Help!!!taking off too far from hurdles?

Question

My daughter hurdle time is 15.4, her best, but we know she can get in the 14's if we can figure out how to get her closer to the hurdle at take off, she's been "hitch/kicking" (instead of having a "get away stride" . ( a coach told her to do this and I have come to see that, that not the correct position coming off the hurdle) coming off the hurdle which causes her to come too far away from the hurdle as she continue to run.

Answer 1

i coach high school hurdles and i believe taking off far from the hurdles is a good thing.  hurdlers follow a parabolic path and it's more efficient to reach the hurdle in the downward decent.  you want her lead leg to always be on its way down and that generates power.  i would recommend you ask her to give more of a pronounced lean.  a simple exercise would be to stand up straight and perform a trail leg motion.  then get into normal hurdle lean and perform it.  and at last, perform the trial leg with extra lean.  you should notice the last one will be the easiest to perform since the trail leg automatically comes up with extra lean.  if her trail leg is delayed, the issue just may be the arms.  arms should no be too far out in front or back or to the sides.  also, the quicker the arms move atop the hurdle the quicker the trail leg moves.  remind her that hurdling is sprinting in between and atop the hurdles.  as long as she makes an efficient transition back into sprinting, she'll do great.  good luck and if you can, record her race and send it to me.

Answer 2

show her some videos from youtube of some one doing it the way she should be. one day in practice have the coach just help her work on it.

Answer 3

If  you are saying she lands too far away from the hurdle after clearing it, then the way to get back to the ground quickly is to stand up. Her lean is to compensate for the mass of the lead leg, and as she clears the hurdle if she will straighten up it will help get the lead leg back on the ground quickly.

If she  is taking off to far from the hurdle on clearance then she need to adjust her stride to get to the correct distance.

This usually happens because of a short first step after clearance.

To correct this, have her take the trail leg and as she brings it through think about stuffing the knee in her arm pit, this causes the leg to come up so that when the lower leg is brought down it is in line with the direction of travel and pointing forward, to make a longer stride with the trail leg drive the opposite arm up higher than usual as you push off of the lead leg.

The first stride is usually 70 to 80% of the regular strides but if it looks like both feet are on the ground at the same time she is not driving off the lead leg and is collapsing.

If this first stride is longer than will allow the runner to be closer to the next hurdle.