A Fun Labor Day Weekend of Hurdling
by Steve McGill
Labor Day weekend also happened to be my birthday weekend, as my birthday fell on Labor Day itself this year – Monday September 2nd. That Saturday and Sunday, I did a bit of a mini hurdle camp with four hurdlers from the Coastal Track Club out of Savannah, GA, who drove up for the weekend with their parents and coaches. Those two days were all I had hoped they would be and more. What a great group. Of the four athletes, two were boys, two were girls, and all were of high school age. My longtime friend and coaching partner Kevin Howell, who currently runs the cross country and track programs at Shaw University in Raleigh, made the trip from Raleigh to help me teach and coach the athletes. Kevin has helped me at every one of my hurdle camps over the past eight years, so we ended up conducting this weekend’s sessions similar to how we’ve conducted the bigger camps.
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Kevin was late on the morning of the first session, so I held it down without him. After having the athletes go over the first hurdle a few times just to evaluate their technique, I was so impressed with how aggressive they looked that I decided to just keep going with what we were already doing instead of transitioning to hurdle drills. I added a second hurdle and they did a lot of reps over two from a crouched start. I focused mainly on body angles – making sure they stayed forward off hurdle one, making sure they didn’t stand up too tall while attacking the first hurdle. I observed some of the technical flaws that were common to all of them, and that are common to so many hurdlers. But instead of trying to correct the flaws then and there, I decided to just take note of them and to address them in the evening session.
That’s what I did, with Kevin’s help. In the evening session, we had them do the marching popover drill. And as happens at every camp, they struggled mightily when first introduced to it. I had three lanes of five hurdles set up. One lane had 24-inch hurdles, the second lane had 27-inch hurdles, and the third lane had 30-inch hurdles. Spacing was 11 feet for the 24-inch lane, and 12 feet for the two other lanes. First I had them just go over one hurdle. It took a good fifteen minutes or so for all four hurdlers to do it correctly – pushing forward, not just pushing up; driving the knee up, not kicking the foot out; pushing the hips forward, pushing off the back leg with force, cycling the back leg to the front instantly after take-off, holding the lean during descent and upon landing. I was a bit surprised that they were struggling so much, considering how good they had looked in the morning session. But then I reminded myself that this drill is always the one that athletes unfamiliar with it struggle with. Coach Kevin and I kept teaching and explaining, and eventually it started to click. By the end of the session, almost two hours later, all four athletes had mastered the drill, and were looking easy and fluid, which is exactly how the drill is supposed to look when done correctly.
For the third and final session on Sunday morning, we worked on their start, beginning with three-point starts before transitioning to block starts. They didn’t have a lot of juice left in their legs, but we still got some quality work in. One of the boys, Kenny, is 6-3, and wanted to work on seven-stepping. After a few failed attempts, I had him do some bounding drills, and instructed him to “bound” out of the blocks for the first four strides. That really helped, and enabled him to get to the hurdle in seven steps with no overstriding. We kept the hurdle very low; I think it was 27 inches the whole session. I feel confident that if he keeps working on it throughout the fall, he’ll be able to 7-step with no problem by the start of the indoor season.
The other male of the group, TJ, is only 5-7, but man this kid can run. He reminds me of Cameron back in the day in that despite being short and thin, he has very powerful calf muscles that enable to cover serious ground with every stride. With TJ, we experimented a bit with the angle of his lead arm, as I said that it must be able to punch down on the way down, and not swing across, as long as it’s punching down, I said, I’m good with whatever it does on the way up. The other thing we emphasized with TJ was holding the forward angle of the upper body when coming off the hurdle. Don’t stand up!
The two girls, Mmekom (pronounced “mekkum”) and Syriah, were both eager learners. Syriah has just recently gotten three-stepping down consistently, but in looking at her speed, I don’t know why it took so long. The girl is fast. At the beginning of the first session, she was nine-stepping to the first hurdle, which explained a lot. Once we switched her feet and 8-stepped hurdle one, she was three-stepping to hurdle two with ease.
Mmekom, meanwhile, was the athlete I spent the most one-on-one time with, as she was eager to soak up all the knowledge. I LOVE athletes who ask questions, so Mmekom and I connected instantly. I spent a lot of time explaining/showing to her the angles of the trail leg knee, and how the knee of action of both legs should complement each other.
Raelle came for all three sessions, which was awesome as well. On both mornings, she worked out by herself for an hour, before I got started with the Georgia kids. On Saturday, we drilled, and she finally gained a strong grasp of the “knee up / heel up” action that I’ve been emphasizing for the past two months. “Heel to hamstring” is how she put it, and I told her that if that’s the cue that works for her, she needs to keep telling herself “heel to hamstring” every rep.
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Not only did Raelle do her own workouts, but she stuck around afterwards to watch Coach Kevin and I as we worked with the Savannah group. She even came Saturday evening, and didn’t train but just watched, and also demonstrated the popover drill for me. On Sunday morning, I put her in Kevin’s hands, and he worked on her start. Man, that dude can work wonders with an athlete’s start. Raelle benefitted tremendously from his tutelage, and I can’t wait to see the fruits of it when we go full speed again on fresh legs.
The only sort-of-downer for the weekend was that Janie couldn’t make it, as she had a previous commitment. Would’ve loved for her to be a part of the environment, as I’m sure it would’ve inspired her and motivated her the same as it did Raelle.
Then my birthday was Monday. Turned 58. I just lay in bed all day, I was so tired from Saturday and Sunday. But I did go out to eat with my wife Joy and stepson Akil. Then we watched Interstellar – a movie I’d been meaning to see for a long time but hadn’t gotten around to. Great movie. It was a great weekend all around. Definitely want to connect with this Savannah crew once or twice again before the end of the school year.
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