Oxygen uptake in One and Two Skate Cross Country Skiing At Increasing Grades

Abstract

Skate skiing is a unique form of quadrupedal locomotion utilizing a sliding pair ofskis and a fixed pair of poles. Skiers tend to use the two-skate technique at slow speeds,the one-skate at intermediate speeds and then, surprisingly select the two-skate againat very high speeds. In a previous study on a flat terrain, we have shown that thisstrange behavior seems to minimize oxygen consumption since the two-skate techniquehad a lower oxygen consumption at both low and high speeds than the one skatetechnique. In the two-skate, poles are planted with every second skate stride whilein one-skate, poles are planted simultaneously with every skate stride (Smith, 2000).However, skiers are not limited to flat terrain; therefore, in this study we measuredthe oxygen consumption of the one- and two-skate techniques at a constant speedwhile changing the slope. We hypothesized that the one-skate would require lessoxygen consumption from 0 to 2% slope (at 12km/h) while two-skate would be moreeconomical on 4 to 6% slopes. Eleven nationally competitive cross country skiers wereasked to perform an incremental test on a rollerski treadmill. The speed was constantat 12km/hr and the grade was increased was from 0% to 6% grade by increments of 2%.At each grade, the skiers reached metabolic steady state for both techniques. Duringthe test oxygen consumption was continuously collected. No difference was found insteady state oxygen uptake for one- and two-skate for the grades tested. This resultsuggests that the oxygen cost of the one- and two- skate techniques is independent ofslope at 12km/h. We suspect that if the slope is increased to grades beyond 8%, the2-skate will become the more economical technique, however achieving steady state atslopes higher than 6% is exceedingly difficult.