Rocker vs L-Shape for HS hurdles?

M

madman

Well-known member
I am thinking there are a variety of opinions on this and am interested in the reasons. If you were going to buy a complete set of new hurdles for a high school program would you buy Rocker hurdles or the L-Shape hurdles? Why?

We are currently considering buying rocker hurdles. Over the last 5-8 years we have bought several flights of these from M-F:

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The quality is OK.

Has anyone bought hurdles recently and been extremely pleased with the quality of the hurdle? If so what model did you buy? Where did you get them?
 
 
galesxc said:
We prefer the "L's" also; however, the drawback is they are less forgiving, possibly more dangerous for beginner hurdlers.
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This was my thunder. L's for meets & rockers for practice, especially beginners.

My experience was rockers take additional yearly maintenance above and beyond L's to assure they are not crumbling within two years.
 
galesxc said:
We prefer the "L's" also; however, the drawback is they are less forgiving, possibly more dangerous for beginner hurdlers.
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To me, this is the crux of the issue. The better stability of the L-shape hurdles is better for the accomplished hurdlers but more of a problem for beginning hurdlers.

When you show up to a dual meet or small invitational do you want your hurdlers going over L-shaped hurdles or the rockers? Is the stability for better hurdles enough of a plus to overlook the negative impact on more novice hurdlers and the additional cost?

We have enough rockers for practices even if we get a set of L's.
 
We bought a complete set of new hurdles last year and went with the L-shaped hurdles and we are very happy with that decision. Everything that has been mentioned above is valid, and I'd throw one other thing out there: doing various hurdle drills with L-shaped hurdles is fantastic compared to trying to do them with rocker hurdles as you don't have to contend with that annoying bar that is raised slightly off the ground.
 
SOTT added what I was going to say, which is the L-shaped are much better for the non-hurdlers to do drills with day in and day out. Curved are good for hurdle practice.
 
We have the first place rockers like you have pictured. We are on about 14 or 15 years. HS & MS practice. Hurdle drills everyday. You will replace the boards about every 5 years. Get extra boards to start with. We put them away under the bleachers between seasons. Out all season. We host a bunch of meets. HS & MS.

No issues. I think they are perfectly fine for HS.

My biggest gripe with "L" is that not a single meet we have been to adjusts the weights. They are all over the place.

I'd save the money and get the rockers. Maintaining them is not difficult. Use the money for other things you might want or need.
 
SOTT added what I was going to say, which is the L-shaped are much better for the non-hurdlers to do drills with day in and day out. Curved are good for hurdle practice.
 
If you are looking for hurdles, you can also look at www.vsathletics.com. You can put them in your cart then add "Finishtiming" as your coupon code and get a discount. This coupon code will work for most anything on their site. It is setup to give the biggest discount I can get from them.
 
When the track was resurfaced in ‘98, my school bought 100 of the Ls from AAE (Aluminum Athletic Equipment Co.). 98 of the 100 are still in good working order. Out of season, we store them in an unused ticket booth. I’ve made it a habit of spraying the buttons with some lubricant when I get them out of storage.

To psycho_dad’s point, they have the adjustable weights where you pull a knob toward you and then slide the weight into the proper notch for the corresponding height. Those weights see no action during the season. I’d prefer the kind where you either tip the hurdle forward or backward in order for the weights to self-adjust.

On the topic of hurdles, does anyone else have the problem where all your athletes who are not in the current or next event magically disappear when it’s time to either put hurdles on the track, adjust them, or take them off the track?
 
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One school in our conference has carts for each flight if the "L" and it does make it nice. They put them on the carts as soon as the race is over. Very neat.

We drag the rockers on the track without hurting the track. A person can drag two hurdles at a time. Moving them between races takes half the time or half the number of people.

Seems like it you maintain them, either will last a couple decades or more.

I think if you are used to one kind replacing them with the same kind makes sense.
 
Here is the link to AAE's hurdle selection: https://www.aaesports.com/track-hurdles-s/170.htm

The ones we have are the international/college model. Our former coach says he caught heck when he ordered them 23 years ago due to the price. The only reason I can think of that he ordered 100 was that our straightaway was originally set up for 10 lanes (A and B lanes on the inside). I don't think we ever used all 10 lanes for the high hurdles, so 100 weren't needed, but they made for a few less to be moved around for the 300s. Now that I think about it, it might be 99 out of 100 that are still working instead of the 98 I mentioned earlier. IIRC, I combined the working components from the 2 broken hurdles into 1 that rejoined the flock.
 
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This is nice. For me, the biggest reason to get "L" but another added expense.

You really want 100 hurdles anyway. However, that is like $8,000 to $10,000 more just for the hurdles over the rockers. If my thinking is right on the math.
 
Just bought 12 of the model that you have pictured. They are great hurdles for high school and middle school we have some rockers that are over 20 years old. Now for most of the time we have had them we did not have a track so most of them stayed in storage. We also have some rockers from the 70's that we got from a neighboring school when we found out that we were getting an all weather track. These hurdles are old, but work great for the 300 hurdles so we don't have to move a ton of hurdles around.
 
Is there a rule that a school must have L hurdles to host a district track meet??? I was told that a couple years back.
 
fattire said:
Is there a rule that a school must have L hurdles to host a district track meet??? I was told that a couple years back.
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I'm unaware of any regulation from Columbus that makes this a requirement for tournaments, but I don't go reading all that tournament manager's material either. I suppose a DAB might make it a requirement to be a host in their district.

You all made me re-read part of the rule book that I often skim past because the next time I take a scale out to the track to test hurdles or see somebody with a scale on the track will be the first time. I was about to say that the only requirements I was aware of in the NFHS rules was hurdle width and top bar measurements in 5-4-4 and the pullover weight minimums and maximum in Rules 5-4-5 through 5-4-7. And that's still true, those articles are the requirements.

However Rule 5-4-8 says:
The "L" type hurdle having the base entirely behind the hurdle gate should be used.
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"Should" means this is not a requirement. But, if you are looking for a reason to get your AD to "splurge" on the L-shaped hurdles, show him/her this rule.
 
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