Conversations between Reps
by Steve McGill
In an article in last month’s issue, I mentioned how I don’t emphasize volume in fall workouts like I did earlier in my career. An element of that shift includes the fact that I like to have a brief conversation with the athlete after every rep, instead of waiting until the end of a set before we talk. The logic is we can reduce the amount of reps by improving the quality of rep. My old way came about as a result of being coached that way myself, and bringing that mentality into my own coaching philosophy. I have become hyper-focused on not wasting reps. When the emphasis is on quantity, the athlete does indeed get stronger and develop hurdle endurance, but it also takes longer to break old habits because of the fatigue that sets in, reducing the athlete’s sharpness, ability to react, and ability to maintain a high level of quality for the whole session. So, while enough reps are necessary to instill new muscle memory and push out old bad habits, too many reps that lead to fatigue can have the opposite of their intended effect by allowing bad habits to creep back in toward the end of the workout.
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Conversations between reps is a good way to use time productively. When working with an athlete who is either new to hurdling, is experienced but has a lot of flaws to correct, or is totally new to my style of coaching the hurdles, these conversations will consist of me doing most of the talking. Athletes may not understand certain concepts, although they think they do intellectually. The proof that they don’t really understand will come out in the reps. As an example, to keep it simple, let’s say I tell the athlete to lead with the knee instead of the foot. The athlete nods and says “okay,” but in the next rep they lead with the foot again. That second rep is informing me that they don’t really get it yet, so I need to explain it in more detail, and that I might even have to dive into correcting their sprint mechanics before we can address leading with the knee. Some athletes are able to implement instructions more quickly and more effectively than others. In some cases, a beginner might progress to an advanced level in a matter of months. My job as the coach is to provide instruction at a pace and with language that is appropriate for that particular athlete’s ability to process the information and apply it.
So, sometimes, the conversations between reps can be very long. That used to drive me crazy when I had to do that, but now I’m okay with it because my mindset now is that I don’t want to waste a rep, whereas my previous mindset was I wanted to get in as many reps as possible. With advanced athletes, the conversations can end up being longer than with beginners, because they’re so much more advanced IQ-wise, not just physically and technique-wise. With advanced athletes, I’m doing as much listening as I am talking, and in some cases I’m doing more listening than talking. For advanced athletes, I acknowledge that there will be certain things they can feel that I might not be able to see. I might shout “Good rep!” after a rep, and they might respond with, “that didn’t feel as fast as the last one.” Then we need to have a conversation to figure out what felt off, or to decide whether the rep was as bad as they thought it was.
In almost all cases, the conversation between reps include looking at footage of the previous rep that I recorded on my phone. As I’ve discussed in previous articles, such technology wasn’t available during my days as a competitive hurdler, nor during my early days as a coach. And although I’m big on athletes trusting their bodies and listening to their bodies as the most instant source of feedback, I do understand and value how much it helps hurdlers to see themselves so that they have a visual in their minds of what they look like. With beginners, though, who are still learning the abc’s of hurdling, I might not film at all because they’re not film-worthy yet, meaning there’s nothing they’re doing wrong that my naked eye might miss. But the better the athlete is, and the more progress the athlete has made, and the more advanced they’re becoming, the more important analyzing film becomes. When we’re trying to drop tenths of second and hundredths of seconds, we have to look at everything, as we have to make decisions as to what we want our focus to be prior to each rep. Shifting focus is often essential to a quality session, as we might uncover flaws during the session that we hadn’t identified before the session started.
Let me provide an example of what I’m talking about. One time, in working with Milleah Johnson — a senior from West Virginia who has traveled to NC many times over the last year to train with me — I noticed that her lead leg was locking at the knee, causing her trail leg to pause before it came to the front. In a more recent session, as we were addressing the flaw, I noticed on the film that although the knee was still locking, it was doing so at a downward angle, so the leg wasn’t kicking “up” anymore like it had been before. Also, the foot was cycling back under the hip like we wanted it to. So we decided that since the cycle action was occurring, and the downhill angle was in place, and there was no longer any “up” action with the foot, we didn’t need to dwell on that and could instead look to address something else.
I’m big on experimenting in practice. The mini film sessions between reps, and the conversations between reps, help us to experiment with specific purpose. We know what we’re working on and we know what we’re trying to accomplish, but it’s not about getting in a certain number of reps or clearing a certain number of hurdles. When I can see that an athlete is fatiguing — which is usually indicated by the fact that they are looking slower between the hurdles — I’ll say, “okay, three more good reps and we’re done.”
Knowing the end of the workout is near provides the athlete with the necessary boost to finish strong, with quality reps.
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