Hi CoachPA

Yes, the one foot wall squats are great exercises. My coach said that my sit spins were not too bad this week. Just said that I have to try to not lean too backwards during my practice. Otherwise, I will almost always fall when I do them on the ice.

londonicechamp

To practice the balance and proper position off-ice, do your one-foot squat wearing a 2" to 3" heel. It will force you to balance on the ball of the foot and keep your weight forward as you go down into it and back up. It will feel exactly like that when you are in skates, with a heel and a rounded rocker.
Keep your back arched and chin up and push your free leg forward as you lower yourself into it. You'll know you are in the correct position (with skating thigh parallel to the ice/floor) when you can feel the calf of your skating/standing leg pressing against the inside of the thigh of the free leg.

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

will the above exercise help with doing shoot the ducks?

I beg to differ on the part about wearing heels when doing wall squats. The shape and angle of the footbeds of heels and skates are not the same. I highly doubt my skates are like 3" heels. The angle of the footbed is a gradual linear decline while I shudder to wear 3" heels, moreover to put the entire weight of my body on the forefoot of one foot.

I'm not a professional, but going at it from a basic logic, mathematical and science perspective, it probably won't help because the feeling cannot be the same at all. When I do my sit spin, I don't have so much weight on the ball. In fact, if I don't think about it, the weight shifts are really subtle for me.

To help sit spin - falls. Just go for it. It's good one-footed wall squats are done, but keep in mind not to let the knee go over the line of your toes. It's bad for the knee. We all know that the feeling of skating on ice is always imitated, but never duplicated.

BTW, a good shoot the duck doesn't guarantee a good sit spin. But it does help. I can't do a very nice left shoot the duck (right free leg up), but my forward sit is all the way down. My right shoot the duck can lower gradually, quickly, anyway I like, and come up, all nicely. But save me for my backsit.

I digress.
Wall squats help with shoot the ducks.
What I did was easier - when you're sitting on a chair, raise your leg, straighten your knee. Hold it there for 20 second. If you can do that, hold it for even longer. And when you think your strength is up, put a backpack or a hard cover novel on your lap while you do the same. It trains your quads like crazy. Best is you can do it in school, at work, watching TV, and you don't need to take too much effort in it.

Good luck!

Hi SkatEn

That sounds great. I will try the exercise that you suggest.

I have only been skating once last week, coz I have not been feeling well for most of the week, for my right tummy ache. Currently the cause is still unknown. Will have ultrasound scan done tomorrow morning. Hopefully it won't be anything too serious.

I am going to Hong Kong for a week, if the test goes well tomorrow, from Tuesday (1 to 7 Sept), as my husband has annual leave this week.

So I shall see you again next week.

londonicechamp

Thanks, I will try that at work since I...sit at the computer all day LoL

I wasn't actually suggesting 2" - 3" heels for wall squats, I was suggesting the 2"-3" heel for one-legged deep knee bends that simulate the position and balance of a sitspin. In a sitspin, you must lift the heel off the ice and have all of your weight on the ball of the blade, right behind the toepick. Otherwise, you either can't get low enough or you fall backward when you finally do get low enough (or even worse, you catch the back of your blade in the ice).
For a forward shoot the duck, the weight is farther back on the blade, so I agree with you about not wearing the heel to practice the forward shoot-the-duck position (although for a backward shoot-the-duck your weight should be on the ball of the blade, so that's an excellent sitspin exercise).

__________________
"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics