Hurdles drills

Hurdling is considered as a sprints event and it is also one of the most technical event. It requires high coordination and flexibility to execute the movement. Breaking the motion up into lead leg training and trail leg training. The video shown below is to focus on the trail leg. To maximise forward movement, the trail leg should be crossing the hurdles as close as possible to minimise flight time. This will allow more speed over hurdles (sprinting) and not jumping over hurdles. The medial side of your legs should be facing the ground when crossing the hurdle, and driving the knees towards the chest.

As mentioned above, Hurdling is a sprints event. In between hurdles should be as quick as possible. It is a rhythmic run, with 2 fast contacts before and after hurdles. Hurdlers should be trained to have proper hurdling technique and not neglecting the nature of the event; Speed. In between hurdles should be approximately 1.00s to 1.02s for a 14.5 - 14.7s 110m hurdler. Speed training, power, plyometrics training is very essential for Hurdlers. Plyometrics especially, for the fast eccentric phase. Hakeem, stopped hurdling for close to a year, Just got back for hurdling training for 2 months, did close to his PB. His technique has been very nice and he is well coordinated. We did nothing but speed and strength. Pls enjoy the training video.

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Acceleration

The following pictures are from Dartfish analysis. The pictures are in sequence. The lines are to serve as a guide as to see whether he fully extending his segments. Extending his hip area and legs to gain maximum distance. Very often athletes focusing too much of frequency in the acceleration phase, causing fatique and not covering distance to the optimum.

This pictures shows the fully extended leg on the ground before off ground contact. Although not perfect, this is good enough for the acceleration phase. The 2 lines shows the angle difference of the body from the 1st 3 to 4 steps to the rest of the contacts. However, please take a look at the next picture. This is something i cannot explain...

It could be the tightness of the hipflexor, that he is unable to extend his hip area. From physiotherapist point of view, it is due to the weakness of the core muscle that he is unable to activate his core as much and therefore activated his hipflexor instead. Or, it could just be that he was too eager to go for the next step.

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Plyometrics training using hurdles

Hurdles Jumps by Fendi

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Commonwealth Youth Games - Pune, India

It has been a super long time since i last blog about our training matters. Has been travelling quite abit and no time to sit down to blog. Just came back from India, Pune from Commonwealth Youth Games. 2 sprinters went. Balpreet and Calvin. Both manage to enter up to semi finals. Calvin missed by 0.01s to the finals.

Balpreet Heats: 12.47s, semi: 12.37s

Calvin Heats: 10.94s, semi: 10.76s

After watching the 100m finals, I realised that running technique is really important. that is why I'm very particular in running mechanics. making sure drills and interval runs are done properly. Abeypitiyage Shehan Sadaruwan from Sri Lanka confirmed my statement. With close to perfection running technique, fantastic legs frequency and cycling action, with arms pumping vigoriously and relax at the same time. He is a class above all. He is not bulky, not very tall, doesn't look like a sprinter, but he ran 10.43s in the finals.

Balpreet Kaur Purba and Abeypitiyage Shehan Sadaruwan

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Strength Training

Let me share some of my basic exercises that I would require everyone to be able to execute it. Warming up in the gym, I will make use of the swiss ball to do body stabilizer exercises to activate and "wake up" the muscles. The clips below demonstrate 2 exercises that I've included in my warm up before strength training.

There are many variation to this swiss ball exercises, e.g. rolling to the left and right diagonally. Focus of this exercise is that you have to firm up your abs and core area, keeping your body straight like a plank and control your breathing, never hold your breath!

Forward Roll

Next is the Knees Tug in, same as the Forward roll, keeping abs and core area firm, movement is only from the legs, pushing the ball outwards and bringing it back with your knees tug in.

Knees Tug In

In between the exercises, we will do our stretching, focusing more on dynamic stretching, with more swings on the upperbody and legs. And we are ready for our strength training!

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