With the pri­maries and pres­i­den­tial elec­tions com­ing up, I thought I would write a post on pol­ing tech­nique – just a dif­fer­ent type of pol­ing tech­nique. I am talk­ing trekking poles, not polit­i­cal poles.

It recent­ly popped into my mind as I was out on my first cross-coun­try ski of the year the oth­er day. I am an avid skate ski­er and strid­er dur­ing the win­ter and have sub­con­scious­ly crossed over much my trekking pole tech­nique from habits from these sports. A lot of pow­er is gen­er­at­ed from pol­ing in ski­ing but I feel they could be used more effi­cient­ly in trekking. I haven’t heard specifics of the top­ic dis­cussed much in the hik­ing com­mu­ni­ty so I fig­ured I would address this area.

I will also use a sim­i­lar method of nam­ing and asso­ci­a­tion for ref­er­ence to the var­i­ous pol­ing styles in skat­ing ver­sus hiking.

Sin­gle sticking:

In ski­ing this is pol­ing one pole at a time with the oppo­site hand as your foot plant. It is typ­i­cal­ly used when ascend­ing steep hills or when you are tru­ly exhausted.

For trekking, this would be the typ­i­cal walk where your left hand pole is plant­ed as your left foot lands, and right pole is plant­ed as your right foot falls, or vice ver­sa. This is the nor­mal sys­tem. This adds slight effi­cien­cy to pro­pel your­self for­ward, I’d say less than 15% even with a good push off, but does take some of the strain of your legs from the rep­e­ti­tion of walk­ing and on descents. It is espe­cial­ly valu­able on steep descents (but I still find myself using V2 Alter­na­tive more often on the steep­est of descent).

V1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50I6stjyHo

In skat­ing this is where one dou­ble-pole-push for each full stroke-cycle of both leg-push­es — with no dis­tinct “glide” phase on the pol­ing-side ski before the pole-push starts. In ski­ing this is often used in high-resis­tance low­er speed sit­u­a­tions and the pol­ing takes place as your foot lands. See the video link above for details.

I often use this tech­nique while grind­ing up hills or on steep­er ter­rain. I will pole with both poles to car­ry me through a full stroke cycle of both leg push­es. It is a slow and steady motion that keeps a con­stant flow uphill.

I also, but more rarely, use this tech­nique on slow, tech­ni­cal down­hills that need con­cen­tra­tion on where your foot and pole plants are located.

V2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pjzh_65-I4

In ski­ing this is two dou­ble-pole-push­es for each full stroke-cycle of both leg-push­es. So each sin­gle skate-push is accom­pa­nied by a dou­ble-pole-push. Used in a range of sit­u­a­tions, except high-resis­tance and very high-speed sit­u­a­tions. Note that ini­tial the pole plant hap­pens just before the ski is set back down on the snow.

I men­tion this method because of the tim­ing and pole plant tim­ing. It is not used often. Main­ly this will be used in trekking in a slow down­hill sit­u­a­tions to brace your­self and pre­vent impact on your legs and knees as you step down steep steps or through steep, tricky ter­rain. It is hard to get two pole plants in per leg stroke cycle while trekking on nor­mal ground.

V2 Alter­na­tive (also known as V2 Alt.): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxErUs42bBI

This dif­fers from reg­u­lar V2 because you are just pol­ing on one side. Again the pole place­ment is right before your footfall.

I often use this tech­nique on non-tech­ni­cal ter­rain and well-grad­ed trails and even slight uphills, or while road walk­ing. It works espe­cial­ly well on dirt or grav­el roads when I am try­ing to get into the 3–4 mile per hour tar­get speed and main­tain that. The strong sin­gle push off of the dou­ble pole at the time of your foot­fall pro­pels you for­ward through your full stride cycle, while also giv­ing you enough recov­ery time between pole strokes.

Con­clu­sion

Yes, you are prob­a­bly right………I do have too much time to think when I am out in the back­coun­try. This analy­sis is prob­a­bly above and beyond what is nec­es­sary, but hope­ful­ly it helps. These types of thoughts are what went into the plan­ning for our win­ter PCT hike. Details, details, details. After all prop­er pri­or plan­ning pre­vents piss poor performance.

Note that these tech­niques may feel awk­ward at first but you will gain coor­di­na­tion and effi­cien­cy with prac­tice. It should be less clum­sy than learn­ing to Nordic ski – where the first few days you feel like a baby giraffe.