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Fast on the flat, slow over hurdles

If your hurdle times do not match your 100m, you are probably jumping the barrier rather than running over it.

Every hurdles coach has an athlete whose flat speed says one thing and whose hurdle time says another. Almost always the answer is not speed and not fitness. It is how far the athlete goes up.

The hurdle is not a jump

A hurdle clearance should cost as little vertical movement as possible. The athlete has to get over the barrier, but every centimetre of hip rise beyond that is time spent in the air rather than on the track, and time in the air cannot be accelerated through.

StatLap measures how far the hips rise at the barrier as a share of body height. A clearance that reads flat is running over the hurdle. A large rise is jumping it, however smooth it looked from the side of the track.

The two numbers that go with it

• Trunk dip. Hurdlers should attack the barrier with a genuine forward dip from the hips. Running tall over a hurdle floats the athlete and costs time.
• Lead-leg extension. The lead leg has to snap open over the barrier and then pull straight back down. A folded lead leg means sailing rather than cutting across.

What to do about it

Close-spacing run-throughs make floating physically impossible, which is why they work faster than any cue. Walkover leads at low height groove the dip slowly enough to correct it. Lead-leg snap-downs over a low barrier train the extend-and-pull-down that the number is really measuring.

Film from the side, square to the lane, and look at the hips rather than the feet. The feet are dramatic and tell you very little.

A single side-on camera cannot see whether the trail leg is coming through flat, which matters just as much. Film from behind as well if you can.

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