How do you decide when to move a hurdler up in height?
The hurdle height should follow the stride pattern, not the calendar or the age group.
A hurdler outgrows a height before a coach usually notices, because the races still look fine from the stands. The tell is not speed. It is whether the stride pattern between hurdles has started to change without anybody asking it to.
The pattern is the signal
An athlete running a clean three-step rhythm at a given height, hurdle after hurdle, with the same lead leg and no chop before takeoff, has room in that height. One who is starting to add a small stutter step, or switch lead legs partway through a race to survive, is being asked to fold down and cover ground the current height no longer fits. That is the moment to raise it, not a birthday or a meet on the calendar.
What to look at over a few sessions
- Three or four races or reps at the current height, clean, with the same number of strides between every hurdle.
- No lead-leg switching to avoid trailing the wrong leg.
- A trail leg that comes through fast and low rather than dragging around the side.
What the Film Room reports for hurdles
The hurdles setting measures trunk dip over the barrier, lead-leg extension, how far the hips rise at the hurdle, and overstride between barriers. A rising hip number without a change in trunk dip is often the first sign that an athlete is starting to float rather than run over the barrier, which usually shows up before the stride count does.
A side-on camera reads the lead leg well because it extends straight out toward the lens. The trail leg comes through off to the side and low, and that half of the clearance is the part a single camera genuinely struggles to show, so a coach's eye at track level still decides more of this than the numbers do.
Time your next meet with the phones you already have
Timing, the Film Room and the speed gates are free forever. Publishing results to your own page starts at $59 a month.
Related
Why does your hurdler take a different number of strides between each hurdle?
The step count between hurdles is a symptom, not the problem, and Film Room's overstride number usually moves before the pattern actually breaks.
Read →How do you adjust a hurdler's rhythm when the hurdle height goes up?
Same steps, same speed, a few extra centimetres of bar, and the rhythm that used to be automatic stops working.
Read →How many steps should a hurdler take to the first hurdle?
Seven and eight both show up at the highest level of the sport, so the number that matters is not tradition, it is whether the athlete arrives at the mark running over the barrier rather than jumping it.
Read →Try it: Hurdle technique analysis from video: trunk dip, lead leg, hip rise