Athletes in Action

HIGH HURDLES (7) IF the Hurdler takes his fences with the left leg leading he will, obviously, land on the left foot; in which case, the next forward stride of the right leg, after landing from hurdle clearance, should cna ble him to cover a distance of not less than 6t ft . in that stride . Fig. 7 on the opposite page shows the athlete completing the next stride after landing. It should be observed that he has presen·ed the forward body-lean, required of the sprinter, that his arms and legs arc working in unison and that the hips are held properly square to the front . . \. great deal of practice is required to master the chop-down of the leading leg, shown in Fig. 5, the high pick-up of the rear knee, shown in Fig. 6, and the full-length stride which follows immediately after landing, as shown in Fig. 7· The tendency of the noYice is to snap his body upr ight as his left foot takes the ground (Fig. 6), \Vhich means that he cannot possibly get the full stride forward shown in Fig. 7· _\.nother fault is that of not picking the rear knee up high enough to the point of the shoulder, which provides a pause action for the rear leg while the body swings forward on the fulcrum of the grounded foot of the leading leg. Yet another common fault is that of dropping the knee of the rear leg immediately the foot has cleared the hurdle (Fig. 4), instead of which the hurdler must, of course, pick up the knee of the rear leg as shown in Figs . 5 and 6. The pick-up action of the knee of the rea r leg requires constant practice . "-1 "-1