Why I Spend More Time on Trail Leg Development
by Steve McGill

While, as I’ve stated before, I believe that the lead leg and trail leg are equally important to a hurdler’s ability to clear hurdles efficiently and effectively, I find that I spend more time on getting the trail leg right than I do working on the lead leg. There’s a simple reason for that: the trail leg comes from behind. And because it comes from behind, its movements are more complicated than the movements of the lead leg. While the lead leg can continue over the hurdle in an exaggerated up-and-down, knee-first motion that mimics the sprinting motion, the trail leg has to wrap around the hurdle, with the groin opening after the foot leaves the ground, and then closing again during descent off the hurdle. 

Whether you’re talking about beginning hurdlers, advanced hurdlers or super elite hurdlers, the trail leg has to constantly be worked on. Let’s talk about beginners first, since it’s in the early stages of hurdling development that bad habits can become ingrained and cause all sorts of problems.

The biggest issue with beginners (and it’s one that I’m working through with two beginners I’m currently coaching) is the tendency to kick back with the trail leg after the foot leaves the ground. With both of my current beginners, I’ve gotten them to where they run on the balls of their feet with their ankles dorsi-flexed when there are no hurdles in the way. When clearing hurdles, the lead leg performs the movements correctly — knee-first, attacking on a slightly downhill angle. My observation has been that with the downhill style, the lead leg doesn’t need to be cued to attack the track. We don’t have to think in terms of “snapdown” and we don’t need to emphasize the need for an “active” lead leg. Because the knee is well above the crossbar, it’s already in position to simply run off the hurdle. And that aggressive will be naturally aggressive just because the athlete is running fast.

With the trail leg, meanwhile, I’ve been having a lot more trouble getting it to behave the way I want it to. With both of the beginners I’m coaching now, the trail leg still wants to kick back when it’s time to clear the hurdle. As a result, with all the drills we have been doing, we have been placing a huge emphasis on getting the trail leg to cooperate and to function the way we want it to.

The wall drill has been effective in teaching the movements. The way I teach it, we want to first make sure we’re pushing off forcefully off the ball of the foot at take-off. Then milliseconds right after pushing off is the most important part. If the foot starts kicking back even a little bit, if the knee starts pointing down even a little bit, we’re toast. Once the leg starts moving in that direction, there’s no stopping it, and no correcting it. So with the wall drill, I really emphasize that the leg knee must continue to face the front and not point down. I also emphasize that the heel must raise up so that the foot does not kick back. Also, while both of these things are happening, the groin is opening so that the trail leg doesn’t come directly under the butt. If the groin doesn’t open at all, then the hurdler needs to elevate vertically to avoid contact with the crossbar. Even though I teach that we only want the groin to open minimally, minimally does not mean not at all. Not at all means higher elevation, as I just said, and it also means a potential face-first crash and burn if the toe drops. 

With the wall drill, I can emphasize all these elements in detail, and in a hands-on manner. Side walk-overs have also proven helpful in a similar manner. But as we all know, real hurdling happens when both feet leave the ground. So while the wall drill and walk-over drills can serve as good teaching tools, they don’t ensure a smooth transition to actual hurdling. My first “real” hurdling drill is the marching popover, and that’s where things usually fall apart, as the bad mechanics come back in full force. So it just becomes a matter of getting reps in. Reps in which the athlete’s mind is totally engaged with addressing specific flaws. Progress comes gradually. In the first few sessions, I found myself wanting to move on to faster drills like the cycle drill and the quickstep drill, but they simply weren’t ready for those. So we had to spend tons of time on just marching popovers. With one girl, every time she tried to open the groin, she opened the hips. So we had to fix that. Can’t move on to the next drill without fixing that. Once we did fix that, I noticed another issue. Though she did everything right at take-off and going into the hurdle, she developed the habit of reaching with the foot on the other side of the hurdle. No, don’t reach; just let it drop under you and keep going. 

So, every part of the motion has to be addressed. Not until the entire motion is looking right in the popover drill can we move on to a drill that requires more speed. That’s because every time you add speed, you’re increasing the level of challenge. 

With advanced hurdlers, and even with elite hurdlers, the trail leg remains a constant issue. As a hurdler’s speed increases, the need to react quickly to the obstacles increases. Again, the lead leg, because it’s in front, can adapt more readily as long as the technique remains tight — with a crisp, efficient lead arm that punches down — and as long as the cadence between the hurdles quickens to coincide with the increased speed. But the trail leg, again, is coming from behind, so it faces a greater challenge than the lead leg does. What I tell my athletes is, the more you speed up, the more the trail leg has to speed up. “Trail leg to the front, don’t front!” is what I often yell when they’re moving fast. “Trail leg to the front! To the front! To the front!” The trail leg has to keep up with everything else. Even during a race, or during a rep, that’s the case. You’ll be moving faster by the fourth and fifth hurdle than you were moving over the first two hurdles, so if the trail leg is moving at the same speed at hurdle five that it was at hurdle two, that exact same speed might be too slow at hurdle five. It’s gotta keep up. 

And let’s not forget, the trail leg is directly affected by any flaws in lead arm mechanics. An inefficient lead arm can cause the trail leg to flatten out too much or to hang behind. The goal is to create a synergistic, harmonious movement in which the lead leg and trail leg are working together as one piece. To accomplish this, at least based on my experiences and observations, more time must be spent on mastering the trail leg action.