7 Strides or 8

Over the last 20 years the 7 stride approach to hurdle 1 in the sprint hurdles has become increasingly popular. Arguably it was Robles’ success and world record of 12.87s, while using the 7 stride approach, which really got people experimenting with it widely. It quickly became not just elites, but also a number of national level athletes adopting the strategy, both male and to a lesser extent female. Historically the vast, vast majority had all run 8, so is moving to 7 some sort of Fosbury-esque reframing of the event which opens up the possibility of greater

performances? Or was there a good reason why everyone did 8 strides before?

While I’m of the view that too many athletes from each sex adopt the 7 stride approach I think the issue is different for men and women. Interestingly, with women it tends to be more of the sub-elite athletes adopting a 7 stride approach, with 8 strides still proving more popular at an elite level. The different hurdle specs do play a big part - men have a higher barrier to clear, so they’re likely to take off a little further away, and (when comparing equivalent levels of athlete) they’re a fair bit faster in terms of flat speed, yet they only get an extra 72cm to work with. Taking out an entire stride, and still executing an effective acceleration, is achievable for a greater number of men than it is women. With that in mind, for men I’d say think very carefully before investing too much time in training for an 8 stride approach, while with almost all women I’d just advise against it at all.

I’d go as far as say you can probably count on your fingers the number of female hurdlers in the world that are better off running 7 strides. Where sub-elites have adopted that approach, I’d suggest it’s likely a case of taking an easy, but ultimately limiting option over learning the skill of running an effective acceleration pattern. Looking at flat sprint acceleration patterns, for an athlete to hit around the 11m mark in 8 strides (which is likely around the average take off point for a woman) you’re looking at around 11.5s 100m speed. Reaching that same point in 7 strides would indicate they are on track for sub10. Now a hurdle start will always cover a bit more ground in the start with the faster torso rise, but we should still be trying to get a negative shin angle through the acceleration, generating horizontal momentum. That will not happen particularly effectively while bounding to cover ground.

The obvious advantage of 7 strides is that the leg cycle needs to do one fewer revolutions, which is surely a good thing and faster, right?! I’d say the answer is both yes and no. While a 7 stride approach may see you arrive at hurdle 1 before you would have done off an 8 stride approach, it is worth remembering that the initial approach is the main opportunity a hurdler has to generate momentum. It is far harder to accelerate once into the 3 stride rhythm. It’s not just about arriving at hurdle 1 first, it’s also about the speed at which you cross the hurdle - the extra ground contact of an 8 stride approach gives you another opportunity to generate momentum, which you need to  carry you through the entire race. If you are going to adopt a 7 stride approach, you need to be confident that you can generate as much speed off 7 contacts as you can 8 - it takes an enormous amount of power to do that. This is another area where the difference between the men and women’s event come into play - given the height of the hurdles and their respective spacing, women are able to run far nearer to their flat sprint speed over hurdles than men are, so the cost of not having that extra ground contact is less for men than it is for women.

The difference in rhythm between a long, range-y 7 stride start, and the fast cadence required between the hurdles is the point that is perhaps most often talked about when discussing the challenges of dropping a stride. While I recognise that this is a challenge, for me it is probably one of the less insurmountable ones - the sudden change in rhythm needed by 7 strides, rather then the progressively accelerating cadence of an 8 stride approach can be a difficulty, but it can be learned.

There have of course been athletes that have enjoyed huge success running 7 stride approaches. They are typically outliers though, and for the vast majority of athletes, learning to run an effective 8 stride approach is probably the best use of effort.