Sprint Endurance Workout for 100/110m Hurdlers
by Steve McGill
In keeping with my theme that hurdlers need to take a sprinter’s mentality to the hurdles, and that the best way to do that is to include sprint workouts that don’t involve any hurdling, this month’s workout is designed to help ingrain that sprinter’s mindset while also emphasizing the need to maintain speed and maintain form as the distance of each rep increases.
Here’s the workout:
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Set up a cone at the 20 meter mark, another at the 40 meter mark, another at the 60 meter mark, another at the 80 meter mark, and another at the 100 meter mark. The last cone is optional, obviously, since the 100 meter mark is where the finish line is.
The athletes will run 3 sets of 20m, 40m, 60m, 80m, 100m.
For recovery, they will walk back to the starting line between each rep. Between sets, they will have four minutes to recover.
Each rep should be done preferably from a three-point start. If the athletes are unfamiliar with how to do a 3-point start, then a standing start will have to do.
When I have my athletes do this workout, I’ll give them a “set, go,” and I’ll time each rep. To mimic automatic timing as closely as possible, I’ll start the watch at the exact same time that I say “go!” The other option is to have the athletes start on their own, and I’ll start the watch on first movement, which is a less accurate way to time, but I’ll always add .3 in my head when doing it that way to get an idea of what their automatic time would be.
The aim of the workout is to build consistency. When moving up the ladder, from 20m to 40m, etc., the goal is to maintain a certain pace throughout the workout. So, for example, if the athlete runs the 20m in 3.2, you’ll want the 40m to be somewhere in the range of 2.0-2.5 seconds slower, so a 5.6 would be good. Then 8.1 for the 60m, 10.5 for the 80m, then 13.0 for the 100. I had two girls do this workout last week, both high schoolers, and their times were in this range.
The next aim is to stay consistent each set. I really use the 80m and the 100m as my benchmarks. Usually, it’s easy to maintain consistency with the 20’s, 40’s, and 60’s. But fatigue begins to become a factor in the last two longer sprints. With the two girls who did the workout last week, for example, they were at 13.2 on the first 100, 13.6 for the second one, and 13.9 for the third one. Not bad, but we’ll want to try to keep all those 100’s within .3 of each other next time around.
This workout is relatively high in volume, so I wouldn’t call it a speed workout. It’s more of a speed/endurance workout, even though the distances are short. In addition to focusing on hitting target times, I also use this workout to allow hurdlers a chance to focus on their sprint mechanics. As fatigue sets in, they need to focus on relaxing while maintaining their angles (hand height, knee height, upper body posture). Also, if they have any flaws in their sprint mechanics, such as back-kick or low heel recovery or a wobbly head or whatever, this workout provides a good opportunity to work on those things.
In May, I’ll take off some of the volume for each set, and I’ll add more rest between sets, and I’ll reduce the number of sets from three to two. To make it more of a speed workout, I could consider adding in the block start instead of the three-point start.
Another variation a coach could add would be to put cones where the hurdles would be, and have the athletes run to the rhythm of the race, while still focusing on sprinting.
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