Drills for Alternating Lead Legs
by Steve McGill
At the Team Steve Speed & Hurdle Camp II that took place on March 31 – April 1 a couple weeks ago, I dedicated an entire two-hour session to teaching the hurdlers to use their weaker lead legs and alternate lead legs, both on the straight and on the curve. Almost none of the athletes had ever alternated before, so I knew I was taking a risk by even trying to get them to buy in. But my experience has been that, once you know how to teach athletes to use the weaker lead leg, they pick up on it pretty quickly. One of my biggest regrets from my own competitive years is that I was never taught – and I never taught myself – how to negotiate barriers using my weaker lead leg. I definitely feel that doing so would have helped me to run faster times in the 400m hurdles. As a right-leg lead, I was running more widely on the curve than left-leg leads. Also, as a fifteen-stepper between the hurdles, once I lost my ability to maintain that stride pattern, I had to drop down to seventeen steps. And that’s too many steps when you’re competing against some big ballers and shot callers.
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So at the camp, I put the athletes through a series of drills designed to first just get them to trust the weaker lead leg, and then to speed things up and trust the leg even more, gradually increasing the spacing to speed up the tempo.
To start with, I had four lanes set up on the straight-away. In lane two I had five 27-inch fold-up hurdles spaced 18 feet apart for an easy three-step rhythm from a jogging/high-knee approach to hurdle one. In lane four we had five 30-inch hurdles spaced 20 feet apart. In lane six we had five 33-inch hurdles spaced 22 feet apart. In lane eight we had five 36-inch hurdles spaced 24 feet apart. For those athletes who were really on the struggle bus, we set up an extra lane on the infield of just two hurdles, 24 inches high. With almost all athletes ranging from 10-18 years old, I told the least experienced athletes to line up in lane two, the more experienced girls to line up in either lane four or lane six, and the more experienced boys to line up in lane six or lane eight. I also told them that even if they were experienced but weren’t feeling all that confident in their weaker lead leg, they could start in whichever lane they felt was the safest. In addition to the youth and high school athletes, we had one collegiate athlete and one masters athlete in her early 50’s.
At first, nobody moved. Everybody just stood behind the start line in a huddled mass. Finally, after I and the other coaches prodded them to pick a lane and get started, they began to line up. Of course, almost all of them began in the two inner lanes – lanes two and four – where the hurdles were lower and spaced more closely together. I was fine with that. Better safe than sorry.
The purpose of having them start with a three-step drill instead of an alternating drill was to force the athletes to develop a trust in the weaker leg. As I told them, “hurdling is all about facing your fears. Face your fears.” Then, once they developed enough trust in the weaker leg to use it, no matter how awkward it felt, we could then move into alternating drills.
Gradually, what I hoped would happen (and, based on previous experiences in private coaching, what I expected to happen) happened. As the athletes did more reps three-stepping with the weaker leg at a slower pace, they started to grow more confident. They started to attack the barriers more aggressively. Without the prodding of any of the coaches, athletes started moving over to the lanes with the higher hurdles spaced farther apart. Arms that had been like helicopters at the start of the drill tightened up and became more efficient. Athletes who had started off by running on their heels approaching each hurdle were now tall on the balls of the feet. Males who had been looking shaky in the 30-inch lane were now looking pretty smooth in the 36-inch lane. In all the lanes, I was able to increase the spacing by a foot or two to allow for more speed between.
From there, we moved into alternating drills. I kept the height of the hurdles in each lane the same, but opened up the spacing to allow for a four-step rhythm. I reduced the amount of hurdles in each lane from five to four in order to ensure that each lead leg was getting equal work. In lane two the hurdles were 24 feet apart, in lane four they were 26 feet apart, in lane six they were 28 feet apart, and in lane 8 they were 30 feet apart.
Again, the same process occurred. At first, there was some confusion with the rhythm, but once they picked up on that, alternating didn’t pose much of a problem. Ironically, more than one athlete looked better on his or her “weaker” leg than on the leg he or she preferred to lead with. I’ve seen that happen before: because no bad habits have been developed on the weaker side, the technique on that side can actually be better for someone who has ingrained some bad habits on the stronger side. But even athletes who had never alternated before were looking pretty darn good at it. Most rewarding for the coaches was seeing the athletes’ confidence increase with every rep. Some were downright fascinated by the fact that they had proven themselves of using the other lead leg at all.
One of the things I told them at the beginning of the session was that the hard part of using the weaker lead leg is not the lead leg, but the trail leg. The leg that is usually the lead leg doesn’t want to push off, because it isn’t used to pushing off. The lack of a push is why the arms go wide and the upper body remains too erect. If you can focus on getting a good push off the back leg when leading with your weaker leg, I told the athletes, then you’ll find that this alternating thing isn’t so hard after all. And that proved to be true.
After the alternating drill on the straight-away, we moved the hurdles to the curve. Even though we were on an indoor track, that was even better for the sake of the drill, as drilling on the tighter curves will make the wider curves on an indoor track feel much easier. I don’t remember the exact spacings I used here, but I basically just took the alternating drill on the straight-away and moved it to the curve, and placed five hurdles in lanes 2, 4, 6, and 8 on the curve, with the higher, more widely-spaced hurdles in the outside lanes, and the lower, more closely-spaced hurdles in the inside lanes. And I gave the athletes the same instructions: pick a lane and go at it.
At first, there was a lot of jogging to the first hurdle and five-stepping in between. Again, the athletes were being cautious. And again, I’m fine with that. Confidence builds as reps increase. I always count on that.
And it happened again. Without any prodding from me or any of the other coaches, some of the athletes started four-stepping on their own. Some got real aggressive and were able to three-step.
Overall, we spent two hours on the drills discussed above, and by the end we had a lot of athletes confident that they could develop the ability to alternate. As I told them at the end of the session, they shouldn’t rush the process. It wouldn’t be wise to try to incorporate alternating into their long hurdling race model this year. But now that they know what drills to do, and how to do them, they can build themselves up to a point where they will have full confidence in the weaker leg by the following outdoor season. The idea is, keep doing the three-step drill at increased spacings and eventually at race height; keep doing the four-step drill at increased spacings at eventually at race height; keep doing the curve drill at increased spacings and eventually at race height. Develop confidence in the weaker leg when moving at race speed before ever trying it in a race.
My whole thing is, I like to have options. And being able to alternate gives you options. Very few hurdlers are able to retain a consistent stride pattern for an entire race. And in the long hurdles, there are always going to be extraneous factors, especially the wind. And as athletes get faster and stronger through the course of a long season, and as the weather gets warmer later in the outdoor season, a stride pattern that felt comfortable in March might feel too bunched by May or June. Therefore, some hurdlers are always in the process of adjusting their stride pattern. To me, being able to alternate is better than not being able to, even if you only use the weaker leg for one hurdle.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any video from drill sessions at the camp, but below is a video from last year of one of my athletes doing the curve drill. We started with three-stepping, then decreased the spacing for a four-step, then decreased it again for a five-step.
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