Coach and jump specialist Trevor Laak continues a series of videos discussing jump landing mechanics, covering theoretical aspects of jump landings and practical exercises and movements. In Part 1 he introduced basic concepts and the need for a better understanding of this topic among coaches and skaters. In Part 2 he shared some demonstrations and drills to better understand how rotation is slowed on a jump landing. In this video he continues with drills for slowing rotations but focuses on common arm options and head position.
Trevor begins by noting that there are a number of different arm positions that elite skaters use to slow jump rotation while dropping the body forward. He reminds us that the skater already showed the two-arm-in-front version of the drill in the previous video, so he then has her show the full shoulder twist version of the drill where the axis side arm is pulled all the way back. This position also has the upper body well forward but now the shoulders are strongly twisted to the axis side and the arms are spread as wide as possible. This position is probably the most common for triple and quad landings. Trevor does not believe this arm position slows the rotation any more than the two-arms-in-front method but this twisted version has the advantage of both keeping the skater more aligned on the axis side and providing more time for the skater to decelerate the shoulders after impact.
The next common arm position for slowing rotation at landing is the axis arm pointing directly into the landing circle which to the skater just feels like it’s to the axis side. The demonstrator tends to pull the axis arm a bit further back, but it’s easy to visualize this kind of position and it’s slight variations. The final arm position option is quite extreme as it includes the full shoulder turn of the axis arm pulled all the way back and has the non-axis arm across the body and inside the landing circle. This generally has the same benefits as the basic full shoulder twist with a possible benefit of more time to decelerate the non-axis side arm.
Trevor makes a point that all of these arm options slow the rotation to a similar degree, meaning there is no significant advantage to any of the arm positions, at least in terms of slowing the rotation. Selecting one of the options may depend on what a skater does naturally, or what helps a skater get over their axis side.
Finally Trevor talks about head position for landings and for these drills. He wants the head up, even when the body must come down further on triples or quads to slow the rotation sufficiently. As the body drops down further, skaters will have a tendency to also drop the head.
