Coach as Troubleshooter
by Steve McGill
The most important role that a hurdle coach plays in the development of a hurdler is that of troubleshooter. Assuming the athlete has a good work ethic and takes constructive criticism in a healthy manner (without feeling like they are personally attacked), then my job is to get that hurdler to a level where he or she is extremely efficient over the hurdles so that they can maximize their flat sprinting speed. To me, the art of troubleshooting is more important than designing effective workouts and incorporating effective drills. Why do I say this? Because the workouts and the drills are easy to find even if you know very little about hurdling. You can find drills on YouTube, Instagram, etc., and by picking the brains of other coaches who have had success coaching hurdlers.
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But being able to identify flaws in hurdling technique, and in sprinting mechanics, and in block-start mechanics, and making decisions regarding which flaw should be addressed first in the course of a training session, is hard work. It’s inexact work. It can be frustrating work, and even humbling work. I have found that no matter how much knowledge I have accumulated over the years, no matter how much success I’ve had with past athletes, I have to treat each individual athlete, and each individual training session, as its own unique entity. Inevitably, if I take that approach, I’m going to discover something that I hadn’t considered before.
When a doctor is treating a patient, that patient may come with a lot of symptoms, but if the doctor tries to treat the symptoms, the symptoms will linger. The doctor needs to find the root cause of the symptoms. Once that has been done, now the illness can be treated effectively, and the symptoms will go away of their own accord. Same thing with an auto mechanic. If the car is making a clunkety-clunk noise, the mechanic must figure out what is causing the clunkety-clunk noise, and address the cause. Once that is done, the noise will go away in and of itself. Similarly, in hurdling, there are issues that are symptoms, and there are symptoms that are root causes. For example, you may have a hurdler whose trail leg flattens out too wide and smacks hurdles with the foot, and arms that swing across the body. As the coach, you have to figure out which is causing which — is the trail leg action causing the arms to cross, or are the arms causing the trail leg to flare out? The only way to figure it out is to figure it out. Instruct the athlete to focus on the trail leg for a rep or two. If no improvement is evident, instruct the athlete to focus on the arm action for a rep or two. If that doesn’t work, then the roots of the problem must lie somewhere else — maybe in the lead leg action, or in the angle of take-off. You troubleshoot until you figure it out. Then, once you figure it out, you know what cue to give the athlete for the rest of that training session.
I’ve been coaching long enough that I can identify which issues are usually the root-cause issues, and which issues are usually symptoms of the root causes. What I have discovered is that the first place to look when addressing any flaw in hurdling technique is the athlete’s sprint mechanics. Are they running on the balls of their feet, or are they running flat-footed, or are they heel-striking? If they are not running on the balls of their feet, ankles dorsiflexed, then the hurdle must be put to the side and the sprint mechanics must be fixed before the athlete even looks at a hurdle again. If you’re not on the balls of your feet, you won’t be able to lead with the knee at the hurdle, no matter how hard you try; you won’t be able to lean forward from the waist, no matter how hard you try; you won’t be able to maintain a high-and-tight trail leg action, no matter how hard you try. Landing flat-footed or heel-first will compel you to “jump” over the hurdle. Your hips will rise, your lead leg will kick out, your arms will swing, and you will float in the air. So you could spend an entire session, an entire week of sessions, an entire month of sessions trying to get the athlete to lead with the knee, but if they’re not running on the balls of the feet, they will not be able to lead with the knee.
Assuming that the athlete is running on the balls of the feet, but I still see some issues with balance over the hurdles, the next thing I look to is the lead leg. A lot of hurdlers who have excellent sprint mechanics still have bad hurdling technique because they make an effort to “hurdle,” instead of just sprinting over the hurdle. When some hurdlers try to “hurdle,” or, prepare to clear the hurdle, their take-off stride will land flat-footed, even if they’ve been running dorsiflexed until that stride. Their hips will rise, even though their hips have been pushing forward until that stride. I tell my hurdlers, “Don’t hurdle; sprint over the hurdle.” In other words, keep doing what you’re already doing. Yes, push off with more force, but push off the ball of the foot.
My observation has been that trail leg issues are almost always a symptom, hardly ever a root cause. These days, when I see a lazy trail leg, I hardly ever address that issue directly. I’m looking for what else is happening that is causing the trail leg to be wide, late, low or all of the above. Because I teach my hurdlers to sprint over the hurdle, and because I prep them to do so with drills like the marching popovers, I know that if they’re doing everything else correctly, the trail leg will naturally come through high and tight without the need for any cue to tell it to do so. Now there are some hurdlers who tend to kick back with the trail leg immediately after take-off because that habit has been ingrained. So, even when the other technique elements have been refined, that back-kick action may still be there. When that’s the case, I know I need to address the trail leg directly.
In a recent session with one of my hurdlers, I noticed that her trail leg foot was swinging widely. It had been an issue for a while — since last year — but on this day for some reason it occurred to me to remind her to “tuck the heel, keep the heel close to your hamstring so the knee can lead the way.” In the very next rep I noticed significant improvement, and I felt like an idiot for taking so long to realize such a simple solution. But I’ve come to accept that feeling like an idiot sometimes comes with the territory of being a hurdle coach. The obvious isn’t obvious until you figure it out.
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