Off-Season Workout for Long Hurdlers
by Steve McGill

As we head into the off-season for athletes who aren’t professional or who haven’t qualified for Junior Olympic Nationals in youth track, it’s time to start building a foundation for next year. I have a handful of athletes on my high school team who are eager to build off the momentum of a strong end to the season this past year, and one of them doesn’t play any fall sports, so I’ve already gotten her started on off-season workouts.

This month’s workouts is one of those workouts, designed to help establish a speed-endurance base for the 300 meter hurdles. I’ll also explain the 400 meter hurdler’s version a little later in this article.

Here’s the workout:

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4×600 with a 4-minute rest between reps. When deciding on a target time for the reps, I’ll go by a per-200 meters pace that I think the athlete can handle. This girl I’m working with now has a personal best in the 52-low range in the 300 hurdles, and we’re hoping to get down to the 48.0 range this year. So I’m her first time doing the workout, I’ll set the target time at a conservative number — 2:15, which is :45 per 200. I’ll tell her that it shouldn’t be an even :45 for each 200. Instead we want the first 200 to be ahead of pace — let’s say :43, we want the second 200 to be on pace — :45, which allows room for the natural deceleration to occur in the last 200, which she’ll run in :47. So, :43, :45, :47 splits add up to a 2:15. 

As the athlete grows more acclimated to the workout, I’ll increase the level of challenge. By the fourth or fifth week of doing this workout, she should be able to do all of the 600’s in the 2:00 range, while the effort level remains the same. As the athlete gets stronger, I keep raising the level of challenge, incrementally, always being sure to set up the athlete for success.

When it comes to recovery time, I’m always willing to add more recovery time if it means hitting the target times. Hitting the target times is of paramount importance, because that’s how we (coaches) can mark progress. So if the second rep, for example, is slower than the target time, then I’ll add another :30 or 1:00 of rest before the next rep. But, I won’t lower the target time for the next workout until the athlete is hitting all four reps on the target time with just the four minutes rest after each one. 

The 400 hurdler’s version of this workout would be 4×800, and everything else stays the same. Four minutes rest between reps. Set the target time based on a per-200m rhythm. For both the 300m hurdler and the 400m hurdler, the distance of the reps is double the distance of the race. I personally don’t see any circumstances where a 300m hurdler needs to run any farther than 600 meters in practice, or where a 400m hurdler needs to run any farther than 800 meters. 

I’m not big on long hurdlers doing any kind of distance running in the off-season. It’s best for them to run distances that are short enough to allow them to win with proper sprint mechanics — on the balls of their feet with their ankles dorsi-flexed. 300m hurdlers should be able to stay on the balls of their feet for 600 meters. Same with 800 meters for 400m hurdlers. 

This is a workout I would do through the end of October, as it will have served its purpose of establishing a foundation by then. 

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