Hurdle Agility Drills & Tips

In this video lesson, Athletics Instructor Saidia Rafel teaches about hurdling warm ups for hurdle drills and hurdling in this free video on great hurdling.



Video Transcript: SAIDIA RAFEL: "Hi everyone, my name is Saida Rafel, and I'm here with Expert Village at my alma mater UCLA, and on my home turf at UCLA Drake Stadium track, where I'll be showing you, as an expert hurdler, how to do some breakdown in the 100 meters and 400-meter hurdling. So what we're going to start with, we're going to start with some basic drills that all sprinters and hurdlers do, and then I'm going to show you some drills that are specific for hurdlers only. Then, we're going to put out the hurdles, and I'll show you how to build up to going over the hurdle. And then, finally, we'll finish up with some plyometrics, which is basically the fundamentals of building up strength and conditioning for the hurdles. Ok, so what we're going to do is - one of the key things about being a great hurdler is that you always have to make sure that your body is nice and warmed up before you get on the track because hurdling takes a lot of speed, it takes a lot of strength, it takes a lot of agility. So the best way to get your body prepared for that is to warm up. And like I said, we're going to start with some basic warm-ups that every sprinter, hurdler, distance runners, we all do these types of drills. The first one I'm going to start with is called the A skip. An A skip is pretty much - it's just a skip going down the track. You want to do about 50 meters of those and come back, and you can repeat it twice. And then we're going to do the B skip, which is the same thing, it's just up, to the side, up. And then we're going to do the C skip, which is simply up, to the side, and out. And then we're also going to do karaokes - no, it doesn't involve singing - it's just simply side to side with a big hop at the end. Something a little bit like a karate-type style of warming up. And then, it's a more complicated type of drill, too, so if you're a beginner, and you're new at this, you can definitely save the karaokes, but it's an excellent warm-up to do. And then we also have like the sideways warm-up, which gives it a lot of arm action, gets your arms warmed up that way. And then we also have walking lunges that you do and a little bit more stretching at the end to get you prepared for the hurdle drills and then for actually going over the hurdles. So let's go ahead and get started."

In this video lesson, Athletics Instructor Saidia Rafel teaches the A, B, and C skip hurdle agility drills in this free hurdling tutorial on great hurdling.



Video Transcript: SAIDIA RAFEL: " we're going to do the A skip. One thing you'll notice is when I'm doing the A skip I'm always going to be on the balls of my feet. That way, I'm building up not only my calf muscles but also strengthening up my legs. When you actually go over the hurdle you're using leg action. You always have to practice staying on the balls of your feet and not be flat footed. So, the A skip simply involves opposite arm, opposite leg action. So, up, plant your foot down. Then alternate leg, plant your foot down. We're going to be moving as we do this. Check it out. Up, plant your foot down, up, plant your foot down. You'll be skipping when you do this. (video demo) That's the A skip. Now we're going to do the B skip. The difference between the A skip and the B skip is simply that when you go up you want to kick out when you come down. You want to practice that hurdle motion of planting your foot down when you come out. So, up on the balls of your feet, as always, opposite arm, opposite leg. Up, out, up, out. (video demo) That's the B skip. Now, the C skip is the most complicated of the three skips because it involves a lot of coordination and rhythm. Think of a beat in your head and all you have to do, like the A skip, you're going up, you're going down, but you also want to turn to the side. That makes it the C skip. You're up, you're down, to the side, you're down, you're up, and you're moving forward as you do this. So, up, down, side. You want to do that in a skipping motion with alternate legs as well. (video demo) That's the C skip. Now, high knees action. You're going to see this particular drill all across the board when it comes to sports. You might see some football players do it and basketball players do it. It's really a good exercise to do to get your heart rate up a little bit and to get warmed up. This one is called high knees. It's a high knee skip, or just high knees. All you're doing, you can actually do this in place, is you're going like this as high as you can go and you're moving forward as you go. And, just for me to emphasize, you want to do all these drills two times, up and back, for about 40 to 50 meters. Up and back and then turn around. Up and then turn around and come back for 50 meters, twice. That's the high knee. Now, for one of my favorites. It's pretty fun, actually, it's called karaoke?s. Again, no singing. What we have to do is turn to the side and you turn like this and you jump up. It's a little difficult to do it when you're stationary. But as you get moving, you're simply like this and you skip over. You're arm is going to go back around you. That's karaoke. Now we have butt kicks. Very basic. Self-explanatory. You're going to be doing the running motion just like this and you're going to start kicking your butt as you move along down the track. This is a very good exercise for working on your fascia muscles. All of these drills actually are to build up fascia muscles. When you're doing the 100 meter hurdles, the 400 meter hurdles even, building up your fascia muscles and really training your muscles to remember to be quick and fast along the track is really going to help you in your hurdling career, if that's what you want to make it, to help your athlete build up that quick speed fascia muscles. That's the butt kick. This last drill, I just call it side to side, because that's what you're doing. You're going down the track one way and down the track the other way. While you're going you're swinging your arm side to side over your head. Again, you're incorporating your arms, getting your arms warmed up as well as your legs. So, you're just going side-to-side, side-to-side. That's the side to side."

In this video lesson, Athletics Instructor Saidia Rafel teaches about the hurdle warm up drills to build up your quads and hip flexors in this free hurdling tutorial video.



Video Transcript: SAIDIA RAFEL: "Ok, so now we're here against the wall, where we're going to do some very functional, hurdle-specific exercises that are going to 1) continue to help you to warm up before you start on the hurdles, and 2) there's also some drills that will help you to strengthen up your hip flexors and your quads as well. So we're going to get you started with the warm-up drills that's also going to build up flexibility and range of motion. Because hurdling involves a lot of flexibility and agility when you want to be a good athlete, ok? So first we're going to start with the side to side ones, ok? So what you're going to do is you're going to be on the balls of your feet, as always. Remember, always be on the balls of your feet. And you're going to start with your right leg, and you're going to go in, ok, and then come out, all right? So it's almost like a ballet move, all right? So you want to go in and out, ok? And you're going to do every exercise, each leg, ten times twice, all right? So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. Ok? And you're going to do that with your left leg, as well. So then, turning forward, this way, with your outside leg, you're going to do a similar thing, except you're going front to back, front to back. Ok? That one was for your hip flexors. This one is also for your flexibility, ok, because when you're hurdling, you're moving forward, so you want to also do that. Again, balls of your feet, starting back. 1, 2, and you can even do this, all right? Just let your toes, touch your hand, so that you know that you're always going up equal distance. Ok? All the way until you do 10. Ok, so now we're doing the hurdle drills that are going to be building up strength as well as flexibility, ok? So this one is some good hip flexor exercises. Starting with, what you want to do is, you want to face the wall, all right? And again, on the balls on your foot, we're going to do a trail-leg exercise. And for those of you who might not know what a trail-leg is, there's two legs in a hurdling race: there's the trail leg and the lead leg. So if you don't know which one is which for you or your athlete, just hang on a moment and I'll go ahead and explain to you how you can find out and help determine which leg would be your lead leg and which one is your trail leg, and what purposes they serve in hurdling. OK? So check it out. All right. So you want to get on the balls of your feet. And then for the trail leg, you always want to start leaning forward, ok, bringing that trail leg up. My trail leg is my right leg, ok? So you bring it up, you cock it to the side, you want to flex your foot to the side, as well. That's called "Dorsey flexing," ok? So you want to flex it to the side, just like this, all right? Up, side and over, ok? And when you bring it over, you want to snap that leg down, ok? So this is just a drill, you want to do about ten times, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and you just do that ten times. You go over to the other side, do the same thing with your lead leg. My lead leg is my left leg. It changes person to person which one's the lead, which one's the trail. In my case, my lead leg is my left leg, but I'm also going to practice the trail-leg drill with my lead leg. Whatever you do with one leg, you want to do with the other leg, ok?"

In this video lesson, Athletics Instructor Saidia Rafel teaches how to do the quad raise hurdle exercise drill in this free hurdling tutorial video.



Video Transcript: SAIDIA RAFEL: "Ok, now this next drill, I call it the "quad raise" and it's a lead leg drill. So what you want to do, again, you want to get on the balls of your feet. Go ahead and prop yourself up against a wall or a pole, just something to help you keep your balance. And you're going to raise up this leg, Dorsey-flexing your foot, meaning that your toes should be pointed towards the sky. So you just Dorsey-flex your foot, and you bring it out, 1, and you do that ten times, ok? Step down, bring it up, 2. Step down, bring it up, 3. Step down, bring it up, 4. Step down bring it up, 5, ok? And you want to make sure that - normally, in a 100-meter hurdle race, the hurdles is at 33 inches, so on this case, depending on the height of your athlete, you can raise it up an extra three inches, so that way, they're having to bring their legs up even higher than when they're normally running. And that really helps to strengthen up the legs, helps to bring that lead leg up every time. The last thing that you want to happen is to have an athlete in a race, because they don't have that basic foundation of strength, clip the hurdle and fall over. So this drill really helps you to build up the strength in the leg, and as you can see, it's a very strenuous exercise and it takes a lot of time and practice to have that athlete build up the strength. Ok? And that drill is called the "quad leg" drill."

In this video lesson, Athletics Instructor Saidia Rafel teaches how to do the karaoke hurdle agility drill in this free tutorial on tips for great hurdling.



Video Transcript: SAIDIA RAFEL: "And, we're back. We're on the track and we're taking the basics of what we learned over there and we're going to transition over here to the hurdles. I know you guys have been waiting to see these bad boys. The first drill we're going to do, there's two parts to this drill. I like to call it the karaoke hurdle drill because it's similar to what I was showing you at the very beginning with the basic sprint warm-up drills. The first one, we're going to be standing in place and the second one we're going to be moving down the track. This is called the karaoke hurdle drill. With the karaoke hurdle drill what you want to do, again, is always opposite arm opposite leg action and staying on the balls of your feet. When you come up, you come over and when you come up, you come over. You should have a rhythm going when you do this for the stationary drill. Simply get a little bounce going and up, up, up, and you're going inside as you go. Then you can also reverse that motion and go out. It's a lot easier, as you can see, to go out for this drill. What it does is it gets you on a rhythm, gets your flexibility going and keep building up your strength. Like I said, you can also do it going down as you hurdle as well. Up, up, up, up, up. Then reverse the direction. Up, up, up. This is a good way to switch things up so that he workout isn't getting monotonous, you're athlete is continuing to build and build up that foundation in the fundamentals of hurdling. That's the karaoke hurdle drill."

In this video lesson, Athletics Instructor Saidia Rafel teaches how to determine which leg is your lead leg for hurdling in this free video on hurdlers' tips and techniques.



Video Transcript: SAIDIA RAFEL: "I know I promised you that if you didn't know how to determine which leg was the lead leg and which leg was the trail leg, I said I would give you some suggestions on how to find out which leg is lead and which leg is trail for yourself or for your athlete. What I'm going to do is borrow one of the crewmembers and give you an example. The first thing you do is simply by asking the person are they left handed or right handed. "I'm right handed." So, Lou is right handed. Chances are he's probably a right leg lead. But, that's not always a guarantee, because I'm right handed and I'm actually a left leg lead. So, there are always exceptions. There's about, I would say generally speaking, 90% of hurdlers if they're right handed, they're right leg lead, if they're left handed, they're left leg lead. That's just one way. The second way is to do the under sided push test. I'll ask Lou to turn around. Just stand straight. I'll give him a little nudge. As you notice, he stepped forward with his left leg first. So, there's actually the possibility, the strong possibility, that he could be a left leg lead even though he's right handed, like I mentioned. A third way to ascertain and make absolutely sure which leg your hurdler is to simply have them do a test hurdle flight over the hurdles. We're not going to have Lou do that but that is a great way to figure it out. Simply have the hurdler go over the hurdle to see which is more comfortable. If you see that they go over with their left leg first, and then get them to go over with their right leg. Whichever one looks more in control that's the leg that's going to be the lead leg. Meaning that the leg that's going to go over first. The trail leg, hence the word trail, is the one that's going to follow the person over the hurdle. That's how you find out, which leg is lead and which leg is trail."

In this video lesson, Athletics Instructor Saidia Rafel teaches some hurdle agility drills for your lead leg and trail leg.



Video Transcript: SAIDIA RAFEL: "Now, after you have determined which leg is your lead leg and which leg is your trail leg you want to do some lead leg trail leg exercises over the hurdles. We're taking everything we've built up from the wall, from our drills earlier to here, where all the action is. We're going to start with some walking drills and then we'll do some skipping. First, we're going to do the trail leg. The trail leg drill simply, you want to start at about the edge of the hurdle and do arm action, leg down, bring it over and down. That's one trail leg. Every time you bring it down you want to bring it down with emphasis because you're going in forward motion. All you're body language, your body should be geared toward moving forward. So, arm action, down, down. That's the walking drill. You want to do it over about 6 hurdles, maybe 10, depending on the time frame you're working with, what your entire workout is going to consist of. So, anywhere between 6 and 10 hurdles, doing it twice on each side for the trail leg. Then, we're going to cross over and also do the lead leg trail. What you did on that side for the trail leg, you want to do on this side as well for the lead leg. Now we're on the lead leg side. This left leg is my lead leg and, as I mentioned, everything you do with one leg you want to do with the other leg. We're going to start out with my lead leg. Again, on the balls of your foot. You want to dorsie flex that foot when you come over the hurdle starting from about the edge of the hurdle. You want to bring it up and just kind of simulate. You don't necessarily have to go completely over the hurdle, just go on the side of the hurdle. So, just up and down. Bring it up and down. Just like a smooth motion. And, depending again, on the height of the hurdler. I'm considered tall for a hurdler. These hurdles are at 30 inches so you also want to base your spacing off of the leg length of the hurdler. That's a little bit complex so we're just going to keep it simple at this point. So simply work on building strength in the calves, building strength in the hamstrings and the quads. This is what the purpose of this drill is for. So, you're just going up, snap it down, go up, snap it down, go up, snap it down. That's the lead leg drill."

In this video lesson, Athletics Instructor Saidia Rafel teaches skipping hurdle agility drills to become better at hurdling in this free video on hurdling tips and techniques.



Video Transcript: SAIDIA RAFEL: "Now we're going to step it up a notch and get moving from walking drills to skipping drills. Before I get started showing you some great hurdle action I'm going to take a swig of my Aquafina to stay hydrated. It's very important that when you're working out, any type of exercise, that you keep a trusted bottle of a power drinks or water to the side. I personally like to drink water during the workout and then drink PowerAde, Gatorade after the workout to get those electrolytes back into my system. Stay hydrated. It's very important and it will help you have an excellent, efficient and fun workout. What I'm going to do is demonstrate some skipping drills. We're going to do over the side, left leg lead, my right leg trail leg, and then I'm going to do some skipping over the top. How I place the hurdles is, I did it 6 feet apart. The way to measure your 6 feet is simply one foot in front of the other starting from the edge of the hurdle, like this. Put one foot in front of the other. That's how I measured it. Just to show you, one, two, three, four, five, six. Then do it again at this point. One, two, three, four, five, six. Measure it that way and then you'll have your spacing for the hurdles. We're going to jump up and I'll show you how to do some skipping drills."

In this video lesson, Athletics Instructor Saidia Rafel teaches how to alternate steps when hurdling to be able to lead with your lead leg or trail leg in this free video on hurdling tips.



Video Transcript: SAIDIA RAFEL: "We did some walking, we did some skipping. I want to take you into a running drill going over three hurdles. What's interesting about this drill is that normally when you're in competition in a 100-meter hurdle, you're going to do 3 steps in between each hurdle. For the women, 8 meters separate the hurdles, for the men it's about 10 meters in between. So, ideally you want to do 3 steps in between each hurdle. But, for this exercise I'm going to actually do 4 steps just to show you that alternating is also an option. Some coaches actually train their athletes to be alternate hurdlers. Especially in high school you'll notice that for the 100-meter hurdlers a lot of high school students can do 4 steps in between. When it gets to the collegiate level that tends to die down and you do 3 steps in between. But, when you get to the 400-meter hurdles it really, really comes in handy with the 400 meter hurdles to do alternating steps. If you land on...your dominate leg is your lead leg, your less dominate leg is your trail leg. So, if you land on your trail leg you can actually still go over the hurdle with some control. Also, when fatigue hits in you're not always able to get the same number of steps in between the hurdles as you go around the track. So, to be able to alternate helps you and it allows you cushion and saves you a lot of airtime when you're going over the hurdle if you know how to alternate. I'm going to go over the first hurdle with my lead leg, left leg lead. I'm going to do the second hurdle with my trail leg going over as my lead. The third hurdle I'll go back to my left leg lead and finish up that exercise. That's just going over 100 meter hurdles with alternating steps."

In this video lesson, Athletics Instructor Saidia Rafel teaches the hurdle bounding drill to help you increase your hurdle agility in this free hurdling video tutorial.



Video Transcript: SAIDIA RAFEL: "Alright, so now I brought you over to the grass where I'm going to show you some basic plyometric movements and what plyometrics are is just pretty much the body's way of developing core strength and agility and movements that are the foundation for events such as hurdling, long jumping, triple jumping, high jump, pole vault, you can transfer it over to volleyball. Volleyball players also do plyometrics, basketball players. Anything that can that is going to give you that vertical lift and movement as well as a horizontal motion for events like the hundred meter hurdles, long jump, triple jump. Okay, so the first one were going to do is called bounding and what bounding is, is your pretty much doing just that. Opposite arm, opposite leg action where it's almost like a leap, but your also trying to get vertical motion as well. Then were also going to do ups and downs and ups and downs are simply, if you recall the A skip, like the A skip except your going to be going up in to the air and your going to have that arm action bringing you up and a lift, okay. So when your doing the boundings, the first one that I showed you, that in itself can be a work out in itself. So let's say for example you have a workout regiment where your training your athlete Monday through Friday. Well on Wednesday if you want to get them off the track for a little bit, bring them on the grass and have them do some plyometric workouts. So the first set of workouts you can have a hundred meters of bounding up and back without any rest. I know it sounds merciless, but it's actually a very strong core developing workout that you could do. Then with the ups and downs you really only want to do about forty to fifty meters of that, up and back six times. Then there is also another set plyometrics that I'll show you on the stairs after this exercise here."

In this video lesson, Athletics Instructor Saidia Rafel teaches how to do hurdle agility drills like stadium hops and lunges to become better hurdlers in this free video on hurdling tips.



Video Transcript: SAIDIA RAFEL: "So now we're here on the stairs, we took it from the grass. We're still doing some plyometric routines here. This one, were going to do three, I'll show you three. The first one is called double leg hops. The second one is called single leg hops and the third one is called lunges. Now double leg hops and single leg hops is pretty much just simply building strength in the legs, your power in the legs. Your loading your leg to have that momentum when you get on the track and when your running on the track your using a lot of speed and agility, but plyometrics are simply to build power and to load your legs and to build the muscle that's going to take you through a good hurdle exercising and ultimately competition. So the first one, double leg hops. Simply your on the bottom of the stairs, arms to the side, you load up like a spring and you jump and as you jump your arms come up with you. It's simply to help you with balance so you don't fall over, okay. So double leg hops and you just keep going, you don't stop and for single leg hops, single leg hops similar thing except your on one leg. Same thing with your arms, range of motion, up and you do one leg at time, single leg. See you want to go all the way up the flight of stairs one leg and then walk it back down and then go up again with the other leg. So as your first starting you might not be able to make it all the way up, but as you get stronger your building up that stamina, you should be able to make it all the way the flight of stairs. With double leg hops walk down, single leg left leg, single leg right leg and then the last one that I mentioned is called vertical lunge. So what your doing is your going in a vertical motion because the stairs are at an incline and your going to skip two stairs. If your six feet tall you probably might be able to do three, but if your about average size person you want to do about two steps and what your doing is your simply building up the muscles in your hamstrings and your quads are getting a good stretch with the leg that's behind you. So your simply opposite arm, opposite leg again, up and you want to lift. You really want to lift with the lead leg that's in front of you, so that your quad is getting the maximum amount of a workout going, okay. So again down like this, up, down, up and as you can see also my calves are even getting a good workout in there too. So sometimes you go to the gym and you have weights and you do those lunges, well this is in exchange for weights as well your doing the vertical motion. You can get that maximum range of motion as you go up and that will again transfer over to the track when your running and your doing your exercises. Okay, so that's double leg hops, single leg hops and vertical lunge."

In this video lesson, Athletics Instructor Saidia Rafel teaches the straight leg hurdling warm up in this free video on hurdling tips to become a better hurdler.



Video Transcript: SAIDIA RAFEL: "Then we have the straight leg drill which goes into the beginning of the workout. As I said, this is a general type of warm-up that any athlete can do but it really helps with the hurdlers because it allows for maximum range of motion, flexibility, warming up your hip flexors, and getting an ultimate range of motion when you're warming up. This is called the straight leg drill. People also call it the scissors. You simply one leg out and an arm out and just touch your toes. Alternate and do that as you move down the track and skip. It's like this. You want to keep your leg straight. You don't want to bend it so much just so that you can reach your toes. You want to build up that flexibility to where you can actually hit your toes with your leg straight. That's the straight leg drill."

In this video lesson, Athletics Instructor Saidia Rafel teaches the basic tips for great hurdling such as how to warm up and how to choose hurdling attire in this free hurdling video tutorial.



Video Transcript: SAIDIA RAFEL: "Before we close out I just want emphasize the importance of proper attire that you wear. When it comes to being an athlete and a hurdler you can't just jump on the track and just run with it. You have to have the right clothing, as you can see what I'm wearing today is pretty standard for an athlete who serious about their workout. You can wear a simple cotton t-shirt just like this. It's really good to wear cotton because it absorbs sweat, so that way your not dripping. Your not perspiring so much, it takes on everything. A good sports bra, if your a female, that's form fitting. Some decent shorts or you could wear tight fitting form clothes. With hurdling you don't want to have loose clothing to get in your way of going over the hurdle, it could be dangerous and always wear some good shoes. My preference, I love Asics, I love Brooks, I love Mizunos. Those are the top line running shoes that I wear. Of course you have Nike's, Adidas as well. You pretty much the type of foot you have. It's best to go to a store that specializes in running shoes. So what I have on today, I have a pair of Brooks adrenaline. This is my second pair of these shoes, I found that they are very good for my foot. I tend to pronate, which is a way my feet turn in when I run, so these shoes are specialized in helping my foot to stay on track as I run on the track. So it's always good to go to a running store and they will fit you for the right shoes to wear. So that's for attire, now for what you put into your body before you come on to the track for workout is very important. The last thing that you would want to do is to come to a practice on a empty stomach. It's very inefficient. It's like going for a road trip in a car that has no gas in it, chances are it's going to die. So what I have with me here, just for example, is a protein bar and a bottle of water. Very simple, what I do is I eat a protein bar before I workout and always have my water with me. Normally you workout to about an hour and a half to two hours and then I go, after working out, and have a good breakfast or depending on the time of day a good lunch. So it's important to have food in your stomach so you can have fuel to burn as your workout, okay and then lastly a good stretch. It's good to stretch before a workout and as well as after a workout. I always stretch after a workout as well because you really been giving your muscles a lot of work and put a lot of stress on your body. It's always good to take ten to fifteen, even twenty minutes to give a good stretch to your arms, your legs, your stomach, your calves, your quads. Break it down and just do it piece by piece. There's videos on good stretches you can do. Your coach might know a good stretch you can do, but all of that is really going to determine how good of a hurdler your going to be. So thank you again, my name is Saidia Rafel and I am an expert hurdler."