Beginner roller skating
Edge Control Is Endurance Work
Holding a clean edge for one kilometre and holding it for twenty are different problems. ICP-certified coach Asha Kirkby gives distance skaters two jobs: conscious edge control, through single-leg balance and edging drills that align the knee over the middle-to-little toe, and glute and leg strength built through fitness work, so the knee flex survives the miles instead of fading.
Holding a clean edge for one kilometre and holding it for twenty are different problems. The first is technique. The second is technique that has to survive tired legs, and a certified coach gives distance skaters two separate jobs for it.
The first job is conscious edge control. Single-leg balance and edging drills — the scooting drill, the toe roll — that align the knee over the middle-to-little toe, until a clean centre edge is something you can feel and produce rather than something that happens to be there.
The second job is glute and leg strength, built through fitness work off the route and on it. A deep knee bend is held by muscles, and muscles that have never been asked to hold it for an hour will not. The strength is what keeps the flex from fading, and it is the flex that keeps the edge.
Neither job replaces the other. Drills without strength give you an edge that lasts a kilometre; strength without drills gives you legs that can hold a position you have never learned. Together they give you the same edge at the end of the route as at the start.
Technique from Asha Kirkby of Skatefresh, an instructor certified by the Inline Certification Program. She teaches inline skating, and that is the discipline this page is about.
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