Cycle Ladder Drill

For this month’s workout I want to introduce a drill that I created last year as an off-shoot
of the quick-step drill I commonly have my hurdlers do. It’s designed more for advanced
hurdlers than beginners. The cycle hurdle drill, as I call it, is designed to teach the legs to
cycle over the hurdle. To put it another way, it’s designed to teach the legs to continue to
run over the hurdle without pausing, kicking, or adding in a motion that is powerful or
effort-ful. The idea is to teach the body to flow over the hurdle.

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The Drill:

Set up seven hurdles.

The hurdles are set at a height that is 6 inches lower than race height.

Place the first hurdle anywhere on the straight-away.

Spacing should be as follows:

 9 feet between hurdles 1 and 2.

 9 feet between hurdles 2 and 3.
 12 feet between hurdles 3 and 4
 12 feet between hurdles 4 and 5
 15 feet between hurdles 5 and 6.
 15 feet between hurdles 6 and 7.
The hurdler approaches the first hurdle with low hands and low knees, but cycling. The
hurdlers pushes off the back leg while diving into hurdle one, and then pushing back down
to the track. After a super-quick three-step in between, clear hurdle two. As the spacing
increases at hurdles 4 and again at h urdle 6, the goal is to maintain the same cadence
from the previous spacing. You don’t want to feel like you’re reaching, running, or
speeding up. The idea is to continue cycling, and to rely on your forward lean over the
hurdle, as well as the high and tight action of the trail leg, to propel you forward.

As the hurdler becomes more proficient with the drill, the spacing will increase. Over the
course of a month or so, the idea is to gradually get to a point where the first two are 15
feet apart, the next two 18 feet apart, and the last two 21 feet apart. The idea is to
continually trick the body into thinking that it doesn’t need to speed up, but just maintain
the quickness. As the spacing increases, the speed to the first hurdle will speed up so that
the feeling (and cadence) between the hurdles stays the same.

The hurdles shouldn’t be raised until the cycle motion has been mastered at the current
height.

The video below of my man Hector Cotto demonstrates a different version of the drill, in
which all the hurdles are the same distance apart – 15 feet. It might be best to start with
this version so the consistency of the spacing can help to ingrain a consistency of the
cadence.