August 3, 2019
Very rarely do I see hurdling videos on Instagram that really grab my attention, but it happened when I saw this post of Aries Merritt doing a quick-feet drill. I’ve watched it over and over again, and I really love it, to the point where I’m sure I will be incorporating into my cadre of drills starting in the fall.
Here are the things I like about it:
- The three-step rhythm. As I’ve stated before, I almost exclusively use drills that are done to a three-step rhythm, because I love how such drills incorporate race rhythm and teach the body to ingrain that cadence from the very beginning of the season.
- It requires a high level of concentration, which again, mimics the type of focus required in a race. The hands and feet have to adapt to the spacing.
- It shows that between the hurdles and over the hurdles is one continuous motion, with no pauses. I don’t like drills in which pauses are part of the design of the drill. At no point in the hurdling action do you want to pause. At no point in the hurdling action do you want to have the front leg clearing the barrier while the back leg remains on the ground. I see a lot of drills like that, and just about everybody seems to use them, but I prefer drills like this one here. Keep it moving!
- Because the hurdles are very low, the drill doesn’t put a lot of pounding on the legs.
My impression is that this drill is designed for elite-level hurdlers who are compelled to “shuffle” between the hurdles because they don’t have the space to sprint. So it teaches the body to react! react! react! So, even though I don’t coach anybody who runs sub-13, I can see how I can use this drill to my own benefit for my hurdlers, just by making the necessary adjustments.
Most athletes don’t need the level of quickness that an Aries Merritt will need. So to just copy the drill exactly like he’s doing it wouldn’t work. If the drill ingrains a tempo that is quicker than the athlete is ready for, then, once it’s time to race, the athlete will feel like the hurdles are too far away. So, my thinking is, set up the spacing as such that it requires a cadence slightly faster than the athlete’s personal-best cadence. So, as the athlete gets faster throughout the course of the year, you keep decreasing the spacing in the drill in order to quicken the cadence.
