5 Best Hurdle Drills to Improve Race Performance

Through my experience as a high school and then collegiate hurdler, these are some of the drills that I have found to improve my form and times and take my hurdling to the next level. The first drill is simple hurdle step overs. These may seem mundane but they allow you to feel each movement you need to make over the hurdle. The key with this drill is spacing the hurdles out a bit, I usually place them one hurdle apart, and then focusing on pulling your trail leg through and brushing the hurdle in front as you place it back down. Another important thing to remember with this drill is to be intentional with your arms as this will help you keep the arms in the right place during the race. The second drill that I really like are similar to step overs but you only put one leg in between the hurdles. This allows me to really feel my hips loosening up and I usually start my drilling with this drill for that reason. The key here is once again to really bring that trail leg through and try and exaggerate the motion it should make. This will once again be really beneficial in helping you maintain body position in the race. The third drill that I would recommend is over unders. These once again loosen the hips and build that mobility that you need to have as a hurdler. They also allow you to focus a bit on the over the hurdle form, but I mainly use these for mobility purposes. When doing these, put the hurdles as low as possible to really get that deep stretch through the drill. A fourth drill that I really like are one step drills. These really focus on rhythm and speed with hurdling. All you do is space the hurdles out 3 hurdle distances and then run through the hurdles on the side so you only focus on one leg per run through. The leg that is being drilled is always the leg closest to the hurdles and I try and go over the top with that leg to better simulate hurdling. For the lead leg portion I think of it as doing a B-skip but a bit more hurdle form than B-skip form. Then the trail leg is how you would expect. When doing these drills the focus is on rhythm over speed  but I have found that doing these at an up tempo pace are really useful for feeling that rhythm. Lastly, I think that doing wall drills can really help the feeling you need to have over the hurdle, almost making it second nature to your body. When doing these focus hard on being intentional about where you are placing your lead leg over the hurdle and on bringing your trail leg all the way up and through. Doing this will make it easier to do in a race when your mind shuts off and thinking makes you falter. All these drills will take your hurdling to the next level if you focus on being intentional and making the right movements.