Hurdling is an arduous but rewarding athletic event that requires speed, strength, flexibility, and beautiful technique. No matter if you coach novice or experienced athletes, hurdle technique education is an essential component of performance advancement and injury prevention both. This article is a complete resource for coaching techniques from the fundamental skills to drills, common mistakes to help the athlete reach their potential.
IT’S ALL IN THE HURDLE: Understanding Hurdling Mechanics
Before you get into drills and techniques, it’s important to understand the basic mechanics of the hurdle. But, that’s not all there is to hurdling — because true to the name of the sport, you have to maintain your speed and rhythm as you clear the hurdles as well. Hurdling Ranning Basics: Proper hurdling technique involves the following:
Approach Speed:
Getting to the hurdle with speed.
Lead Leg Mechanics:
The lead leg should extend quickly and efficiently over the hurdle.
A jumping technique that reduces power leaks by keeping the trail leg tight and fast.
Body Position:
Leaning a bit forward to keep momentum.
Land and Recover: Sustain a smooth landing and transition into the next stride.
Step 1: Prop-up the Hurdles to Teach Technique
Introduce the Basic Sprint Mechanics
As hurdles are essentially a sprint with hurdles, proper sprint mechanics is the first thing that can be taught. Focus on:
Explosive starts
Knee drive and arm movement
Foot placement and stride length with correct posture
Acceleration training & top speed maintenance
Teach the Lead Leg Technique
You cannot have a lead leg that won’t press through the hurdle techniques. Getting the kind of lead leg mechanics you want:
Focus on driving the knee up and delivering it aggressively toward the hurdle.
Get the leg out and fully extended over the hurdle
Athletes should be landing on the ball of the foot once they clear the hurdle.
Practice lead leg extensions with low hurdles or cones without having to jump high.
THE TRAIL LEG TECHNIQUE
The trail leg must stay close to the body and move fast to keep momentum. Key points include:
Driving the knee forward after clearing the hurdle, while keeping the knee bent.
No unnecessary lateral movement, which drags down the momentum.
Not all mini hurdles or resistance bands for trail leg drills
Target Your Strokes’ Rhythm and Stride Patterns
Rhythm is required to carry through between hurdles to gain speed. Athletes should:
Efficiently, use a 3-step rhythm between hurdles.
Keep even stride length and turnover.
Drills that build rhythm and stride control (e.g. hurdle spacing drills)
Hurdle Clearance Technique
Hurdle clearance needs to be as fluid and efficient as achievable. To achieve this:
Focus on keeping their knees down until they reach the hurdle.
Coaches: Teach athletes to lean slighting forward while clearing
Only jump if you have to, to not waste energy.
Analyze and analyze everything with video to improve form and correct mistakes.
Improve Flexibility and Strength
Hurdling takes flexibility and strength of the hip flexors, hamstrings and core muscles. Key exercises include:
Dynamic stretches (leg swings, hip openers)
Exercises plyométriques (bondissements, sauts de boite)
Planks, Russian twists — core strengthening
Strength exercise (squats, lunges, hamstring curls)
Perform Hurdle-Specific Drills
Practice drills reinforce the technique and muscle memory. Some good drills to do with hurdles are:
A. Walkover Drills
Low hurdles—set up for athletes to walk over focusing on lead and trail leg mechanics.
B. Quick-Step Drills
Use short spacing between hurdles to work on transitions and rhythm.
C. One-Step Drills
Keep it fun and fast with one step between hurdles.
D. Acceleration Hurdles
Build hurdles to be placed at increasing distances to train for stride modifications and speed leading into a jump.
Common Errors and How to Fix Them
Jumping Too High Over Hurdles
PDA: Use low hurdles and emphasize forward lean to minimize wasted vertical displacement.
Lead Leg Kicking Out Too Far
Modification: Focus on a knee drive instead of a kick.
Report individual feedback
Every athlete is different; work with them to understand how best to provide feedback.
Incorporate Video Analysis
Documenting and reviewing hurdle performances allows an athlete to visualize where improvements could be made.
Build Mental Toughness
Confidence and focus are necessary when you’re hurdles running. Promote mental preparation strategies and positive outcome reinforcement.
Emphasize Injury Prevention
Instruct on proper warm-up and cooldown techniques that can help prevent hamstring or knee injuries.
Conclusion
The most efficient way to teach these hurdle is to do so in a structured fashion through sprint mechanics, hurdle clearance work, strength work, and rhythm work. With this in mind, let’s look at some of the specific techniques that coaches can use to improve their athletes’ performance if they follow the above steps as well as using effective strength training and speed drills in the gym. Whether that is correct or not depends on many factors, but with proper guidance as well as the practice come to the stage where you can run with speed, technique, and confidence as a hurdler in this explosive event found in athletics track.
