Weight loss and the effects on figure skating.

[Query]

Over the past few months, I have lost my edges. Partly, I'm skating at a rink with colder ice, because I work there and it's free. But it kept getting worse. I have been skidding on power pulls, skidding on crossovers, turns and my puny jumps, which feel less and less secure. It took me a while to figure out why.

I am 5'4" and have small bones. According to Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. I should weigh 114 - 127. But no, I'm not the only person here who has struggled unsuccessfully to achieve "ideal" weight. For years I stagnated at 145 (buck naked, in the morning after using the bathroom, before eating or drinking anything - so a little under-estimated by life insurance company standards).

Then I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Following recommendations, I've moved to a low carb, low fat, high protean, high fiber diet, which tends to reduce weight. Following recommendations, I've also tried to lose more, and have increased the amount of exercise. Finally: noticeable weight loss. I'm down to about 127.2 - about 12% less, not huge, but in the right direction - and still dropping. Like most males, the weight loss is mostly about and above the tummy, and the skating and running may be increasing the muscle weight in my legs. So I have an altered weight distribution, including a lower center of gravity.

That sounds wonderful. I should be almost lighter than air, able to jump and fly like Peter Pan, or the nearest equivalent for a relatively non-athletic guy in his late 50's. 

Alas  it isn't so. I think altered lower center of gravity may be as hard to adapt to for a guy losing weight as for a tween or teen girl who is rapidly getting taller and putting on upper body mass as she matures. For starters, it's been understood (at least in the hockey community) for a long time that lighter weight people need sharper edges than heavier people. I already keep my edges sharp. I think I need to bend my knees more, and deepen many of my edges, though that is probably over-simplified. It sounds simple, but it's a major change from what I have grown used to.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I have to do to overcome this new "disability", caused by what I thought should be a great thing.

Have any of you had similar experiences? How have you adapted?

[ChristyRN]

I've lost ~70 pounds skating (and put about 20 back on) and didn't have any problems with holding edges or skidding. If anything, they got better with practice. I had more problems with my heels getting narrower and needing new boots. And needing a whole new wardrobe.

[Jenna]

I lost 85 lbs and it has done nothing but benefit my skating. 

Like Christy,  my problems are buying a new wardrobe and my feet having more room in my boots.

[riley876]

Are you sure it's not just a simple significant increase in power-to-weight ratio?   I.e. as much as increase in leg/core strength as it is weight loss?

Presumably your passive edges (glides, spirals, figure circles etc) are all still functional?   

For a (reverse) data point I've put on over 15kg (35lb) since I started skating (it's mostly muscle mass too, I was a *very* scrawny weed before),  and I haven't noticed any significant increase in available grip.   But I can certainly break a skate free now, whereas I sure couldn't when I started.

[Query]

Has no one else had a problem after losing weight?

Are you sure it's not just a simple significant increase in power-to-weight ratio?...

An appealing excuse, but I don't think so. I don't feel significantly different.

Presumably your passive edges (glides, spirals, figure circles etc) are all still functional?

If I try to glide as far on an outside edge as I can, I can slip. That wasn't true a few months ago.

The worst slips are on progressive and cross-over under-pushes - because I don't put much weight on them, and they have deeper edges than I usually use.

I've re-sharpened very carefully, even switched to a finer grit stone to make a sharper edge, but it doesn't completely eliminate the problem. I think it has to be a body weight/edge direction alignment problem, which is consistent with an altered weight distribution.

But if no one else has had the same problem...

[Bill_S]

If others are like me, they can probably tell you what skating is like after GAINING weight. Sigh.

I just don't have the willpower when a freshly-baked loaf of bread wafts in front of my nose.

[Query]

I was just watching U.S. Nationals, and realizing that even the best figure skaters sometimes slip on deep edges. (E.g., it looks like jump landings almost always side slip a bit.) You can see it in the close-ups of the feet on freestyle and pair skaters. They don't do foot close-ups on the dance skaters, but sometimes you can hear the slip. I guess it's occasionally OK if it stays in control.

I played with edges a little more yesterday. I can mostly make them work if I don't take quite as deep edges, and I don't fully extend my pushes.

Various (ice dance) coaches had taught me to use as deep edges as I could - limited by how far I could go without tipping over. Perhaps a lower center of gravity makes that criteria wrong - maybe I can reach deeper edges than before without tipping, but not without slipping. They also taught me to use full stroke extensions (where the knee goes straight) on the ice. I'm not that great a skater, but with practice these were things I could do - and they helped me go fairly fast, which I like, despite the lack of hard core strength training that real skaters use to get real speed.

Without the weight, and without the strength training to push hard enough to compensate for the lack of weight, and on my new rinks with colder, harder ice, I'll have to change my criteria. A shame - those were two of the few things I could do well.

[irenar5]

It sounds like you might need to decrease you ROH.  Hard ice and lighter body give you less security on an edge. 

[icedancer]

Well, first all - congratulations on the weight loss and the discipline it takes to change your diet - I hope you are feeling better and getting the diabetes under control.

I can't address your particular problem BUT i have lost about 20 pounds in the last several years (changed my diet - went gluten-free for a while and cut out the "bad stuff" - also as I age I think my metabolism changed a bit - ) - and I have wondered if my skates (especially my right skate) "feel funny" because I have lost weight in my feet!!!  It is pretty subtle - my shoes of course fit but the one skate in particular always feels odd when I put it on, like it is someone else's skate.  Eventually it feels okay and I haven't noticed slipping edges or anything but have heard of people having to get new skates when they have lost weight because the shape of their foot has changed that much.

Just my 2 cents. 

I think it could also be the hard ice - in your case - I always notice a difference in how I feel on the ice in the dead of cold winter- my favorite time to skate is in the spring when it is warming up but not hot - the ice is perfect and my body starts to feel a lot looser.

[emitche]

I agree with irenar5. It sounds like the hard ice might be making it difficult. Your skates might need sharpening or a ROH adjustment.

I'm a larger women and the ice quality and whether or not my skates are sharp impacts how secure I feel. I hadn't sharpened my skates in a while. I went to a place with hard ice and it felt terrible. Soft ice felt wonderful. But sharpened skates made everything feel okay everywhere.

[Query]

Like I said, I just re-sharpened my blades - and I do it myself so I know it's quite sharp, both in ROH (3/8"), and in other respects.

I tried my previous rink today, which has softer and cleaner ice. It's better. But problem not altogether solved.

It helps to push a little more through my heels - i.e., to make the strongest part of my pushing stroke while I'm on the back of my skates. Less belly fat means center of gravity is farther back, but I'm not sure that actually makes sense, since the weight on the ice should still be the same.

A hockey coach told me that people do often need to change skating style with weight gain or loss, but he wasn't specific.

[PinkLaces]

My doctor put me on a low carb, low sugar diet right before the new year. I have lost 15 lbs in a month. Things I have noticed - improvement in my spins and more height in my toe assisted jumps and I am having a harder time with my edge jumps mostly Loop jumps but occasionally the Salchow as well. My coach said that that it may take some time to adjust to it.

[sarahspins]

I haven't experienced rapid weight loss, but I have slowly lost weight over the past 4-5 years, and my experience is somewhat of the opposite of yours - the less I weigh, the more secure everything feels.  Some of that may have more to do with more experience/skill rather than any difference in weight though - I'm simply a stronger/better skater now than I was 30lbs ago

I've lost a total of about 35lbs since I started skating again 6 years ago, and it's been spread out fairly evenly over that time.

[blue111moon]

I've gained and lost and gained and lost and gained (and gained) a lot of poundage over the last thirty-three years since I started skating as an adult and I can't say I've ever noticed my blades slipping as a result of the change.  But then I started skating back in the figures era and did about 20 years of serious edge work throughout the most drastic shifts.  The one thing I've never lost is my edges.  When I was younger, I would notice spins needed adjusting whenever my weight changed, but now that I'm into AARP territory, it's the jumps that get harder and the landing tougher to control when there's different mass to sling around.

The only time I notice slippage is when my blades need sharpening or when the ice is super-hard - and definitely when both happen at the same time. 

My guess is that your edges might not have been that much under control before you lost weight but the extra poundage was enough to push your blades deeper into the ice.  Now that's gone so you need better technique to get the same feeling of bite.   But what changes in technique you need is beyond me.  A good coach could probably give you exercises that would help.

Or you could do a few thousand hours of figures. 

[Query]

My guess is that your edges might not have been that much under control before you lost weight but the extra poundage was enough to push your blades deeper into the ice.  Now that's gone so you need better technique to get the same feeling of bite.   

You are probably right.

suboptimal technique + harder ice + less weight + different weight distribution + working a job that makes me to walk on blades

combine to make things go a bit bad.

[karne]

If others are like me, they can probably tell you what skating is like after GAINING weight. Sigh.

I just don't have the willpower when a freshly-baked loaf of bread wafts in front of my nose.

*groans quietly* Trying to make your considerably heavier body spring up into the air - yep, I'm with you.

And I'm also with you on the fresh-baked bread. Or fresh-out-of-the-fryer chips...

[Query]

In any event, I've gone back to the idea of no longer sharpening, for a while.

I've used that idea before. The idea is to force myself to use better technique.

[Query]

I'm terribly embarrassed.

I looked at my edges very carefully. Even under a microscope.

What I failed to notice was that my skates were warped. There is an approximately vertical support at the back of the boot. In my case, this had gradually become curved (especially my right boot, where it curved to the right), over the lifetime of my somewhat broken down boots. Probably at first because I used to offset my blades for balance, before I learned to provide support under the insole, inside the boot, instead. And the entire boot was even more curved that way.

This meant that my blade no longer aligned with the backstay, and I was really on an inside edge most of the time I thought I was on an outside edge - say about 7 - 9 degrees.

I just did a couple things to solve this:

1. I repeatedly heat molded that boot, applying reverse curvature, to try to undo the damage. This worked the first day, but by the next day, a fair amount of the curvature had come back, so the problem somewhat recurred - in particular, the rock-over from inside to outside edge occurred a few degrees off center, when it would skid.

2. I shimmed the blade, a whole lot. This mostly worked, but the boot has warped back again a little, so I need to do it a little more.

It is so reassuring to be able to blame things on the equipment.  But so annoying that it happened, and I didn't realize it.

[severina]

When I went from 130 to my once upon a time teenage skater weight of 115, my doubles flew and my jumps are 10x easier.  I am about 5'3 to 5'4ish.

Consistency became the norm.  My edges got better.    I do need to have my skates sharp in order to feel comfortable on jumps still, in that if it goes 3 weeks and my blades get dull, I notice it immediately and get them sharpened.

[davincisop]

I've been on the advocare 24 day challenge since last Tuesday (today is day 10) and have lost 5 pounds a few inches already. I started it to help with muscles strength on and off the ice (coach is doing it with me because she highly recommends it).

In that one week, I noticed a HUGE difference in my skating. My edges are more solid, my waltz jump got higher and even my coach noticed a difference. She said I look stronger already.

I know 5 pounds doesn't seem like much but it's interesting how much something can make a difference.

[Neverdull44]

I've lost about 5 pounds since the beginning of the year.    I am eating a little less and exercising a little more.    What I've found yummy and helpful is a protein drink called "Premier".  It's sold at Walmart and Costco.  It tastes like a McD's milkshake (but not as thick) and has 30 mg of Protein and 165 calories.  I put in about 1 meal a day that way.