This just in…pole plants are back. If you didn’t believe me in Once Upon a Pole Plant then just look at What Sasha Rearick had to say from the USST men’s training camp in Mt. Hood:
“The pole plant was something that was emphasized a couple years ago, and we are going better with that. More kids know how to pole plant. Not everybody, but we’re making progress there,” noted Rearick. “But we need to be in much better balance on the skis. That’s the foundation. If you don’t have that, the rest doesn’t make any sense. And upper body stabilization is the one that here we’ve re-identified that there is slight separation. There’s too much of the concept of following your skis, and we’ve lost this upper body stability… to be able to do it in any condition and at any time.”
Read the full article in Ski Racing here. Mr Rearick also has this to say about the benefits of April skiing, which we went over pretty thoroughly in Spring Training:
“The idea of not skiing in April is strong in America, but we have to change that. April is the cheapest time to ski. All the hotels would love our business, and ski areas would love our business. You could ski on every trail on the mountain,” reasoned Rearick. “You’re in ski shape at that time, so you can come in and ski volume and work on fundamentals. In the future, I’d hope to do this again but in April.”
Sooooo, to all of you going skiing this summer, be sure to pack your pole plant. And to anyone who ever ignored, minimized or disparaged the pole plant, well, I should be a bigger person but… Neaner neaner neaner!
Nice work Edith. To this day I remember the acronym for pole plant from my PSIA exam. SUDAP. Stabilization, Unweighting, deflection, acceleration,
Propulsion. Pretty basic but still in my mind almost 40 years later. Much more sophisticated today.