Double Poling Technique in Cross-Country Skiing: How Impulse, Direction Efficiency and Cadence Limit Your Speed

All cross-country ski technique is fundamentally about moving the body’s center of mass. In double poling, the goal is to lift the body upward and forward to generate force into the poles, while directing that force efficiently in the direction of travel with minimal energy loss. It sounds simple—most people can clearly see the smooth, harmonious movement of world-class skiers compared to the more rigid, unsynchronized technique of someone just learning to double pole.

Identifying the key movement details that drive performance, however, is far more challenging and requires a trained eye. It’s also not obvious for beginners to understand the terminology coaches use to describe these technical elements. At Skisens, we help bridge that gap by breaking the movement down into measurable performance metrics.

The force in double poling can be described using three key metrics: cadence (frequency), impulse, and pole-direction efficiency. The “quality” of the pole plant can be described through impulse and direction. The biggest difference between a skilled double poler and a developing skier is the ability to maintain impulse and direction at higher speeds—and to increase both when climbing, where more force is required. When a skier can’t do this, they must compensate by increasing cadence, which costs more energy and ultimately limits top speed because the body can’t keep up.

Figure 1 below shows how these three metrics change with increasing speed on constant incline for twelve Vasaloppet skiers in start groups 0 and 1. It’s clear that all skiers lose direction efficiency as speed increases, and that there is a maximum speed where they can no longer maintain impulse. At that point they are forced to increase cadence. When the skier “rushes” the movement to increase cadence, impulse and direction typically drop even further—rapidly limiting top speed.

Figure 1 illustrates the technical challenge of increasing speed at already high velocities. Another equally decisive challenge in cross-country racing is the ability to increase force during accelerations or steeper gradients. This can be tested by increasing incline while keeping speed constant, as shown in Figure 2. We see that direction index increases slightly with incline, but impulse and cadence increase more dramatically to generate force. Eventually, the skier can no longer increase cadence or impulse, reaching the maximum incline at which speed can be maintained. Notably, cadence at this failure point is similar to the high-speed test above.

To truly understand how different skiers adapt technique to terrain and speed, we study the force curves. It is especially interesting to compare how skiers respond to increased incline versus increased speed. When incline rises, the skier must generate more force.

Figure 3 shows force curves for an elite skier and a recreational skier at three different inclines but constant speed. The elite skier clearly increases force as the terrain steepens. For the recreational skier, this is far less evident. Force initially increases slightly, but with significant loss in pole-contact time, meaning impulse does not increase and must instead be compensated for by higher cadence. As cadence rises, the skier eventually cannot apply force effectively into the poles, causing force to drop, cadence to rise even further, and ultimately an inability to handle the incline.

If we instead keep incline constant and increase speed, the skier theoretically doesn’t need more force—only the ability to maintain force while pole-contact time decreases. Figure 4 shows force curves for the same two skiers at constant incline and three different speeds. A key difference is that the recreational skier starts with long contact time but lower peak force. As speed increases, this long contact time becomes impossible, forcing the skier to increase peak force. This works between level 1 and 2, but at level 3 the skier can no longer increase peak force and loses force, especially late in the pole push—where direction is critical. The skier must then increase cadence, leading quickly to failure to overcome resistance and the need to slow down.

Translated into ski-technique terms, the recreational skier’s limitations stem from an inability to move up and forward—and especially at higher speeds, an inability to maintain core tension late in the push, leading to large force losses.

So far we’ve focused on technique—but skiing is both technique and capacity. At Skisens, our original focus was capacity, especially power expressed in watts per kilogram, since skiers must move their bodyweight uphill. In the maximum-incline test above, the elite skier peaks around 7.5 W/kg—sustainable for roughly 20–30 seconds. The recreational skier reaches about 4.8 W/kg. Most skiers are not used to evaluating power over such short durations, and for recreational athletes this is often less relevant, since their goals are longer events like Vasaloppet.

We therefore also analyzed longer durations. Table 1 summarizes our experience of what elite vs recreational (around start group 2 in Vasaloppet) skiers sustain over various timeframes.

These values are based on extensive indoor and outdoor testing. As one example, we measured a recreational skier at Marcialonga who finished around 400th place. Average power up to Canazei was 160–170 W, corresponding to roughly 2 W/kg—slightly lower than expected, which is reasonable given crowding in the early race.

Figure 5: Skisens power vs time at Marcialonga for a skier finishing around 400th place.[/caption>

In summary, a recreational skier around Vasaloppet start group 2 typically has a capacity (W/kg) about 30–35% lower than an elite skier—fairly independent of duration. For example, over 20-minute efforts, our 3 W/kg estimate aligns well with previous analyses such as SkiErg 5000 m thresholds. Within a start group, however, capacity varies widely—more within groups than between them. With Skisens measurements, we gain deep insight into whether a skier is limited primarily by technique or by physiological capacity. Coaches can use this to design optimally individualized training plans.

Reference: SkiErg watt/kg vs Vasaloppet placement – Erik Wickström