Short Legs!

[Black Sheep]

:idea:I just showed my skating videos from last weekend (Mids.) and the weekend before (Southport Open) to my mom. She said I have a harder time with jumps because I have short legs compared to other skaters in our group.
She's not a skater at all, but I think she could be onto something! ;)

[SkatingOnClouds]

:idea:I just showed my skating videos from last weekend (Mids.) and the weekend before (Southport Open) to my mom. She said I have a harder time with jumps because I have short legs compared to other skaters in our group.
She's not a skater at all, but I think she could be onto something! ;)

Interesting theory, but I don't know if it is correct. My coach has her own theory on how build affects skating. She reckons the tall, slim ones become good at spinning, and the shorter or more solidly built skaters become good at jumping. I'm a jumper:roll:

[Skate@Delaware]

I don't buy it...my daughter has very short legs. At 5'3" and 150 lbs and a 28" inseam I was very surprised at 17 she was almost getting a double salchow (after only 3 years of skating).

It has more to do with strength and some other properties than the length of your legs. Unless you have a physical deformity/handicap that has severely shortened your legs.

Work on developing the muscles. Plyometrics. Stretching. Weight training.

[jenlyon60]

I suspect that it also has to do with the amount of "fast-twitch" muscles you have.

Here is an article about the differences between fast twitch fibers and slow-twitch Fibers

http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/anatomyandphysiology/a/MuscleFiberType.htm

[coskater64]

I would tend to agree that longer legged people tend to spin easier, due to centrifical force and people with shorter more muscular legs tend to jump better. This is of course, a generalization, a lot of this has to do with strength, fast twitch muscles and overall conditioning. Having seen black sheep skate every year at sectionals I would think jumping up a little more would help.

As a suggestion I would look for ways to improve your skating not look for excuses, we have a young woman at our rink who suffers from a disorder that makes her very petit she has been the same height since she was 10, she is currently 18 only 4' tall with severely bowed legs. She has passed her intermediate FS and has a nice axel and 2 sal, she never let her height or the issue with her legs stop her from skating.

You might also remember black sheep that you tend to place higher under the IJS system, and see how you do at ANs rather than putting all the weight on these competitions. As another general reminder skating shouldn't be just about placement you should try to focus on if you did your best and if you were happy with your skate. :D

[Sessy]

I think that's not true... One of Russia's champions ladies' figure skating kept complaining that her legs were too long to do jumps well. She and her coach agreed that jumps favour short, O-shaped legs.

BTW I do have very short legs and they are O shaped and before I went and messed up my ankle, I was much much better at jumps than at spins so I'm inclined to believe her. Then again, it could also be because I've got thunder thighs of muscle in my legs (actually sometimes I think that all the muscles in my entire body are in my legs, LOL)

[sue123]

I would tend to agree that longer legged people tend to spin easier, due to centrifical force and people with shorter more muscular legs tend to jump better. This is of course, a generalization, a lot of this has to do with strength, fast twitch muscles and overall conditioning. Having seen black sheep skate every year at sectionals I would think jumping up a little more would help.

As a suggestion I would look for ways to improve your skating not look for excuses, we have a young woman at our rink who suffers from a disorder that makes her very petit she has been the same height since she was 10, she is currently 18 only 4' tall with severely bowed legs. She has passed her intermediate FS and has a nice axel and 2 sal, she never let her height or the issue with her legs stop her from skating.

You might also remember black sheep that you tend to place higher under the IJS system, and see how you do at ANs rather than putting all the weight on these competitions. As another general reminder skating shouldn't be just about placement you should try to focus on if you did your best and if you were happy with your skate. :D

I'll buy that, I have long legs and spinning came much easier for me than jumping. Course now, I'm not very good at either, but that's another story.

[doubletoe]

Two words: Midori Ito!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-wCqJmwQRA

[coskater64]

Wow!! That's impressive, how tall was Midori? Maybe 5' and the muscle on those legs is pretty serious. Plus she could spin...8O

[doubletoe]

Wow!! That's impressive, how tall was Midori? Maybe 5' and the muscle on those legs is pretty serious. Plus she could spin...8O

Midori's height is listed as 4'9" (145 cm) and she has a relatively long torso and short legs. And yet, she had more air time on the triple axel than the men!
She had so much height she didn't even have her legs tightly crossed in the air. Look at the slow motion of this one, done at age 14 (they show it in slo-mo after showing it in realtime): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7nkY0iAC0k

[mikawendy]

Midori's height is listed as 4'9" (145 cm) and she has a relatively long torso and short legs. And yet, she had more air time on the triple axel than the men!
She had so much height she didn't even have her legs tightly crossed in the air. Look at the slow motion of this one, done at age 14 (they show it in slo-mo after showing it in realtime): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7nkY0iAC0k

All I can say is 8O 8O 8O 8O 8O :bow:

[SkatingOnClouds]

IAs a suggestion I would look for ways to improve your skating not look for excuses... :D

:bow: :bow: :bow:
Amen to that. I must remind myself of that one.

[jskater49]

Quote:
Originally Posted by coskater64
IAs a suggestion I would look for ways to improve your skating not look for excuses...


:bow: :bow: :bow:
Amen to that. I must remind myself of that one.


I liike to tell people the story of when I was learning to skate in a informal morning class taught basically by a bunch of adult volunteers. I could not for the life of me glide straight backwards on one foot, I kept curving off on an edge. The other adults couldn't help me, and then one of them said "Your back must be crooked--I think you have scoliosis." Yes, they all agreed, I had scoliosis and there was no way I could glide backward.

Then in my basic skills class taught by a volunteer, the one experienced coach who kind of floated - came to my class, looked at my backward glide, told me to sit back more and walla, my scoliosis was healed and I glided straight back until I ran out of steam. It was a miracle ;)

j

[smelltheice]

I use to feel like I was lob sided when I skated, as though I had one leg longer than the other. I injured my knee during my early axel attempts and went to a physio. He asked me if I knew that I had one leg longer than the other:lol:
As it turned out it was that my back had been in spasm from a riding accident 8 YEARS earlier. Although this was as a result of an injury, it did affect my skating and a persons physical make up (build, height, length of limbs etc) will affect the way you can perform. The fact of the matter shorter people will have a more snappy action and that will help in jumping as you get a faster impact on the ice from the toe and more energy from it. Taller or longer limbed people will have more leverage but will have to power off the ice to make the jump and therefore have to have more muscle for their build to compensate for the length of their limbs. Think of it this way, it is easier to hit a ball with a bat than it would be to hit it with a 5 foot long pole:lol: