Courtesy of Flowpoint Method

Alignment in Skiing, Training, Life

By: FlowPoint Method (Marcus Brown and Jenny LaBaw)

Alignment: (noun)

1. arrangement in a straight line or in a correct or appropriate relative position. 2. a position of agreement or alliance

Alignment in sport is the infrastructure upon which all other work should be built. Without a strong foundation, whether that be skills or technical understanding or actual physical positioning, the support won’t be there to withstand the increasing progression of applied forces. In most sports, within the physical domain, this strong and aligned structure is called athletic stance. So for simplicity, we adopt the term athletic stance with the FlowPoint Method as well. If you’ve ever played any other sport (basketball, wrestling, soccer, golf, etc), athletic stance looks pretty similar across the board - feet shoulder width or so apart, bent knees, hips slightly back, chest tall and light on your toes. However, that is NOT athletic stance in waterskiing.

Our sport is rare when it comes to forces on the body. For the purposes of this conversation, we will limit our discussion to the acceleration phase of the course. Some people call this the downswing, but simply put, this phase begins when the rope comes tight at the finish of the turn, and ends when we reach centerline (center of the wakes). When skiing, we are basically carrying a heavy load (sometimes really heavy) with our arms, while simultaneously resisting a heavy load (sometimes very heavy) through our feet, ultimately using both of those forces to propel ourselves rhythmically through a slalom course. What’s even weirder, is we do this from a tandem (staggered) stance with our feet glued to a board. Athletic stance in waterskiing looks a bit more like this....

Key elements of Athletic Stance on a ski:

Even arm pressure: shoulders/hips square to boat Hips Up/Hands Down: Glutes engaged and lats on Knees driving forward over toes: Ankles flexed Pressure Through Front Foot Braced Core: Spine aligned, glutes on, midline on, upper back on

Ultimately, Athletic Stance is the skiers best tool to maximize their efficiency: taking rope load and turning it into acceleration is the name of the game, and the better a skier can position their body under load, the better the outcome will be.

In the FlowPoint Method off water program, we call this alignment “getting organized” . The basic concept is that your boney structure (aka: skeleton) is stacked and properly supported with balanced muscular and connective tissue strength to handle loads that are placed on our body. As a skier, your off-water training should prioritize getting (and staying) organized. If you can’t achieve or maintain an athletic stance in a controlled setting off the water, how in the world do you expect it to happen behind the boat?

With every movement we do, we need to make sure we are organized from the start, with the ability to align our spine, support it with a strong core and then move accordingly. What does that mean? It means we need to prioritize the following:

-Core to Extremity: To get ready to move, start by getting your spine aligned from tip of head to tailbone. Then, take a breath in through your nose and expand your ribcage 360 degrees, tighten your abs, squeeze your glutes (butt cheeks) and maintain that tension throughout the movement. Depending on the movement, your glutes may lose some tension, but spinal alignment and core tension should not go away. -Joint Function: If you are missing joint range of motion, your body isn’t functioning optimally. Period. Mobility and stability work are critical aspects of being able to find alignment and maintain alignment during movement, not to mention improve performance and reduce risk of injury. For example, if your glutes are weak and the front of your hips are tight, finding Athletic Stance is going to be nearly impossible without putting undue load on the lumbar spine (never Arch your back to achieve Athletic Stance!!). Sufficient Muscular Strength: Once we have achieved alignment, we need to be able to maintain that with the support of our muscles. When we get out of position, we need to be able to have the strength to get ourselves organized and back into position. That requires identifying weaknesses and imbalances and correcting them. For example, if you get pulled forward out of a turn, do you have the posterior chain strength and core strength to be able to get your body back into position under load?? If not, you need to develop it, because that is a fundamental part of becoming a better skier and staying healthy.

Will Asher - Ph. Eudes Metivier

With the FlowPoint Method, we use our off-water training program as an opportunity to train our body to achieve the base position of the waterski pyramid, Athletic Stance. We personalize it with movement assessments and follow up tools to help correct your individual limitations that can inhibit your ability to achieve alignment. Below are a few common tools we find our members benefiting from. Website

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Upper Back

Mobility: Roll T-Spine for 2-5 minutes (using a roller or peanut ball, lay on back with roller/ball across mid back, give yourself a hug and bend knees, use legs to pull body down so roller/ball goes up toward neck and then roll back down). Strength: Prone Snow Angels (lay on stomach with arms by sides, palms facing floor, feet together, glutes on and tight midline. keep chest on floor and head neutral, move arms like a “snow angel” from sides to overhead without elbows bending).

Prone Snow Angels

Hips

Mobility: Couch Stretch for 90 seconds (start on all fours, put one shin up wall and slide down until knee is in crease of floor and wall, squeeze glute on back leg to push hips to neutral. If easy, bring other leg to the side and repeat. If easy, bring other foot out in front and raise body up with hands on box in front of you or until you are fully sitting tall).

Strength: Deadlift (Using something that has mass behind it - barbell, kettlebell, dumbbell, ski bag, sand bag, bands, etc.. start standing tall over object, pull shoulders to neutral, take a big breath in and brace midline and glutes. Keeping your back flat, reach hips back and hinge forward to grab object(s), stand tall to starting position with weight in hands and repeat)

Deadlifts

Core

Mobility: Gut Smash for 2-5 minutes (using a squishy ball about the size of a volleyball, lay on stomach and put ball under gut, slowly roll ball to one side and then back across to the other making sure to be able to breathe the whole time.

Adjust to make it your own by slowly moving up/down or side to side. Just remember, “If it feels sketchy, it is sketchy. ” .. So get off that spot and move to a different one.)

Strength: Plank Hold get on hands and toes with feet together and hands directly under shoulders, squeeze legs, glutes, abs and actively push into floor with hands. Breathe in expanding 360 degrees in torso and exhale contracting 360 degrees without sagging back or piking hips.

Plank Hold

These are just a few of the things we offer on the FlowPoint Method for skiers looking to change the game in how they approach skiing and how they perform on the water. It isn’t just about your physical state and alignment either. We have a holistic approach to skiing “a skiers way of life. ” So, going a bit deeper, alignment in life is clarifying your personal values and priorities and then removing the excess noise and distractions that life and society will inevitably throw at you. It is finding your flow and letting the rest go. When it comes to finding the balance between your skiing, training, work and family, and making that all work synergistically, it’s not about “balance” . It’s about diving in deep to see what your priorities/values truly are and then having personal check-ins to make sure the things you’re doing in your life line up with your priorities and values. We aren’t here to tell you what that is, we are just here to remind you to check in with yourself and find your alignment

As skiers it’s very easy to focus on the skiing, and only the skiing. Often, however, much of the potential we leave on the water each day has a lot to do with what we do off the water. Alignment, as we’ve touched on here, is the foundation of what we do as skiers. Understanding what it is (on/off water), how to achieve it, and how to maintain it could be the single biggest factor in making you the skier (and person) you know you can be. For more stuff like this, check us out at the following links, and don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions you may have about this article, or the program!