Improving Speed

[Assault 'N Cattery]

Hey guys! I've been skating for 11 months, and I've been steadily improving in every area of skating pretty well, except for, I feel, speed. I've researched equipment, gotten good bearings (super swiss 6's) and wheels (radar tuners, grippy ones on the left, harder ones on the right for pushing), so I don't think it's a problem with that. I'm also not a heavy girl either (130 pounds soaking wet), so it's not a matter of weight on my skates. Our packs like to get fast, but I've been skating with these girls for awhile now, and it seems like I'm working just as hard as everyone else to go half as fast. Can anyone suggest things that might be affecting my speed as far as technique? Has anyone else had this problem?
Help!
Cat

[CoCo Sparx]

You're probably getting faster than you realize. I didn't think I got much faster in my first year of of skating, until we re-did our 20-lap times. I improved my time by a full minute without realizing I'd gotten much faster.

Are you actually not able to keep up with the pack, or is it that you just feel like you're working harder to go as fast as everyone else? If it's the latter, I would say adding some interval training to your workout could help.

If it's the former, you might want to look at your stride and stance. If you're pushing your legs out to the sides too much, you're going to lose speed. It will also tire you out more because it creates a sort of bobbing motion with your torso and tire out your quads really quickly. I used to do this myself until a guy that used to be some sort of professional skater pointed it out to me and showed me how to stride correctly. Maybe pair up with someone at your next practice and ask them to watch your stride.
Same thing with stance. If you're standing up too much, you'll have less power in your stride and will actually have to work harder to keep up with a pack of girls that are skating lower.

I'd say look at the fastest girl on your team and what her stance and stride are like and try to imitate it as much as possible.

[Assault 'N Cattery]

Well, I can keep up with the pack as long as I don't fall, but trying to get back up with them after I fall is really difficult. It takes me so much time to get back up with them that I'm pretty much out of play for the rest of the jam.

We have some speed skaters on the team, so I think I will get them to critique my stride. I'm sure that's probably got something to do with my speed problems. When I started in February of '08, it was really from scratch. I had never been in any kind of athletic team or organization and hadn't skated in eons, since I was a kid, so I've had to get used to a lot of things and have not had the background that some of our girls have. Hopefully they can help me figure out the problem. Thanks CoCo!

[CoCo Sparx]

As far as getting up faster and getting to the pack, there are quite a few drills that your team can incorporate into practices. We do one where you skate at a regular pack speed (not in a pack, separately but at pack speed). On the whistle everyone drops and does a 4-point fall or any other fall that you choose, gets up and sprints until the next whistle. You can do the pack speed/sprint segments however long you want; we do ours for 15 seconds each.
Another one we learned from Coach Pauly when he came out and did a bootcamp with our league in October. He calls it the "coffin" drill. Everyone starts off laying on their backs with their heads pointing in the direction you'll be skating. On the whistle everyone pops up and sprints; whistle blows again and everyone falls back into the "coffin" position and waits to do it again.
If you league doesn't already do drills like this, I'd suggest starting them. They will help improve your recovery time from falls as well as build leg strength.

[Morbid Cherub]

I used to have this problem, and I never really noticed it until we started our travel team bouts. I dont fall much during home bouts, but when the level of competition was stepped up via travel team, I found myself falling alot more and having to work super hard to catch up to the pack again. Something that helped me was learning how to fall on my shoulder, roll, and get right back up. This keeps me from losing all my momentum when I fall and it made it easier to catch back up.

The main thing that helped me though, was repetitive falls and catching back up to the pack again - 4 points, double knees, single knee taps, anything that makes you pick yourself up off the ground. The sprint interval drills helped me as well. I hope this helps!

[Assault 'N Cattery]

Yeah, I'll definitely suggest that we step up our falling/getting up kinds of drills. I'm sure it will help all of us in the long run!

[Death by Roxy]

Form and stance are definitely important skills for speed, but there are a couple more euipment considerations that have not been discussed. First, your wheels (Tuners) have the nylon hub and your weight puts you right at their threshold for distortion. Nylon hubs have give, reducing the roll and thus slowing you down. There are wheels without aluminum hubs that offer far better roll and great grip without the distortion of most nylon hub wheels. i.e. G rods, Fusions, the new Low Boys or Strokers (all by Answer/Atom), secondly, you didn't mention your skate set up. If you happen to be skating on a nylon plate such as the Powerdyne (stock on R3's and Vandals) again these plates give and will absorb some of the energy from your skating. Bumping your plates up to an aluminum will ensure that all your energy goes into your skating and not into your skates! If you are on a tight budget you might consider the new Triton plate as an affordable option. Hope this helps.

[Assault 'N Cattery]

Oh, I didn't know that about the nylon hubs. I might look into trying some new wheels in that case. I already have an aluminum plate though.

[Father Time]

I have much the same problem, but I am much heavier and probably older. I have been back on skates for less than a year after being off of them for 35 years. My speed has improved, but like you I have to work harder to keep up with the pack. My coach wants me to work on being smooth and not fighting for speed. Probably good advice, but harder to do than it seems.

[Annaslaysia Killsemov]

I, myself, am a big girl and have to rely on my legs to push me a lot, but too much pushing makes you really tired, fast. I find that when I stop moving my feet, I start to slow down, especially coming into and going out of the corners. I try to skate the circle within the oval track, constantly crossing over as much as possible.

For me, cross overs take half the effort as power strides with the same result in speed. Dunno if that helps, but that's what worked for me :)

[Assault 'N Cattery]

Hmm, we do actually do some drills with the oval and constantly crossing over, and it does improve speed a lot, but I've had the problem with that tactic of getting tired and starting to trip over my own feet. Actually this is pretty much just a problem in general for me. I've always been clumsy, and I was much worse before I started skating, but it comes out worse and worse the more tired I am.

[Annaslaysia Killsemov]

Then maybe try working on leg strength? Rolling lunges are great, just make sure you stretch really well and your muscles are warm before doing them. I got a little too enthused about them and I pulled my hamstrings after about 5 of them. They're pretty intense, haha :P

[Assault 'N Cattery]

We used to do lunges more at practice. I think my teammates would hate me if we reinstated that, lol. I'll suggest that as well. =-)