alpine skiing abuses your knees more than telemark

Am I right or am I correct? * Think about how forces are absorbed and distributed through various joints from the balls of your feet northward. Anybody with sufficient experience with both can attest to this. Sure, telemark is stupid, no one cares that you tele etc. etc (spare us all the trite clichees) Not a question of leather vs plastic or 75mm vs NTN or anything other than what's tougher on the knees.

*or am I totally fucking wrong and if so why the fuck? thanks in advance

wtf do i know? not much but have skied 6 decades alpine, half that time tele on and off

Maybe it's like rugby vs American football. Smashing with finesse vs simply smashing.

Never played rugby or football so take that for what it's worth.

My knees never hurt when I telemarked


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That was the consensus where I used to work and for the reasons identified by waveshello. Or because people tend to ski way slower when tele'ing.

I noticed a big difference in how my back felt. My core is more engaged when tele skiing so that probably helps, but also because I, in fact, ski way slower when tele'ing. Not that anyone cares.

Grew up alpine. Blew my ACL in '92. Telemarket basically exclusively for 26ish yrs. Along my tele route I sustained a couple knee injuries. Left knee is now slightly permaswollen and my telemark days have unfortunately done! Back to alpine!I learned to tele by trying to keep up w/ my alpine buddies though, so limits were pushed.
So, for my use case, the answer is yes and no

AT is the answer

and snowboarding is easier on the knees than both (so I've heard) :fmicon:

but then I guess the question is which are you more ashamed of telling your Dad: that you're a knuckle dragger or a teledog.

I'll show myself out...

It depends. Alpine turns load the medial compartment of the knee. Telemark turns load the lateral compartment of the knee. Both techniques load the patellofemoral joint, but the forces exponentially increase the more the knee bends, so pathology behind the knee cap is much worse with a floppy heal.

I gave up alpine turns at 30 years of age after wrecking the medial compartments with reckless hucks and bumps. Much less pain with telemark turns, but I'm much better behaved now as well. It also made skiing with a girl who was a shitty skiers more tolerable and so much better for teaching the kids to ski.

Your knees hurt less when telemarking because your heal isn’t locked and the bindings are sloppy. Yes, core, glutes and quads get a more intense workout. The thing that I notice the most is that I’m constantly trying to maintain balance on the occasional days that I free my heels.


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Monoski obviously… or even better would be a Teleboard.

it sounds like most of the comments about alpine being more injury prone is due to more aggressive skiing no?


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Alpine is definitely harder on the knees. Sure, tele burns the quads (muscles, not joints) more and there is a bit more load on the knee with the deeper flexing but when the stiffer forward flex prevents the tibia from moving forward and you push forward hard on the femur, the forces trying to blow the joint apart are vastly greater than in the knee flexion in tele. Particularly for the posterior cruciate ligament but the collateral ligaments as well.

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Originally Posted by singlecross

Monoski obviously… or even better would be a Teleboard.

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Assuming you really mean it, I try not to be a dick about the sports de glisse...but (with all due respect to those very cool tele bros in NH that spread the joy of free heelin') I believe the teleboard combines the worst of everything. Monoskiing? I have a pal deeply committed to it that has been urging me to try for years. I get how it might be easier on the knees. I will probably eventually try it but FFS I still have 2 legs and I just cannot abide both being clamped together

Tele’d for a couple years, moved to CB and promptly said eff this hippy sh** I need me some power steering! Decided to give it a go again a few years ago. Did it for the season and my right knee ain’t been the same since. Which sucks cause I sure would like to take a spin on those Bishop bombers, finally got to fondle a pair, those things look amazing!

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Originally Posted by timackie

It depends. Alpine turns load the medial compartment of the knee. Telemark turns load the lateral compartment of the knee. Both techniques load the patellofemoral joint, but the forces exponentially increase the more the knee bends, so pathology behind the knee cap is much worse with a floppy heal.

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Agree.

I tele’d exclusively for 25+ yrs, and thought it felt better on my knees than alpine but I developed patella femoral pain syndrome & after meniscus surgery and rehab I started realizing that my knee pain was worse with tele gear. Admittedly my tele gear is burlier than what the hippies use but still.

Nowadays I throw in the occasional tele resort day & just deal with the resulting knee pain.

Many years of free heel, still going strong with no knee pain while skiing. Kneeling, walking down stairs, putting on compression socks, etc., however .......

Totally IMHO (though I do all below) but.... ranked worst to best I think:
1 tele
2 alpine lift riding
3 ski touring
4 snowboarding (caveat - I'm a hard booter with fairly aggressive + angles like +35; +30.

Nothing to add other than it depends on how low you go. Those deep knee benders definitely add stress. Driving the front foot with a near 90 angle on the knee can’t be good.
. When I tele (rarely anymore) I’m pretty upright and it is probably easier on my knees. Then again I don’t charge anywhere near as fast through bumps and chunder.

In my experience knee pain results from something upstream, like very tight quads. When I stretch quads and hips, knees feel better.

When I first experienced knee pain when making tele turns, it was due to recovering for atrophy in my leg following a time after I broke and immobilized my foot. My achilles tendon area on that leg still gets “sticky,” which causes upstream issues for me if I don’t take the little bit of time and stretch and work the area.

With a current torn ACL, I sometimes notice slight destabilizing of my knee when unweighting in the transition between alpine turns while making long radius turns. It feels like the joint is stretching a little bit. I’m wearing a custom donjoy knee brace and the knee does not fully destabilize. I don’t experience that issue making tele turns of the same size and speed, which I think may have more to do with different muscle engagement throughout alpine turns vs tele turns.

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Originally Posted by charlesj

Am I right or am I correct? * Think about how forces are absorbed and distributed through various joints from the balls of your feet northward. Anybody with sufficient experience with both can attest to this. Sure, telemark is stupid, no one cares that you tele etc. etc (spare us all the trite clichees) Not a question of leather vs plastic or 75mm vs NTN or anything other than what's tougher on the knees.

*or am I totally fucking wrong and if so why the fuck? thanks in advance

wtf do i know? not much but have skied 6 decades alpine, half that time tele on and off

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No one cares that you care.

I think all of us who can understand injury and/or aging care about being able to continue skiing as we get older. Bindings didn't have DIN standards when I started. The gear is safer but the very nature of the sport can wear down knee joints. I'll get a replacement knee eventually.

First time I quit tele was 15 years ago after lower femur crumpling, the cause of present day pain. I dabbled again last season with ill fitting T1s (I'll get them dialed in soon) Perhaps smoother movement, slowing down a bit, using other flex points, mixing up the turns will alleviate some knee pain and shift soreness elsewhere.

An idiot ortho doc looked at my crumpled femur X-ray 15 years ago and had the cluelessness to say “you may not be able to ski anymore”. I uncharacteristically bit my tongue and didn’t tell him what an a hole he was. If I lost a leg I would continue to ski. in retrospect, I should’ve given him a mini lecture on lifelong sports, adaptive skiing, and maybe listening to the patient but I’m sure his time was precious and my anger substantial. It wasn’t my first skiing related injury, and it might not be the last. The pain is going to be there regardless so I’ll keep skiing.

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Originally Posted by PB

Many years of free heel, still going strong with no knee pain while skiing. Kneeling, walking down stairs, putting on compression socks, etc., however .......

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same

My body has always felt better on the days following tele, and more beat up on the days following alpine.

I've often told friends that I think tele is easier on the joints because you are not in a static "locked out" stance the way you can be skiing alpine - it's more "muscular", and less "skeletal". I soak up terrain more effectively when I tele. Also - I typically ski less "aggressively", and probably a little slower, which likely all contributes to a less jarring day on the slopes.

BUT...I don't have the fitness (lungs & legs) to spend a day on tele out west, so I typically alpine ski when I hit "the bigs".

since i have nothing of value to add to this topic, i just came here to say that this thread has the perfect combination of:

1. genuine and knowledgeable enthusiasts sharing their personal observations.
2. earnest and informative responses from a physiological perperspective.
3. a ton of lighthearted and self-effacing humor.
4. and no antagonistic, hostile, or uncivil bs.

happy new year, mags. may ullr smile upon us all.

https://youtu.be/g5DIqwh9EiU?si=ogBa8fY0UyLJbueP