I am glad that more athletes have a courage to speak about these topics, it is important for changes and making things better.
1. For disordered eating: (all paraphrasing)
1. Weight does not affect performance and she knows from her own experience: her best results did not come when she was at her lowest weight.
It is sad that in the 21st century figure skating is still quite slow with modern approach.
I heard many times that ideal weight for female figure skater is 48 kilograms (around 105 pounds). But athletes have different somatotypes, which means that each athlete has its own weight being ideal for them. And for majority of them it is definitely not 48 kilograms.
Much more important than weight is body composition analysis.
Body composition analysis - using for example dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) or Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) method.
In our country some nutritions or Doctors are using BIA - InBody or Tanita medical device.
Those devices can measure:
- Total Body Water (an increase in Extracellular Water, but not Intracellular Water, this could mean the presence of internal swelling and/or inflammation)
- Proteins (protein's increase is an indicator of gaining muscles, lower proteins can mean loss of muscles or poor nutrition)
- Minerals (osseous and non osseous minerals, lower bone minerals lead to bones to be fragile)
- Body Fat Mass
- Basal Metabolic Rate
- Body Balance (right - left side or upper - lower body muscle mass comparison)
- and many others...
Thanks to this device an athlete can control her / his real shape with nutrition and training being modificated based on results. This approach gives sense. While being pushed to lose weight no matter what because "the thinner the better" - it only leads to increase number of athletes with eating disorders.
2. Weight does not affect lifts. Timing, knowing your partner's rhythms, timing again. She particularly spoke to this as someone with a partner with closer in size than is typical in the sport.
I fully agree with timing, it is very important part of lift technique.
Ice dancer Tanith Belbin - Olympic silver medalist in 2006, World silver and bronze medalists (with Ben Agosto)
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/sports/olympics/17icedancers.html
Linichuk took one look at the 5-foot-6, 105-pound Belbin and said, “You need to gain 10 pounds.” She said more muscle would help Belbin skate faster and more fluidly.
.....
Belbin began marveling at her new body. She had gained 10 pounds. Her waist size increased two inches because her core was so much stronger.
Agosto could see a huge difference in Belbin’s skating. During lifts, she was no longer a sack of potatoes, holding on for dear life. She could hold her positions much better, and that made it easier for Agosto because she did not move around as much.
www.oregonlive.com
It never struck me as if H/B were shortchanged there. I saw them compete live in their early days and they have improved tremendously at IAM. The real problem in this sport, is the pecking order. Being USA's 3rd team for so many years, though it's better than being Canada's 3rd team (HAHA!) is not going to help them move close to the podium at worlds. We will see how they fare this year, I am confident that the break will have a positive impact !
the old lady cyber cane comes out. Puh-leeze)
