Coaching and Care of Athletes

HURDLING taken. The second stride is 61 ft., and the third 6! ft. These stride lengths are approximate to two or three inches, plus or minus. Cadence should be preserved so far as possible to ensure smooth running action. It is very important that the action should not be hurried over the final, tenth hurdle. If a man hurries, but does not fall through too much haste, he will still find difficulty in passing from clear– ance form to the smooth sprinting action required for the final dash for the tape. The chin should be kept always in advance of the knee of the leading leg throughout hurdle races, and the eyes should look straight down a man's own line of fences at a point a few inches above the top rails, a glan{:e to either side usually leading to a spill. With hurdlers, as with all types of athletes, the coach must dis– cover which kind of limbering-up process will best produce the staircase phenomenon referred to in Chapter XIII when applied to each particular individual. The limbering-up process must include running, kicking, style exercises, and exercises for stretching and suppling the body. A few such exercises are illustrated in this volume (see Plate XXVIII, Fig. 79), and the complete range is given in my book Exercises for Athletes (Shaw). The limbering-up process, planned and stabilized for each par– ticular athlete, must be used in training sessions and before com– petiti?ns. In teaching hurdlers the coach should emphasize the points that the take-off is made from the ball of one foot, and the landing is upon the ball of the other; that the downwar9. movement of the leading leg and forward arm in hurdle clearance must be started early-the majority of averagely good athletes get a bad landing from delaying this action too long-that the shoulders and hips must never be twisted out of the 'square-to-the-front' position; that it is useless to concentrate on running over one hurdle-there are ten flights in the race, so teach the athlete to run beyond each hurdle-and that only a bad hurdler takes off from a flat foot, lands on his heel, and pounds on the track. Light foot-work makes for g;reat speed and good hurdling. The first thing the coach needs to discover in relation to each athlete is which is his natural leading leg-i.e., which leg does he throw instinctively over the hurdle. Next decide whether he is to use the seven- or eight-stride approach run, and adjust his 291