Why does my hurdler duck so low over the barrier that it slows them down?
Dropping the chest low over the hurdle feels like the safe way to clear it, but the extra dip costs the exact forward drive a hurdler needs on landing.
A hurdler who ducks their chest down toward their knee to clear the barrier looks like they are being careful. Often they are paying for it on the ground a stride later, because a low dip over the hurdle is a slow way to clear one.
Why low feels safe and costs speed
Dropping the trunk low over the hurdle reduces the chance of clipping it, so it is a fault athletes find on their own without anyone teaching it to them. The trade is that a deep dip pushes the hips down and back at exactly the point they need to keep driving forward, and the landing leg has to reach further down to catch a body that dropped further than it needed to. That reach is what turns into a stutter step on the ground.
What it looks like from the side
- The head and chest drop well below where they sit during a normal running stride, not just a slight forward lean.
- The lead leg straightens early and stays extended for longer than one stride's worth of clearance needs.
- The landing comes down short and flat instead of driving straight into the next stride.
What the Film Room reports here
The hurdles setting on the Film Room reads trunk dip over the barrier directly, along with lead-leg extension, how far the hips rise at the hurdle, and overstride between barriers. Trunk dip is measured against a hurdling stride, not a sprinting one, so a hurdler dipping more than the clearance actually requires shows up as a number, not just a coach's impression.
A side-on camera can measure how far the trunk dropped. It cannot tell a coach whether that athlete is dipping out of habit, out of a genuine fear of clipping the hurdle, or because the hurdle is simply too high for them right now, and those three need different fixes even though they produce the same number.
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Related
Why does my hurdler lose speed between the hurdles even though the clearance looks clean?
Clearing every barrier well does not guarantee the three steps in between are still sprinting, and that is where the time usually goes.
Read →Should the lead leg be straight over a hurdle?
Nearly, for an instant, but how the leg gets there matters far more than how straight it ends up.
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 →Try it: Hurdle technique analysis from video: trunk dip, lead leg, hip rise