and your knee and ankle are bent, all that’s left to do is release the energy in that spring (your bent leg) and let it push you forward. I’ve always found a good mental trick is to think of stepping forward with the other foot, rather than kicking back with the back foot.
Sometimes, though, certain factors can make getting grip a little tough. When I was 13, my parents got a great deal on a nice pair of classic skis, and bought them for me. They turned out to be so stiff that I could not for the life of me get any grip at all. Even now, 15 years heavier, I can only use them in very particular snow conditions (don’t worry, mom and dad, they’re still one of my favourite pairs of skis, as long as it’s above 0°C!).
Me on one of my favourite pairs of skis (if it’s above 0°C)
Ditch your poles
It’s very easy to cheat on this stuff when learning to ski – after all, you’ve got poles. Poles can give you balance and push you forward. So to practice kicking and gliding, ditch the poles. Make yourself move forward only on your kick, and then see how far you can glide on one foot. Repeat. Repeat. And keep repeating until you feel balanced, comfortable, and smooth. When you don’t need your poles for balance, they become that much more useful for pushing forward when you do use them.
Finally, if you’re trying to kick and you find yourself slipping, don’t get disappointed. Back in 1998, as a young, impressionable ski racer, I watched all my skiing heroes, including the great Bjorn Daehlie, racing in Nagano. The weather was warm and they were slipping all over the place, not able to get any grip. There are always some days when it’s difficult to get the skis to grab, and when that happens, I usually just pull out the skate skis. For any other winter day, though, there’s no reason not to get out there for some kicking and gliding.