Hurdle Hyperbole
by Steve McGill
Hyperbole is a rhetorical strategy often used in argumentative situations to emphasize a point. In teaching AP Language & Composition to high school students for many years, I have often encountered hyperbole in much of the material I have had my students read. What is hyperbole? Simple definition: exaggeration for effect. The statement being made is understood to not be taken literally. For example, if I wanted to argue that collegiate athletes should be paid a stipend, I might say something like “most student-athletes are living off bread crumbs and ramen noodles and plain Cheerios.” The exaggeration emphasizes the point that collegiate student-athletes are struggling financially to an alarming degree and therefore deserve compensation. It’s meant to evoke an emotional response to convince you that keeping things as they are is not only impractical, but harmful, and even cruel. The exaggeration makes the listeners realize that the problem may be more severe than they thought. That is why, when used properly, hyperbole can be a very effective argumentative tool.
Hyperbole is often used for humorous effect as well. To say that someone is “dumb as a box full of rocks” is an exaggeration, and assuming that the comment isn’t spoken in a mean-spirited way, it can be funny. Physical humor can also be hyperbolic. I remember one episode of the 90’s TV show Martin in which Martin fought an exhibition match against boxer Thomas “the hit man” Hearns. To end the fight, Hearns hit Martin so hard that Martin literally flew out of his shoes and landed embedded in the wall behind the ring. There’s no way Hearns could’ve literally hit Martin that hard, which is exactly why the scene was hilarious. In the next scene, Martin is back home, and when he comes out of his bedroom to greet his girlfriend Gina in the living room, his head is swollen and disfigured to such an extreme degree that he resembles the elephant man. Again, the audience is dying laughing. Again, when done well, hyperbole works. So, how does all this apply to hurdling? Ah, glad you asked.
When learning new hurdling concepts, and when assessing flaws in technique, the easiest and quickest way to learn is to exaggerate the movements you are being taught to implement. As I always tell my athletes, as long as wrong doesn’t feel wrong, you’re not going to change anything you’re doing. The body resists change. It wants to do what it feels comfortable doing, even if what it’s doing is inefficient and ineffective. So, exaggerating the movements helps to create a clearer distinction between what you’ve been doing and what you’re trying to do. The new changes will never feel right at first, but over the course of time, as they become ingrained, the body learns to distinguish between the old way and the new way, and the old way feels outdated.
A few examples:
The most recent example comes from a couple practice sessions from last week that are featured in other articles in this month’s issue, working on my athlete Ayden Thompson’s block start. Because I was coaching my school team during the spring season, he and I met a lot less often, and his start lost some of its pop. What I noticed early on in our first session last week was that his seven-step approach consisted of an even seven steps. His early strides were pretty much the same length as his later strides. That’s not what we want. We want the early strides to be more forceful and more powerful, and ultimately longer, so that his last three strides into the first hurdle can get shorter and quicker, culminating with the “cut step” — the super-short last stride that propels him through the hurdle. He had been telling me that he had been having trouble maintaining his speed in races. He’d get out well but lose speed over the last three or four hurdles. Now I could see why. He wasn’t pushing through the first hurdle, and he was paying for it later in the race. So we had to fix that.
First, we stayed in the starting blocks and I instructed him to be more powerful with his first three strides. I explained to him what a sprint coach had once explained to me — that it’s important to be patient in the early part of the race. Don’t be “fast,” don’t be “quick;” be powerful. Drive. Push back against the pedals so that they propel you forward. Get full extension with those early strides. Don’t be in a rush to get up and running. Well, after telling him that, I saw no noticeable difference in his approach to the first hurdle. And when I asked him if it felt any different, he said “not really.”
So I instructed him to move into one of the hurdle-free lanes and bound for seven strides from a three-point start. “Just bound the whole way,” I said, “and see where that puts you in relation to the hurdle.” Of course, his seventh step put him way beyond the desired take-off mark. Good. Next, I told him to do the same thing, bounding for just the first three strides, and then transitioning into the race rhythm for the last four strides. He did so, and his seventh step landed a little bit beyond the desired take-off spot. Good! That’s what we want. We want to be too close when there is no hurdle, so that we are forced to take a cut step when there is a hurdle. Next, I told him to do the same thing from a four-point start, but still no blocks and no hurdle. Exaggerate the push for the first three strides, I told him. It went well again, so then we moved back into the lane with the blocks and tried again over the first hurdle.
This time, I did notice a difference in his push out of the blocks, and in his first three strides. We did hit our take-off distance, but this time the cut-step was noticeable, and his clearance over the hurdle looked visibly faster than before. When I asked him if the first part of the drive (the first three strides) felt different, he said “Yeah, it felt slower.” Little did he know, that was exactly what I wanted to hear. “Yes!” I said, “that means you’re not doing the same old same old. When I showed him the film on my phone, he agreed that the cut step was noticeable and that he looked a lot faster in clearing the hurdle. Now it was just a matter of buying in and getting reps in. So we stuck with just one hurdle for a good while before adding a second hurdle, because we wanted to ingrain this new rhythm with the seven steps.
The reason that he was finally able to grasp what it meant to actually push and cover ground with his first three strides is because we did the exaggerated version with the bounds prior to returning to the starting blocks. As I told him, as he gets stronger in the weight room, he might find himself getting too close to the first hurdle with our heavy emphasis on the first three strides. But that’s the problem we want to have, I said. We always want to feel like we’re too close. We always want to force ourselves to adapt to our speed. We never want to feel comfortable between the hurdles. We want to feel like we’re constantly so close that we might crash, but then we don’t.
Another example would be something as simple as leading with the knee. If the athlete is used to swinging the foot forward too soon, then leading with the knee can feel bewildering. So I’ll say, “Bring your knee up to your chin,” which is something that can’t literally be done. But by trying to do it, you’re ensuring that you’re leading with your knee and not your foot.
Same thing with the forward lean from the waist. If the athlete doesn’t lean enough, I’ll say “Bring your chin down to your knee.” Again, you won’t be able to reach the knee, but by trying to, you will ensure that you’re leaning from the waist (and not the upper back), and that your lead will be deeper than it’s been before.
Once we exaggerate the movements, we can adjust them to where they need to be. But at first, it should feel like “too much.” It should feel like your lean is too deep. It should feel like you’re bringing your knee up too high. Prior to a rep, I’ll say something to the athlete like, “If it doesn’t feel like your leaning too much, you’re not leaning enough.” Because when it’s new to you, it should feel like it’s too much. Eventually, it’ll become your new normal, but not when you’re first learning it.
