It’s very difficult to differentiate beneficial technique from stylistic technique in the hurdles because of so many differing factors between athletes. Ideally, it would be nice to have two elite identical twins to test on, but that’s not very likely to happen any time soon. I know that, talking to Ralph Mann (while I do not completely agree), that he is of the opinion that 7 step is absolutely the way to go. I also know that last year, even when Aries set the WR, that he was very much scrunched up in the blocks from being not used to the 7 step yet, and that they have since moved him back (about a foot) into a more powerful starting position. It will be interesting to see how this affects his race.
I completely agree – from an athlete’s point of view – that hurdle 1 very much sets up my race, and my times are quite consistently poor when I even slightly float off the first hurdle.
I feel as though it would be worth it to implement force plate analysis to look at drop stepping and rolling off the lead leg after the hurdle in conjunction with the Optojump gates, like what they’re doing with LJ/TJ right now.
