Elitetrack: Sport Training & Conditioning

What drills or workouts can you do to improve someone who has a slow/lazy trail leg?

Also, as a result of improved trail leg action, can this improve the distance taken from takeoff of hurdle to landing?

my coach has our hurdlers do a drill she calls open the door and close it, you stand next to the hurdle and snap over it with your trail leg only, it seems to have worked, we have one all state hurdler that had a lazy trail leg but with doing that drill over and over he finally got it.  sorry i cant explain it better….

I’m having trouble with my left leg as a trail leg…my right one if fine…but in the 400 hurdles i want to be able to go over with both legs…if i need to…and when i train using my right leg as my lead leg, my left trail leg hurts…my hip hurts. Now after using it a while my hip burns when i step just right. I need to fix this and my form with that leg. Anyone have any good stretches for trail legs or any tips for my problem?

yea… if you’ve been hurdling with only one leg for a while, it will start to hurt to alternate (especially in the hip/groin region).  the key is to become very flexable.  Do butterfly’s, lunges, hold your trail leg up on a hurdle and touch the ground, do some crazy leg crossover thing that i can’t explain

when you’re learning to hurdle with both legs, take your time.  It’s going to feel very strange pulling your trail leg when using your off leg.  Start off slow, get a really good warm up in.  before you even do drills, stand next to a hurdle, lean on the wall or another hurdle or something, and just pull your trail over the top of the hurdle like you’re doing drills.  But do it slowly at first.  This will get you more loosened up. 

Side note, always be sure when you’re hurdling off legged that you get your trail back to that “A” position with your knee up ready for that next step.

thats why you star off learn both legs:spin:

Good point. This way you also have equal strenght in both legs, which means less injures hopefully.

Originally posted by DaGovernor
What drills or workouts can you do to improve someone who has a slow/lazy trail leg?

Working the lead arm agressively can help to bring the trail leg around and the lead leg down.

Also, as a result of improved trail leg action, can this improve the distance taken from takeoff of hurdle to landing?

Yep. It will mean less floating over the hurdle and more speed upon landing and the subsequent runoff.

I've watched hurdlers alot this past season and it seems to me that all of the really good ones get their knees up a little higher right before the down portion of the trail leg action. I may not be wording this right, but if I am, or if anyone understands, is what i am seeing a correct assessment?

the trail leg is a circular motion over the hurdle. to practice this, try leaning over a hurdle until you are about to fall, then bring your leg around the hurdle as fast as you can to catch yourself. also, try leaning on a fence and rotating you trail leg as you would over a hurdle in a circular motion. Hope this helps.

Best thing to do is put the hurdles in a pit together and as you go over bring your legs dead infront of you and then bring it down
doing this slowly will really help!!

I don't quite understand this.  Could you explain this drill a little more?