Athletics of To-Day 1929

The High Hurdles 135 and at once appreciated the advantage of, literally, taking the fences in one's stride, by means of a sort of straightforward, step-over action, but he did not use quite such a complete knee-lock as the Englishman favoured. Any way, Kraenzlein brought the record down to rsl secs. The next point discovered was the value of rear hip flexi– bility; this came to light through an accident to that part of Forrest Smithson's anatomy which left him with the ability to raise the knee of his rear l g level with the hip joint, as he went over his fences. This new action eliminated all body twist and enabled the hurdler to g t to ground quickly and close to the hurdle. This American brought the world's record down to rs secs. when he won the rgo8 Olympic title. He propounded the theory that every hurdling action hould be assessed according to its effect upon striding and sprinting FIG. IO. form, the corollary to that theorem being that a man mak s better time on the ground than in the air. The " Smithson " landing, however, was a forced one and int rrupted the smooth flow of the whole run. Also, a lot of men found difficulty in managing a full stride forward aft r landing. Ther i , however, no disease without a r medy, and between rgro-rs the Americans, ]. . Nicholson (rs secs.), F. Kelly (14 secs.), and R. impson (I4i s cs.) p rf et d the body dip and improved the arm action. These thr e produced what is known as the '' Three Right Angles '' th ory. These angles are that of the body with the thigh of the rear leg extending str ight to the side, that of the r ar l g thigh with its lower half 1 g which is b nt directly backwards, an that of the lower 1 g with the foot which lies parallel with the thigh when the body is centralized over the hurdle.