A Balancing Act | Why Balance Training is Important for Skaters
“To be a good skater…it requires that you have the balance of a tightrope walker, the endurance of a marathon runner, the aggressiveness of a football player, the agility of a wrestler, the nerves of a golfer, the flexibility of a gymnast and the grace of a ballet dancer.” — Johnny Heater
It is no surprise that ice skating requires balance… and a lot of it. A small wobble here or a shift of your weight there can be the difference between cleanly executing your jump, centering your spin, controlling yourself in your turns, or face planting on your stroking.
What is Balance?
According to the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM), balance can be defined as the ability to maintain one’s center of gravity within a person’s base of support. Moreover, Active.com states that, “Balance is divided into two types: static balance and dynamic balance. Static balance refers to the ability to maintain the body’s center of mass within its base of support. Dynamic balance refers to the ability to move outside of the body’s base of support, while maintaining postural control.”
When we are skating, our bodies are constantly in a state of movement, typically shifting from one foot to the other or from one plane of movement to the next. Being able to move, fluidly, requires immense balance and coordination. Maintaining balance through the various conditions (static or dynamic balance) requires integration of multiple systems- including vision, vestibular, and somatosensory systems, as well as properly trained muscle contractions, to maintain the center of mass within the limits of stability.
How Balance Works
Let’s take the three turn. When executing the turn, our vestibular system is providing information about the position of the body and head, and spatial orientation to its surrounding environment (located in the inner ears that assist with balance). Our body needs to be precisely in the right place to successfully execute the turning movement. Where our weight is over our skating leg can be the difference between maintaining proper edges into and out of the turn, having a clean “three,” and being able to hold our balance on one leg before and after the turn. The somatosensory system provides information that is acquired from receptors in the body (skin, muscle, joint tendons) about the position and motion of the body parts relative to the other body regions and the support surface. Our head, arms, and hip all need to work in congruence as we balance on foot in our three turn. Our overall balance capabilities can enhance our balance on the ice.
In the article, Enhancing Sports Performance with Dynamic Balance Training, Suzanne Nottingham writes, “Balance training facilitates body awareness about the relationship of mass (hips) over the base of support (distance created between the feet or over one foot). While playing sports, this is a difficult thing to sense, but in a controlled training environment, these “feelings” can be introduced to athletes. The benefit is in “remembered” reactions to imbalance created in training situations. Balance awareness becomes an innate, automatic skill.”
Training Off Ice for Injury Prevention
Balance training has been shown to be effective at optimizing performance, improving resistance to injury, and enhancing rehabilitation. In fact, a study has shown that athletes undergoing balance training have reduced their risk of suffering an ankle sprain by 46% when compared to athletes lacking any balance training.
Off-Ice training is an important component to our success on the ice. Working on our balance through various exercises as a primary or secondary focus will have significant results on the ice as balance exercises also helps increase core, ankle, and calf strength.
My top exercises for balancing include:
1. 1 foot stand with eyes open
2. 1 foot stand with eyes closed
3. 1 foot stand on a balance disk, yoga block, or Bosu ball
4. Single leg dead lift
5. Unsupported spiral holds
6. Mobility sequences including moving from a spiral to a tuck or bent position and repeating
7. Unsupported Single leg exercises with a resistance band
8. Tree pose + variations
To learn more about balance training and off-ice classes, please visit my website.
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