Marching Popover Workout
by Steve McGill

Often is the case that a drill session can comprise an entire workout, especially in off-season training, when looking to develop a hurdler’s technique, rhythm, and hurdle endurance. In the early part of this summer I’ve had a few visits from out-of-town hurdlers who are looking to prepare for next year. So I felt that beginning this early meant I could start with the basics of what I teach as opposed to preparing for a specific upcoming meet. And if you know me, you know that teaching is what I do best, and it’s also what I enjoy the most. 

The marching popover drill is a great drill to use for instructional purposes, as the lack of speed going into the first hurdle forces the athlete to push off the back leg with force in order to propel themselves over the hurdle and toward the next one; they can’t rely on their speed to do it for them. Also, with this drill, we can work on all aspects of technique – staying dorsiflexed on the balls of the feet, driving up the knee of the lead leg, leaning forward from the waist, cycling the trail leg to the front as soon as it pushes off, keeping the lead arm punching up and down quickly and precisely. We can also work on the timing of it all, as I can explain how these movements need to occur synchronously, as opposed to being separate, individualized movements. 

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When doing marching popovers as a workout, I generally don’t put a number on how many reps we want to do, or how many hurdles we want to go over, unless the hurdler is advanced, has done the drill effectively in past sessions, and I know that I won’t have to do a whole lot of teaching. But when working with athletes who are new to the drills, we’ll start with just one hurdle, and we may spend a lot of time on just one hurdle before we move on to adding a second hurdle.

My standard spacing for the drill is 12 feet apart, and the hurdles will be as low as necessary for the athlete to learn to do the drill correctly. If I’m working with someone who has never done the drill before, we’ll start with 24’s or 27’s, especially with female hurdlers. For athletes who are totally not getting the concept of pushing off the back leg instead of kicking out the foot of the lead leg, I might start with a track bag or a mini-cone, just to introduce the concept. 

But once we’re ready to rock and roll, I’ll set up five hurdles at the appropriate height for that athlete, spaced twelve feet apart. The highest the hurdles will ever get for this drill is 30 inches for female hurdlers, and 36 inches for male hurdlers. The widest the spacing will ever be is 14 feet, for advanced male hurdlers. 

Ideally, when doing the marching popovers as a full-blown workout, we can work our way up to ten hurdles. That way, the athlete can experience (and the coach can teach) all of the phases of an actual race. When done properly, the athlete speeds up naturally, and the challenge becomes to keep the march a march, as opposed to allowing oneself to start running between the hurdles. But the march does speed up, and quicken up, especially in the range of the middle hurdles – hurdles 4-7 – same as in a race. Then over the last three hurdles you’re just trying to sustain the rhythm and keep the technique on point. That’s why I tell my hurdlers, if you can master this drill, you can master the race; it’s just a matter of implementing the block start.

The short video below features my guy Malik Mixon, whom I worked with often during his high school years, and who is currently recovering from a torn achilles. He came for a session a few weeks ago as he ramps up his preparation for a return. It was his first time going over hurdles in over a year, so I decided to focus on the popover drill over low hurdles. 

Malik showed remarkable progress during this session, as the rep in the above video shows. This video serves as a good example of what we want the drill to look like when done correctly. Chest stays pushing forward. Lead leg drives up and down with minimal horizontal extension. Lead arm punches up, punches down. The rhythm quickens on its own, without any effort on the athlete’s part to speed up. 

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