Archives for April 2021

April 27, 2021

What: Zoom Call
Who: Coach Steve McGill
Topic: Lead Arm Mechanics
When: Sunday May 23, 2021, from 7-8 pm (Eastern Standard Time)
Cost: $15
How to Register: Follow these instructions

You will receive the Zoom link (at the email address you provide) within 24 hours of payment.

This will be our second instructional video in The Art of Hurdling Virtual Coaching Clinic (TAHVCC) series. In the first one, in April, I gave an overview of my coaching methods, the drills I teach, and the workouts I use. Now we will start getting into more detailed instruction.

What will be discussed on May 23rd:

An explanation of the 1-2-3 action of the lead arm (what it does at take-off, what it does when the lead leg extends toward the crossbar, and what it does during descent off the hurdle.

Video analysis of lead-arm styles of great hurdlers past and present, such as: Allen Johnson, Liu Xiang, Aries Merritt, Sally Pearson, Dominique Arnold, Grant Holloway.

An explanation of how the lead arm can create speed coming off the hurdle.

An explanation of how flaws in lead arm mechanics affects the lead leg, trail leg, and hips, and how such flaws can cause a loss of speed, balance, and rhythm.

An explanation of how to address flaws in lead arm mechanics through various drills.

read more

April 24, 2021

Elite 100/110m hurdlers can only run faster times by quickening their cadence, as increasing their stride length is not an option like it is in the sprint events and the long hurdles. With that thought in mind, the progression of drills below can help the elite hurdler to continue to drop time by quickening their cadence.

• Lane-line drill

Lane-line drill is from the :16-:38 mark of the above video.

• Cycle drill over 24-inch banana hurdles spaced 12 feet apart (for males) or 11 feet apart (for females)
• Cycle drill over 27-inch hurdles spaced 13 feet apart (for males) or 12 feet apart (for females)
• Cycle drill over 36-inch hurdles spaced 18 feet apart (for males) or 3o-inch hurdles spaced 16 feet apart (for females)
• Quickstep drill at race height spaced 23 feet apart (for males) or 20 feet apart (for females)
• Timed cycle drill over 5-10 hurdles
• Timed quicksteps over 5-10 hurdles
• Jammed hurdling over 3-7 hurdles at race height, with all hurdles after the first moved in 2-3 feet
• Jammed hurdling over 5-7, timed
• Timed drills against a teammate
• Jammed hurdling against a teammate

In the above video, the cycle drill over banana hurdles is from the :03-:38 mark. Cycle drill over 27-inch hurdles is from the :36-:56 mark. Cycle drill over 36-inch hurdles is from the :56-1:19 mark. Quickstep drill over 39-inch hurdles is from the 1:19-1:43 mark.

Above is a jammed hurdling workout from two years ago.

To first hurdle:

• For lane-line drill, no run-up.
• For cycle drill over lower hurdles (24/27), a two-step approach from about 10 feet away.
• For cycle drill over higher hurdles (30/36), a four-step approach from 20-23 feet away.
• For quickstep drill, a six-step approach (or five-step for hurdlers who take seven strides to the first hurdle in races) from 30-33 feet away.
• For jammed hurdling: full speed ahead from the starting blocks.

Main cue for all drills: Push down. A Team Steve mantra, as discussed in our Zoom call last month, is “push forward,” but elite hurdlers don’t want to think “push forward” because pushing forward will take them too close to the next hurdle. Beginner hurdlers want to think “push forward” so that they can avoid the common beginner tendency to elevate their hips. Advanced hurdlers who aren’t elite want to think push forward AND push down because they need the speed that the forward push provides but they also need the space that pushing down provides. Elites are moving so fast that if they think “push forward” they’ll crash. So they need to think “push down” during takeoff, before they even leave the ground.  read more

April 24, 2021

Below is video of the Zoom call I hosted on April 11 with hurdling legend Renaldo Nehemiah and his high school coach Jean Poquette. It was a very informative and enjoyable talk! We discussed many of the workouts that Poquette used in helping Nehemiah to become the first high school hurdler in history to break the 13.0 (hand-timed) barrier while running for Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School in New Jersey. As a collegian at the University of Maryland, Nehemiah continued to flourish, as he broke the 110m world record twice his sophomore year, setting an NCAA record of 13.00 in the process — a record that wasn’t broken until forty years later by Florida’s Grant Holloway. In 1981, Nehemiah became the first hurdler in history to break 13.00, as he set the world record a third time in 12.93. Poquette’s coaching methods were non-traditional for sprint events in that he emphasized endurance over speed, as Nehemiah often trained with the quarter-milers and half-milers in addition to doing a lot of hurdle-endurance work. So take some time to watch the video and learn how the greatest hurdler in history became the greatest.