Speed Skating 101 or "The Fundamentals That Even Olympic Team Members Still Spend Most of Their Time On. Push almost directly to the side Human beings evolved a natural gait consisting of front-to-back leg motions.  But skating is unnatural.  Animals and proto-humans seldom, if ever, skated!  If you try walking on skates while on the ice, you'll find it pretty inefficient.  The skates are designed to slide  from front to back!  You must push almost directly sideways to get efficient transfer of power with the skating stroke.  Try the "swizzle step" as an exercise.  (Think: "toes out, toes in, toes out, toes in...") The lateral pushing motion of the regular skating stroke also requires getting comfortable with gliding on ONE skate.  So, as an exercise, glide the length of the rink on one skate.  While doing this, keep your ankles straight in line with your lower leg.  While skating, you need to transfer ALL of your weight to the gliding skate just as you finish your power stroke.  The skating motion is a continuous process of completely shifting your weight from one skate to the other and back.  This allows you to take advantage of a rest period as you glide on one skate.  Remember to push almost directly to the side.   TECHNICAL NOTE:  The skating motion works in a similar way to the motion of a screw thread.  The screw thread slides easily along it's length as the screw advances in the hole.  This is like the skate sliding on the ice.  But notice that the thread doesn't point straight into the hole (in the same direction that the screw advances) like a slot or a spline on a shaft, it runs around the screw, nearly perpendicular to the long axis of the hole, like a ring or a washer.  The slight angle of the thread converts the rotation of the screw into the linear motion of the screw into the hole.  With skating, the slight angle of the blade converts the side-to-side motion of the skate into forward motion of the skater. Keep your weight back, on your heels When we evolved to run, we developed the instinct to rock forward on our toes when we sprint.  This makes sense if you're pushing to the back because you need to keep your body weight in front of your feet while accelerating.  But the skating motion is different.  Once you've attained cruising speed on skates, leaning forward creates problems.  For efficient power transfer in skating, you must push to the side against the long, flat edge of the skate.  But if you're leaning forward, you end up pushing against the tightly curved front or toe of the blade.  Now instead of sliding on the ice and applying power all along the way, the tip of your blade is digging into and pushing against one fixed point in the ice.  The ice, unfortunately, is stationary and so you have limited your speed.  With a backward-directed toe-push, you won't be able to go any faster than you can flick your leg back, and as it turns out, this isn't really very fast.  You just can't go as fast while pushing off of stationary points in the ice as you can by applying power smoothly while gliding.  So, if you concentrate on keeping your weight back, on your heels, you will compensate for your body's natural tendency to rock forward and you will apply your weight and your propulsive force right where it should be: just behind the center of your blade and directed to the side. Bend your knees and get low Long strokes allow you to take better advantage of the efficiencies of gliding than do short strokes.  The more knee bend you have, the more leg extension you can get before you lock your knee at the end of the stroke.  Hence you will have a longer power stroke and more glide the more you bend your knees.  Try for a 90 degree (a right angle) between your calf and your thigh at the start of the stroke.  This is hard!  Your thighs will burn.  You may want to try hopping up stairs at home to build your quads.  Try squatting for 60 seconds.  In general, the lower you can get, the faster you can skate.  The longer you are able to maintain this low body position, the longer you will be able to go fast. Bring your feet close together between strokes This forces you to have a longer gliding phase.  As an exercise, try making your ankles touch each other between each stroke.  Feel yourself launching off on to the gliding skate as you drive with the pushing skate.  Feel yourself fall on to the new support skate.  Feels nice, eh?  Advanced long track technique includes setting the gliding skate down on an outside edge and then rolling to the inside edge as the gliding skate becomes the driving skate.  This looks beautiful when done right! Get comfortable gliding on the outside (left) edge of your left skate This is the key to the left turn cross-over.  Practice gliding on your left skate without taking any strokes.  See how long you can hold it.  Now make a LEFT TURN while gliding on your left skate.  See how long you can hold this.  Notice how you have to tip your skate over to the left so it is on an outside edge?  Notice how you have to lean your body out over and beyond (left) of your left skate?  Now as your right skate slides in front of your left skate in a cross-over, feel the push of your left skate's left edge as you drive it behind your right leg.  Keep your skates close to the ice.  As you finish driving your left skate, pick up the toe first and then the heel.  This will prevent you from pushing off with your toe and will encourage you to push with the center or back portion of your blade.  A lot of scratching and dragging of your blades on the ice is a symptom of inefficiencies in your stroke.  Work to make your blades carve silently by pushing off with your heels and not with your toes. Keep your shoulders square with your torso and lean into turns with your hips Don't twist into the turn at the waist, but keep your body in a line when viewed from the front.  Do this by thinking about leaning into a turn with your hips.  Keep your shoulders perpendicular to your upper body and parallel with your hips.