Dd has landed the axel off ice. She did it about 3 times yesterday. Her coach saw her do this and told me that the more dd does this off ice, the more it will help her when she is ready to try it on ice. On ice is obviously MUCH harder then doing it off ice, but this is definately a good tihng, right? Dd won't be ready for awhile yet to start working on her axel on ice but off ice is a different story. Now to figure out ways to help dd gain more leg strength.
Not to mention dd needs to work on her landing position. It's improving tho!

Oh and another question. Do any of you or your skaters wear orthotics? Dd's coach mentioned this as a possibility for dd. Her arches are kinda flat and makes knee alignment harder for dd. Esp the right side. Any thoughts on this? Dd's coach wears them but didn't get them until she started to experience knee pain.

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skating mom to 3 angels on earth and 1 in heaven

Your daughter is pretty young - right? My DD's physiotherapist gave her a series of exercises when she was younger to strengthen the muscles and to correct the imbalances that were causing her to have "flat feet". She worked on them and as a result her previous "flat feet" are now much improved, and she is no longer a candidate for orthotics; plus, she can wear the lightweight sneaker and sandals that girls want to wear. Of course, she always wears properly fitted and supported running shoes/trainers that encourage her to build the muscles properly and all that.

Just a thought.

One of my students is currently experiencing problems with flat-footedness. She recently got orthotics for her skates, but she also got new skates and has yet to try them out. I'll have to see how they work out for her.

Your coach is right, landing off ice axels is a good thing. My DD liked to do them in the front yard when the weather allowed. One day she was doing them Tano style (one arm straight up), when a van of young men went by, saw her and cheered . I can't remember if she ever got the Tano variation on ice .

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Thanks. My daughter is 11(on the 23rd!). Her feet aren't completely flat, but the right one seems to be more flat then the right. I wonder how I can find out about excercises? Thanks again.

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skating mom to 3 angels on earth and 1 in heaven

Thanks. Let me know how they work for her.

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skating mom to 3 angels on earth and 1 in heaven

Thanks! Dd likes to jump in our yard too. We've also got enough space in the basement for her to practice jumping off ice. Did her practicing them off ice seem to help a lot once she started working on them on the ice? It'll be interesting to see once she does start working on her axel.

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skating mom to 3 angels on earth and 1 in heaven

We're blessed with a physio who has been working with figure skaters for years, and who is qualified in quite a number of sub-specialities of physiotherapy. He is also a qualified fitter for orthotics, etc. So, I don't know if a regular physio could help you, however, a podiatrist might be able to????

I know it took my kid about 15 mins a day, and she was around the same age as your kid when she started. It worked. You can definitely see the difference in her gait and her stance, and she can run around barefoot, which you really CAN'T do well in orthotics

I have higher than normal arches and they caused me pain because when I put weight on my feet, the muscles fall a bit. My podiatrist recommended over-the-counter arch support, and I didn't listen. When my feet started hurting !#%$%@ more a few months later, I went to this shoe repair shop with sells orthotics and has this thing that you step on and shows your weight distribution. He was rather knowledgeable and I got the arch support for my skates. It is small, and only for the arch.

I heard that there are a number of flat-feet skaters who are doing doubles who have arch support too. I once saw one who taped up her arch area to give additional support. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to strengthen, it's just not quite possible to change the way your body is.

Don't wait for the knee pain! Because orthotics aren't miracles, they need time to undo what has been done! After the knee pain, it'll be lower back, then shoulders...

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You may want to check out the off-ice resources for more help on strength-training!

What I do to improve landing posture is to jump up, cross, land, hold the position while looking at the mirror/reflection. Hold it there until you think it's okay, and do it for about 5-10 more times. Remember the turn-out, upper body, arms, and head. If done regularly enough, that should develop some strength to hold up the free leg and build muscle memory.

Thanks. Which OTC orthotics were recommended to you? I thought about trying some of those for her. I definately don't want her to have any pain. Thanks again!

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skating mom to 3 angels on earth and 1 in heaven

My daughter has had exercises to improved her arches. These include pulling a towel on the floor towards her using her toes - so scrunching up her toes, grasping hte towel and bringing it closer. She should progress to pulling a towl wiht some books on it. (She is a bit lazy about htis sort of stuff). Also something she is meant to do is point her foot and toe, then just keep foot pointed but lift up her toe and then dorsiflex her foot but point her toe etc. Apparantly many kids have flat feet and with time one hopes they get stronger arches.

Re Axel off and on ice - she does double axels on the trampolene (her ice skating friend reckons are fully rotated although she tends to land on her bottom) and has done them fine off -ice for some time (which really winds up the coaches as they can't figure out why she cant land them on ice and some think she is being lazy).

In daughters defence - she does do more ice dancing than free skating and only started working on her axel in January.... and jumping isn't her strong point. (She also is coached almost entirely in group classes and has had 4 one to one lessons this year).

We bought an ankle buzzer (sk8te strong) which she uses off ice - coaches won't allow it on the ice - which altered her leg position in the air (please don't ask me what this means). €Before the buzzer she didn't always know what her feet were doing so it has been a big help despite never getting to use it on the ice.

She gets full rotation now and good crossed feet but doesn't quite get them uncrossed in time so is landing 2 footed with her legs crossed in a sort of spin at present.

(She keeps asking for some equivalent to an ankle buzzer which lets you know if your arms are correctly pulled in because that is the other tricky thing to achieve).

Hope some of this is useful information....

In regards to your flat feet comment- how old is your daughter? This will make a difference when deciding to get orhotics. If she is young and consistently growing, she will outgrow a custom pair of orthotics VERY quickly. Customs will run you a couple hundred dollars, and a child's growing feet will change very quickly, making them possibly uncomfortable. I recommend getting an arch support to put in the skate; usually a quallified boot fitter can do this correctly. For her shoes I recommend 'superfeet', which run about $30-40 and are a good alternative to customs.

If you notice your daughter's knees turning in a lot, she may also need some hip strengthening exericises and stretching of tight muscles (can be evaluated by a physical therapist). In our DVDs we include many single leg stability exercises that will work on hip stability and functional strength and balance, as well as prescriptive stretching exercises.

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Visit www.sk8strong.com for complete off-ice training information and sport specific DVDs for figure skaters

Thanks. I don't think her knees turn in much, and her hips seem to be OK(from what I can tell). She's quite flexible in that area as well. It's more because of her arches, she can have a more difficult aligning her knee and foot properly during her landings. She can land it just takes more thought and effort. Does that make sense? LOL. That is where the knee turn in is an issue for her. It's not bad... but it's there. I will look into the superfeet insoles. Oh and dd just turned 11 on the 23rd, so yes she is still growing. Thankfully her feet grow slowly so if she ever did need custom orthotics, I think we'd be OK for about a yr. Anyway, Thanks again!

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skating mom to 3 angels on earth and 1 in heaven

Thanks! We're getting a trampoline soon and I will be quite interested to see if it will help her with jumping. Her coach told me she landed about 2-3 of her off ice axels correctly. A few others were cheated, but close. She's got the rotation most of the time. It'll be interesting to see how this all goes as she gets better and better at landing it off ice.

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skating mom to 3 angels on earth and 1 in heaven

I don't know if this will be of any use at all, but when I ordered my custom Harlicks, I had to stand in line for a bit, so I was able to observe other fittings. See, I seem to be the anomaly in the figure skating world--I have obscenely high, rigid arches. NO pronation, NO collapsing of the arch, NOTHING. I have the type of feet that all of my friends who dance envy (very odd to have someone tell you they want your feet...). Anyways, Phil recommended orthotics for me. For the other people ahead of me with flat feet/collapsing arches, he recommended an inside wedge. Now, on their list of "extras," the inside wedge costs $45. My orthotics, including the mold and the cast poured from the mold, cost ME an extra $170. If you take the skates to a local shoe maker, you might be able to build up some arch support without getting full orthotics.

Some skaters at my rink (including one who competes internationally) use Superfeet. Here's the dealer locator part of their website.

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One thing on floor jumps. When you jump on the floor you tend to swing your arm around to get the rotation. Maybe even throw your whole body around. But on the ice this will make you fall, and because you will end up tilted in the air. So if your dd has learned to do floor jumps first, make sure when she does the axel attempt on the ice she jumps straight up and pulls in to rotate. My dd had trouble with this after learning to do an axel on the floor and then trying to translate it to the ice.

I'll second the above advice. Also, I have noticed that kids sometimes don't swing their free leg through properly when doing axels off ice. It is great the the OP has had the coach check the technique, I would just suggest that this be done fairly frequently. We had to finally stop my dd from doing axels off ice because it was creating more problems than it was solving. It was only once she stopped doing them on land that they became consistent on ice.

Thanks! Her coach has coached her on this exact issue. I believe her coach plans to go over all of this again in the off ice class too. Thanks for the great advice!

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skating mom to 3 angels on earth and 1 in heaven