Glossary

Up-Unweighting

 

Up-Unweighting

This is a way of unweighting the skis.  It's done by strongly extending at the ankles, knees and waist.  When that extension is done, the momentum of the skier's Center of Mass moving upward temporarily removes weight and pressure on the skis.  Unweighting the skis needs to be done when a skier wants to execute a pivot of the feet and skis downhill during a transition, to speed up how quickly they change direction in the coming turn.  It also finds usage when jumping or attempting to avoid obstacles.  While not necessarily the most energy and movement efficient way to unweight the skis, it's a very useful technique for unweighting during slower forms of skiing, or on steep and narrow terrain.   For another form of unweighting, see retraction.