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What is the distance between wickets?

This is the number one question I receive at all conferences I go when we start talking about upright mechanics, so today I decided to sit down and reply once for all.

I literally go mad when going around tracks I see wickets placed at 7 feet. Size 42, 44, 35 or 12 American. It does not matter: 7 feet. Not even height, age, or simply the speed of the athlete matter. Still, 7 feet. Well, truth is that it is not so easy. Here is a handy and clear table I designed for daily use down at the track.

Progressive Distance for Wickets Positioning

As we can see, distance in between wickets is actually progressive in the first 5 to 6 hurdles. I discovered that by placing more than 100 wickets every Tuesday and Thursday when I was interning in US. Let’s focus on the 200cm line. To finally reach 200cm distance after H6 we progress this way: H1 to H2: 178cm, H2 to H3: 183cm, H3 to H4: 186cm, H4 to H5: 191cm, H5 to H6: 196cm, then all hurdles after H6 will be placed at 200cm.

Even though Wicket Runs are a max velocity drill, we want to have the final part of the acceleration occurring in between barriers. In the video here below I also explain how to help the athlete entering the hurdles in a correct way.

What is the distance between wickets?

In my first months back to homeland Italy I spent hours and hours analyzing videos of all kinds of flying phases, from little SUB10 athletes up to the absolute 100m national finals trying to translate what seen in the Olympus of Athletics and make it usable to all categories, ages, and levels of athlete. This table is the ultimate outcome, I hope you will find it useful in your coaching activities.

Want to know more?
Wicket Runs will be one of the main topics during this summer’s Training Camp in Andalusia, Spain. Join it now by clicking this link: https://sciroccotf.world/product/training-camp-summer-2019-andalusia-spain-29-07-2019-04-08-2019

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