Why Cues Matter, and How They Help
by Steve McGill
In a recent Instagram post, I discussed the importance of cues for hurdlers during hurdle workouts and hurdle drilling (and, to a lesser degree, in races). In the video, I argue that cues are what athletes and coaches need to focus on when seeking to correct a technical flaw, as opposed to trying to find the right drill that will fix the flaw. My contention is that the drill is not what matters most, as you can be doing a good drill, but if you’re ingraining bad habits while doing the drill, the drill is doing more harm than good. In this article, I would like to elaborate on those thoughts by explaining how cues can speed up the learning process and help an athlete to develop better focus, which leads to less stress and more confidence.
[am4show not_have=’g5;’]
[/am4show][am4guest]
[/am4guest][am4show have=’g5;’]
First of all, for clarity purposes, let’s define what a cue is. It’s a bite-sized piece of advice summed up in a few words. It provides a directive for what to focus on for a particular rep. Because there may be multiple flaws that an athlete needs to fix, a specific cue enables the athlete to focus on just one of those things. With how I coach, I’m looking for what I refer to as the “core flaw,” which is the flaw that is most likely causing all the other flaws. So let’s say a hurdler’s arms swing across the body and the lead leg kicks out, locking at the knee, and the trail leg lags behind too low and too wide. So, those are three flaws. The trick is to find out which is causing the others. Is the arm swing causing the lead leg to lock? Is the lead leg locking causing the arms to swing? Is the trail leg lagging causing the arms to swing and the lead leg to lock? I’ve been coaching long enough to know that the trail leg issues are usually symptoms of other issues. So I’m not going to cue the trail leg first. If I instruct the athlete to “bring the trail leg through high and tight,” we’re probably going to meet with a lot of frustration because the trail leg won’t be able to come through high and tight as long as the lead leg is kicking out. But between the lead leg kicking and the arms swinging, my experiences have taught me that, with some athletes, the arms are the core flaw, but with other athletes, the lead leg is the core flaw. So we’ll have to experiment and figure it out. We’ll start by focusing on the lead leg, and the cue will be something as simple as “lead with the knee” or “drive the knee forward” or “keep the heel tucked.” Once I hit on the cue that works for that particular athlete, that’s the one we’ll go with.
My Instagram video was inspired by frustration caused by receiving messages from hurdlers asking me what drills they should do. The exchange would begin with them sending me a video asking for feedback. I’d respond by pointing out a flaw or providing a suggestion. Something like “don’t raise the shoulders, just drive up the hand, keeping the shoulders relaxed.” Then they’d respond with something like, “Okay coach, what drill should I do to fix that?” Wrong question, bruh, wrong question. Or they might ask, “What should I do to fix it?” Better question, but the answer is maddeningly simple: focus on it. Cue it. The mind and the body have to work together.
What if, when asked what drill an athlete should do, I were to answer “the one-step drill” or “lead leg isolation drill.”Doing one of those drills won’t address the problem; in fact, it will most likely further ingrain the flaw if the athlete doesn’t have a coach there to provide instruction on how to do the drill properly.
Cues are important in any athletic motion that involves technique. Shot putters need cues, discus throwers need cues, high jumpers need cues. Quarterbacks need cues, jump shooters need cues. How does a quarterback who is not an accurate passer over the middle get better at passing the ball to receivers over the middle? Not just by practicing it, but by practicing it with specific cues in mind. There’s gotta be a certain way to plant the feet, a certain height at which to release the ball, a certain amount of follow-through after releasing the ball. Wherever the mistake is being made, that’s what has to be cued. When the mind continually provides instruction, the body learns to change its old ways and to incorporate the new way that it is being taught.
That’s why cues are so important: because we’re trying to eradicate bad habits that have been ingrained to the point where they don’t feel wrong. Muscle memory is a stubborn thing. The body wants to do what it knows, it wants to stick with what it’s familiar with, So even when you tell it to do something different, it’s going to resist at first. Especially when it’s moving at faster speeds. The faster you go, the more the old habits come roaring back, even if you’ve fixed them at slower speeds. So you eventually have to practice at full speed (out of the blocks, spikes on) in order to eliminate a flaw. The key to having success at faster speeds is to always have a cue in mind before taking the first step from the starting blocks. It might take three reps, four reps, five reps before you see (coach) or feel (athlete) a difference, but once it happens, a new muscle memory is being created. This new muscle memory, just through persistent practice, will eventually replace the old memory, and the time will come when you don’t have to provide the cue anymore because the body already knows what it should do.
When I was coaching Johnny Dutch back in the day, he was running the 400 hurdles in the Junior Olympics meets and in national championship meets. In the summer after his senior year, he was able to 13-step through the first five hurdles. Because he hadn’t learned to alternate lead legs yet, he would have to switch down to 15 strides for the second half of the race. Because Johnny was also an outstanding 110 hurdler, I could cue him thusly: “You’re a 400 hurdler through the first five; you’re a 110 hurdler for the last five.” Meaning, open up your stride and cover ground for the first five, then switch to being quick for the last five. So I could literally use a one-word cue after he landed off the fifth hurdle: “quick quick quick!” That one word meant, you’re a 110 hurdler now, so let your 110 instincts kick in. In one training session, we did a 300 over the first 8 hurdles, which meant he 15-stepped the last three hurdles. In recording his touchdown times, I noted that his splits between the last three hurdles was only minimally slower than his splits over hurdles 2-5. That’s because he was a high-IQ hurdler, and also because his mind and body understood what “quick quick quick” meant. Not everybody could do that. But Johnny could, which is why that was the right cue for him.
So, for a coach, knowing your athlete is important. Sometimes during a conversation between reps, the athlete will come up with a cue of their own. That happened this past weekend, when I was working with a kid whose trail leg wasn’t keeping up with his speed. The timing was off; the trail leg was doing what it was supposed to do, but as he was moving faster between the hurdles, and the lead leg was getting over and down faster, the trail leg was still moving at the same speed it had been at hurdle one. After the conversation, he said aloud, “Okay, fast trail leg.” And that became his cue: fast trail leg. And it helped in the ensuing reps.
View this post on Instagram
[/am4show]
