[Quote]: Classic for beginners mid shoulder. Helps keep the athletes on top of there skis with a rounded back for good technique. [endquote].
I copied that over from a pole length discussion, because I think my response is more appropriate to a discussion of technique:
What? A rounded back as evidence of good technique? How, exactly, can you defend that in terms of physiology?
To me, a rounded back is a sure sign of poor technique, in any sport or activity I can conjure. It is evidence of immobility in the ribcage, limiting the necessary lateral travel of the ribs in respiration, it is evidence of tightness in the neck, interfering with neck reflexes and with all aspects of balance and co-ordination, it is evidence of the over-solicting of anterior muscles, and thus an inefficient use of the powerful latissimus dorsi – stop me here, because I can go on for a couple of pages like this – further, compressing the trunk by rounding the back will interfere with easy extension of the leg. (You see this hunching in many speed-skaters, but not in the better ones, like the Dutch. You can easily see the difference, but those with poor technique have massive thighs, those with better technique don’t, because the effort is distributed to the glutes, etc.)
The arms in skiing are doing something very similar to what the arms of a freestyle swimmer must do. Once the pole is planted, the arm does not move – the body extends forwards from the point of support established by the pole. A swimmer obviously would not benefit from “rounding” his back – the task is to extend forwards from the arm. Maybe a pull-up gives a clearer notion of what I mean. There is absolutely no benefit to be gained from artificially contracting the anterior muscles to raise the body in a pull up. Like in swimming, one wants the arm pull to be along the line of the trunk, not curving it forwards (or backwards). The lats can and should do the lion’s share of the work here, assisted by the pectoral muscles if the trunk is rotated, as it is in classic technique (not in V2, somewhat in V1).
The idea of loading the pole, so prevalent in ski technique advice, is kind of like a kid gripping a pencil too hard – it gives an illusion of control by generating increased muscle sensation. In truth, if your idea is to move yourself forwards with your arm, you will need no muscular preparation – the muscles that need to work will do the job they need to do as the action loads them. Any preloading is just unnecessary hardening, and will be very inefficient.
So, just because winning skiers round their backs does not make it good technique. You can see poor technique in winners in all sports. Athletes with less than perfect technique have to work harder to overcome their bad habits, and they may just be strong enough to do it. It doesn’t make them good models.
I think that one thing important to remember in choosing to imitate someone, is that the most salient aspects of what you see are the faults – hunched shoulders, elbows way out to the side, and rounded backs. When someone has really good technique, it looks like nothing: Usain Bolt looks like he is jogging, Roger Federer looks like he has all the time in the world.
