Archives for March 2017

March 30, 2017

With indoor nationals over, I’ve continued to work with Matt Garrett as we now prepare for the outdoor season. Because he is only an 8^th grader, our focus now is on getting ready for the Junior Olympic meets that won’t begin until June, although there will be some developmental meets that will take place prior to then.

With more training time available, our aim will be to build the hurdle endurance required to run a full 100 meters over ten hurdles, as opposed to focusing on the first five hurdles like we did indoors. We’ll also have some time to work on refining his sprint mechanics a bit more. Fortunately, because he started training with me back in September, he has gotten in the full range of training that I like to implement in preparation for racing outdoors. We did lots of drilling in the fall, as well as workouts that emphasized a race rhythm with closely-spaced hurdles, allowing him to increase his endurance while working on technique at the same time. In the winter, we were able to get in plenty of quality work in the starting blocks, as the weather here was unseasonably warm. read more

March 28, 2017

Scout Hayashi, the four-stepper transitioning to three-stepping that I blogged about last week, had another meet since that last post, and she did very well. Last week, she ran 16.81 hand-timed, which translates into 16.9, which translates into 17.14 automatic timing. This week, she ran a prelim and final, running 16.62 in the prelim and 16.49 in the final.

In last week’s race, on an asphalt track, she took eight steps to the first hurdle, and four between all the rest. In this week’s races, on a rubberized surface, she three-stepped the second hurdle before four-stepping all the rest. In the final, it looked like she was moving fast enough to three-step the third hurdle, which she acknowledged afterward. But because we hadn’t had a chance to get in any work together between last week’s meet and this week’s, she didn’t want to risk three-stepping beyond hurdle two.

The video above provides footage of her 16.49 race in the finals. She’s in lane three. Not visible in the video – in lanes five and six, next to the winner in lane four – are two girls Scout outran who both three-stepped all of the hurdles. Their three-step action was very effort-ful, with exaggerated arm action. This race therefore confirms my assertion that three-stepping in and of itself does not make a hurdler faster. If the three-step is a cumbersome three-step, then it can actually be counter-productive. When every stride is a reach, it’s time to rethink one’s approach. Even though four-stepping means taking more strides, it allows for a cut-step, which creates momentum into and off of each hurdle. Three-steppers who take bounding strides between the hurdles would probably be better off four-stepping at least part of the way. read more

March 24, 2017

The transition from four-stepping to three-stepping in the 100m hurdles is one of the more difficult ones to make, and many coaches over the years have expressed frustration in trying to facilitate this process, and I have had my struggles as well. I started working with Scout, a high school junior, this past November. It’s about a 2-hour drive for her dad to bring her to where I am, so we meet as often as we can – once a week at the most. Last year, before we met, she was taking nine steps to the first hurdle in the 100h, and four steps between all the rest. So we were able to fix her start so that she can now take 8 steps to the first hurdle with ease, but the transition to 3-stepping is proving to take more time.

In the video above, I spliced together two practice reps (from separate practices) and footage from her first outdoor race, which she ran earlier this week. In the first practice rep over six hurdles, she three-steps hurdle two, then four-steps the rest. In the second practice rep, over three hurdles, she is able to three-step hurdles two and three. read more

March 23, 2017

Last month I posted some practice footage featuring two youth athletes I was coaching who were preparing for USATF Youth Indoor Nationals. The two athletes, Alex Nunley and Matt Garrett, were able to get in another session together the week prior to the meet, as Alex’s parents once again made the 3-hour drive from Raleigh to the Charlotte side of North Carolina. Although I don’t have any footage from that session (sorry, I was too focused on coaching), it went very well. Alex was able to address some minor technical issues, and the practice starts they did against each other helped them both to get sharp for the meet. We started with one hurdle and worked our way up to four, with a makeshift finish line off hurdle four.

At the meet, Alex won the 55m hurdles in a 13-14 age group national record of 7.62, while Matt finished second in 7.93. I’m really eager to see what these two will do outdoors, as Alex also won the 55m dash, while Matt finished 6th in that event. read more

March 20, 2017

If you’re a youth coach or a high school coach and you have prospective hurdlers who don’t have the speed to three-step right away, you find yourself dealing with the predicament that the only other option is to have them five-step, which is not really an option at all because five-steppers go so slow between the hurdles that they have no chance to be competitive. But there is another option, and that is to teach the athlete how to four-step. Of course, four-stepping means alternating lead legs, but that is a surprisingly easy skill to teach if you start teaching it when the hurdler is still new and eager to run faster. Four-stepping allows the athlete to be at least somewhat competitive right away. Also, if the long-term goal is for the athlete to three-step, then four-stepping can serve as the first stage of the process of attaining that goal. Eventually, as the athlete grows stronger and faster, the four-step will feel crowded, and the process of transitioning to three-stepping can begin.  read more