How Young is too Young?
by Steve McGill
In the United States, athletes can start competing in the hurdles in the 11-12 year old age group, which means, depending on the athlete’s birthday, he or she can begin while still only ten years old. The distance for this age group’s race is 80 meters, over eight hurdles, with the hurdles at 30 inches. With modern equipment including products such as banana hurdles and fold-up practice hurdles, athletes even younger csn begin learning technique and rhythm. Meanwhile, many hurdlers don’t take up hurdling until their high school years. Plenty of hurdlers who have started at a very young age have gone in to have major success, yet the same can also be said of many hurdlers who did not start hurdling until the ninth grade or even later. This article will discuss the pros and cons of starting young, as well as the pros and cons of starting later.
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The biggest con of starting hurdling very early in one’s development is that there’s no telling how tall an athlete will end up being by the time he or she stops growing. So, for male hurdlers especially, this factor can lead to troubles down the road. At the 11-12 age group, the hurdles, as mentioned above, are 30 inches and the race is only 80 meters. At the 13-14 age group, the hurdles are 33 inches and the race is 100 meters. In both of these age groups, height isn’t really a factor yet. So, success in these age groups can be fool’s gold if the athlete does not grow significantly. At the 15-16 age group, the hurdles shoot up six inches to 39 inches, with the race distance increasing to 110 meters, which means the space between the hurdles increases as well, as does the distance from the start line to the first hurdle. Hurdlers who don’t grow much taller during that transition period into the 15-16 age group will struggle adapting their speed and rhythm and hurdle clearance to this much more challenging race. In the transition, they may develop some bad habits in their attempts to compensate and to stay as successful as they had been at the previous age group.
Another potential downside could be that bad habits were developed while in the younger age groups — habits that didn’t have much of a negative effect because the hurdles were so low, but that might cause major problems when transitioning into the high school race. These habits will be especially hard to break because they don’t feel wrong and because the athlete had success with them.
For the reasons discussed above, it could be argued that hurdling in the younger age groups can actually hinder an athlete’s long-term progress. But now let’s look at the positives. Firstly, if the athlete is coached well from a young age, he or she won’t develop bad habits, and adjusting to the higher heights and longer distances will simply be a matter of increasing one’s speed and strength. Even if the athlete doesn’t grow much, his or her speed and technique can compensate, and if the athlete chooses (or needs) to focus on the 300/400m hurdles, he or she will already have the hurdling part down pat, and will just need to improve in regards to speed-endurance.
Also, hurdlers who start hurdling very young become masters of rhythm, and can adapt to any spacing issues with little to no problem. To phrase it another way, they have advanced hurdling instincts. Three hurdlers that I coached in the 2006-2009 range — Johnny Dutch, Wayne Davis, and Keare Smith — all started at 10 years old under my old coaching partner Aaron McDougal, and all went on to shine in a big way throughout their high school years and beyond. By the time I started working with them, they were so efficient technically and rhythmically that all I had to do was basically set up the hurdles and say go.
But I also have personal examples of athletes who started later and also achieved a very high level of success. Booker Nunley was part of that group that included Dutch, Davis, and Smith, and Booker didn’t start hurdling until his sophomore year, yet went on to become a national champion before graduating. Kendra Harrison, probably my most decorated former athlete, didn’t start hurdling until her sophomore year, and didn’t run her first full flight of ten over the 100 meter distance until April of her junior year.
Booker and Keni benefited from the fact that they were both exceptional athletes and eager students, and also from the fact that they had someone like me who knew how to teach them all the aspects of hurdling at a pace they could digest. As a coach for my high school team, I was coaching hurdlers every year who didn’t run summer track, and so were new to the event. So I knew what to include in their training vs. what would have to wait until later.
If there is a drawback to starting to hurdle later, it’s the time factor. Athletes like Booker and Keni, and Cameron Akers (whom I discuss in another article in this month’s issue) all had exceptional speed and were naturally aggressive. They just needed to be taught, and they could take it from there. But those athletes are indeed exceptions. Most hurdlers who start in high school are at a disadvantage when competing against athletes who have already been hurdling for two or more years. My observation has been that very few hurdlers who start later in their careers develop the ability to react instinctively, and they also tend to struggle with understanding technical concepts that I believe to be rather basic.
The positive of starting later is that there are no bad habits to fix. Athletes who are beginning with a clean slate don’t have anything to unlearn before they can be taught properly. But again, if the athlete had good coaching as a young pup, then this advantage for athletes who started later is negated.
Overall, in answering the question posed by the title of this article, I would say that there is no such thing as starting too young. If proper mechanics are taught at a young age, those mechanics will carry over to the next stage. The only negative factor that even good coaching can’t overcome is a lack of height. If an athlete is elite in the 11-12 age group, for example, but never grows any taller than, let’s say, 5-7, then the athletes his age will pass him by in his high school years. But again, if that athlete is willing and able to make the switch to the longer hurdle race, then those early years over the lower hurdles will still serve him well.
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