Hurdling on the Curve with Speed Workout
by Steve McGill
For long hurdlers, learning how to navigate the curve effectively is an essential element of training. This is true for several reasons, including the fact that the curve is usually where fatigue sets in, where stride patterns shift, and where big mistakes are prone to occur. When I’m coaching long hurdlers, I like to spend a lot of time working on curve angles so that the athlete can develop a confidence and a strategy and an ability to adapt to external factors like weather conditions.
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In the workout from the September issue of The Hurdle Magazine, I put up five hurdles on the curve evenly spaced apart without regard for where, exactly, the hurdles would be in an actual race. That workout was all about knowing where to run in the lane in order to negotiate the barriers effectively. That’s a good hurdle conditioning workout and it’s also good for demystifying the difficulty of hurdling on the curve.
This month’s workout provides the next-level challenge of the previous workout, as it decreases the amount of hurdles, increases the amount of speed, and seeks to mimic the actual race rhythm.
With this month’s workout, here’s the setup:
Put three hurdles on the curve, where hurdles 6, 7, and 8 are located in a 400m hurdle race. For a 300m hurdler, the hurdles would be places where hurdles 3, 4, and 5 are located in the 300m hurdle race.
The workout:
The athlete will start at the mark for the previous hurdle — hurdle five for the 400m hurdler, or hurdle 2 for the 300m hurdler, and sprint full speed over the three hurdles on the curve. I prefer a bit of a running start, so that the preferred lead leg lands a little in front of the actual hurdle mark (close to where it would land if the athlete were actually clearing that hurdle).
8 reps of this is plenty, with a walk-back recovery after every rep, and maybe divide it into two sets, with a four-minute break after the fourth rep. Though speed is a factor in this workout, there is still a conditioning element to it. So, for this time of year, we want to get in eight reps, and no less than six.
The idea is to deal with whatever happens, each rep. When I had my post-collegian, Tevin Colson, do this workout, he 16-stepped occasionally even though he has 15-stepped through seven hurdles in training sessions. We both agreed that the key is to stay aggressive, to stay in attack mode, no matter which leg comes up. Of course, we’re able to take this approach because we’ve worked enough on the non-dominant lead leg to build a confidence in it. A hurdler who isn’t able to alternate lead legs won’t have that option in this workout, and will need to go back and drill the weaker leg until the confidence is sufficient to use it at faster speeds.
Full disclosure, when I had Tevin do this workout last week, I accidentally told him that his first stride should be with his right leg, which is why he cleared the first hurdle on the weaker leg on a few of the reps, and then 16-stepped to get back on his stronger leg, and then 15-stepped the third hurdle, staying on his stronger lead leg. It was our first time doing the workout, as I kind of made it up on the spot, so I messed up. Gotta make the mistake in order to correct the mistake, right?
Below is video footage of Tevin doing the workout last week. I have a variation to the workout that I plan to add next time we do it. But I’ll save writing about it until we actually do it.
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