Landings, mechanics, etc of FS jumps

[Fresca]

Nathan's BV at WC was 112.87 from ISU protocol with all level 4. I assume if he upgraded the layout then it might be around 115 -116 next season. I don't think he should do 4lo cause it will be harmful on his hip but who knows, Nathan does not seem to care about lasting until 2022 much.

All his quads are harmful for his hips. :cry: When he lands his quads, I notice that his hips are always misaligned - the hip of the free leg is raised higher than the one of the landing leg which is what causes him to unwrap his free leg strangely (he swings it to the side and then to the back so it's almost 90 degrees to the ice). The proper alignment which puts the least stress on the hips and back is to keep the hips level with each other and the same direction as the shoulders so you create a box with your hips and your shoulders. I made a veeery simple picture below of the view from the back of proper alignment vs. Nathan alignment. Hopefully it gives an idea of what I mean.

 

Sometimes he raises his left hip a lot because he lands a bit off-balance on his landing leg and needs to readjust. Other times not so much but I don't think I've ever seen him land a quad with level hips. I think it's become a bad habit.

[Lys]

Nathan's BV at WC was 112.87 from ISU protocol with all level 4. I assume if he upgraded the layout then it might be around 115 -116 next season. I don't think he should do 4lo cause it will be harmful on his hip but who knows, Nathan does not seem to care about lasting until 2022 much.

All his quads are harmful for his hips. :cry: When he lands his quads, I notice that his hips are always misaligned - the hip of the free leg is raised higher than the one of the landing leg which is what causes him to unwrap his free leg strangely (he swings it to the side and then to the back so it's almost 90 degrees to the ice). The proper alignment which puts the least stress on the hips and back is to keep the hips level with each other and the same direction as the shoulders so you create a box with your hips and your shoulders. I made a veeery simple picture below of the view from the back of proper alignment vs. Nathan alignment. Hopefully it gives an idea of what I mean.

 

Sometimes he raises his left hip a lot because he lands a bit off-balance on his landing leg and needs to readjust. Other times not so much but I don't think I've ever seen him land a quad with level hips. I think it's become a bad habit.

 

Thanks, Fresca, for your always great input :goe:

I love reading your posts and reading your explanation :goe:

(and your picture really helps to see the difference re hips alignment and its consequence on how a jump is landed! :) )

[meoima]

Nathan's BV at WC was 112.87 from ISU protocol with all level 4. I assume if he upgraded the layout then it might be around 115 -116 next season. I don't think he should do 4lo cause it will be harmful on his hip but who knows, Nathan does not seem to care about lasting until 2022 much.

All his quads are harmful for his hips. :cry: When he lands his quads, I notice that his hips are always misaligned - the hip of the free leg is raised higher than the one of the landing leg which is what causes him to unwrap his free leg strangely (he swings it to the side and then to the back so it's almost 90 degrees to the ice). The proper alignment which puts the least stress on the hips and back is to keep the hips level with each other and the same direction as the shoulders so you create a box with your hips and your shoulders. I made a veeery simple picture below of the view from the back of proper alignment vs. Nathan alignment. Hopefully it gives an idea of what I mean.

 

Sometimes he raises his left hip a lot because he lands a bit off-balance on his landing leg and needs to readjust. Other times not so much but I don't think I've ever seen him land a quad with level hips. I think it's become a bad habit.

Thank you so much, Fresca. Your words are so much alike to Adelia my friend who first commented on Nathan's hips in the landing. Since then I have noticed how scary his landings are, especially the stress in the hip.

Do you mind telling me about Shoma's landings vs Nathan's landings? I have noticed Shoma has even worse issue.

[Joey]

All his quads are harmful for his hips. :cry: When he lands his quads, I notice that his hips are always misaligned - the hip of the free leg is raised higher than the one of the landing leg which is what causes him to unwrap his free leg strangely (he swings it to the side and then to the back so it's almost 90 degrees to the ice). The proper alignment which puts the least stress on the hips and back is to keep the hips level with each other and the same direction as the shoulders so you create a box with your hips and your shoulders. I made a veeery simple picture below of the view from the back of proper alignment vs. Nathan alignment. Hopefully it gives an idea of what I mean.

 

Sometimes he raises his left hip a lot because he lands a bit off-balance on his landing leg and needs to readjust. Other times not so much but I don't think I've ever seen him land a quad with level hips. I think it's become a bad habit.

 

Thank you so much for your great analysis and explanation! :goe:

Maybe this is related, or maybe not - but to me, it often looks like Nathan also pitches forward on his landings. Seems to me like he lets his upper body drop in an uncontrolled manner and kind of "breaks" at the hips to save his landings/absorb the impact of the landing (this is IMO why he often doesn't have good flow out of his jumps). Does that make sense? ^^" (And he's not the only one doing that, some other skaters do it too :cry: )

And I'm sorry we're kind of bombarding you with questions :laugh:

[Fresca]

Thanks everyone for your kind words! :pbow: :pbow: :pbow: I'm happy to know that there are people who find the posts interesting/useful!

 

Do you mind telling me about Shoma's landings vs Nathan's landings? I have noticed Shoma has even worse issue.

Where to begin with Shoma? :cry: :cry: :cry: He does have worse issues...

 

Let's start with his feet and his knees. Even if he has a deep knee bend and really strong core, butt and leg muscles to control the impact of his landings, when he lands, often his landing foot is not aligned with his knee which puts stress on his ankle and his knee. The left is an example of correct alignment and the right is an example of incorrect alignment.

 

.

Secondly, he has alignment issues in his torso. I notice that he generally lands with his hips level with each other. Unfortunately, they are not aligned with anything else! One issue is sometimes he lands with his whole torso (both hips and shoulders) not facing the correct direction (i.e. his back should be facing toward the backward direction of his skating). Other times, the torso itself is twisted with the hips and shoulders facing different directions. In both cases, he lands with the spine twisted which is bad for the back and bad for the rest of his torso because he needs to wrench himself into alignment to balance. Sometimes, he even combines misalignment with the lower body with misalignment in the upper body.

 

I notice that his alignment is worse on his jumps landed UR. It seems many of his fans don't care if his UR jumps don't get called by the tech panel as long as he gets the points and the medals. But his UR jumps lead to landings with bad alignment which can lead to bad injuries!

[Fresca]

Maybe this is related, or maybe not - but to me, it often looks like Nathan also pitches forward on his landings. Seems to me like he lets his upper body drop in an uncontrolled manner and kind of "breaks" at the hips to save his landings/absorb the impact of the landing (this is IMO why he often doesn't have good flow out of his jumps). Does that make sense? ^^" (And he's not the only one doing that, some other skaters do it too :cry: )

And I'm sorry we're kind of bombarding you with questions :laugh:

No worries! I'll try to answer as best as I can with what I know!

 

Yes, they're related. When he lands with his upper body pitched too forward, he can't quite land with his foot under his center of gravity, i.e. his center of gravity is forward of his foot because of his upper body. That means he needs to move his upper body backward to shift his center of gravity back so it's over his foot so he can balance himself. He does this by raising the hip of his free leg and then uses his hip, his core and the momentum from unwrapping his free leg to wrench his upper body back.

[EisElle]

Fresca said:

 

Let's start with his feet and his knees. Even if he has a deep knee bend and really strong core, butt and leg muscles to control the impact of his landings, when he lands, often his landing foot is not aligned with his knee which puts stress on his ankle and his knee. The left is an example of correct alignment and the right is an example of incorrect alignment.

 

.

 

 

Just looking at that photo I can feel the strain

Thank you Fresca you for your explanations, they are enlightening

I'm learning what is good technique and why it is so important...and why bad one should be pointed out. Too bad skaters' health does't seem to worry ISU (and certain coaches, I may add) that much . The physics of jumps is so interesting, it's amazing to learn how every movement can lead to a certain result

[ralucutzagy]

Thank you very much, Fresca, for such a helpful insight! :bow: :pbow:

I like Shoma very much as a skater, his intensity and flow on the ice are so atractive to me but his jumps it just scares me. You rarely see him landing a jump with a correct alignment and I really don't know how long his knees and hips will last... Why don't he tries to correct his jumps or why his coach don't do anything about it, I really don't understand! :s_dunno :s_sad And now he wants to add a 4Lz ... :nah:

[beki]

I saw a comment that Shoma sometimes has a never-before-seen type of two-foot landing where the blade of his free leg doesn't touch the ice, but the side of his boot does. But I haven't seen direct evidence. I don't really care for a low free leg though, or the hooked twisting of his body in another direction. Considering all this, I have to give him points for agility. He fights hard to land. It is scary for his knees. I can't help thinking of Daisuke's injuries.

[meoima]

I saw a comment that Shoma sometimes has a never-before-seen type of two-foot landing where the blade of his free leg doesn't touch the ice, but the side of his boot does. But I haven't seen direct evidence. I don't really care for a low free leg though, or the hooked twisting of his body in another direction. Considering all this, I have to give him points for agility. He fights hard to land. It is scary for his knees. I can't help thinking of Daisuke's injuries.

Here it is the evidence (wait for the slow motion) https://www.instagram.com/p/BT8yr-hj03V/

[beki]

:omg: Thanks meioma, we can count on you. That is pretty shocking to me; it has to be against the rules. And that jump looked prerotated by a full turn!

[Fresca]

Here it is the evidence (wait for the slow motion) https://www.instagram.com/p/BT8yr-hj03V/

There is a lot wrong with that landing. You can see here the issues that I mentioned above: 1) misalignment of the foot and knee, 2) misalignment of the torso and the lower body and 3) misalignment of the shoulders and the hips. The sweeping motion he does with his arm is a balance check that helps him realign his torso. He wrenches himself back into alignment to land the jump but physics is making him pay a high price for these jumps with his body. The scariest part is that these kinds of landings from him are not one-offs but seem to be how he commonly lands some of his jumps. I don't want to think about how his 4Lz will look like.

[Sombreuil]

Me neither. 'Wrench' is the word- the sweeping motion with the arm might distract a lot of people's attention from what his legs are doing. That's very scary. A few years ago the (British?) lady commentator with CBC commented that YH has a 'soft' landing that might help with longevity in the sport. I'm not sure some are bothered about longevity but I thought SO might be- but even if they're not I hope they're making informed decisions about their own future health.

As others have said it's really helpful to see the mechanics of why some skaters jumps look 'wrong' when you don't have the knowledge to analyse it yourself - thank you.

[Smultron]

I saw a comment that Shoma sometimes has a never-before-seen type of two-foot landing where the blade of his free leg doesn't touch the ice, but the side of his boot does. But I haven't seen direct evidence. I don't really care for a low free leg though, or the hooked twisting of his body in another direction. Considering all this, I have to give him points for agility. He fights hard to land. It is scary for his knees. I can't help thinking of Daisuke's injuries.

Here it is the evidence (wait for the slow motion) https://www.instagram.com/p/BT8yr-hj03V/

 

Thanks everyone for taking your time explaining all these issues.

I don't know much about the technical stuff but Shoma's landings do look very strange most of the time. Hope he will try to be more careful with this.

[unicorn]

beki said:

I saw a comment that Shoma sometimes has a never-before-seen type of two-foot landing where the blade of his free leg doesn't touch the ice, but the side of his boot does. But I haven't seen direct evidence. I don't really care for a low free leg though, or the hooked twisting of his body in another direction. Considering all this, I have to give him points for agility. He fights hard to land. It is scary for his knees. I can't help thinking of Daisuke's injuries.

I think Shoma's extremely low/scraping-the-ice free leg is a bit different from what is understood to be a "two-foot landing" like Mao's 3A here:

 

Fresca, thank you so much for your diagrams and patient explanations, they really help clarify a lot of the issues we see with jumping today! Your wealth of knowledge is astounding!