Back & Forth Workout
by Steve McGill
This article will focus on the 400 hurdler’s version of the back and forth workout, not the 100/110m hurdler’s version. This is a workout that I’ve used often in the past and that I’ve been using quite successfully with one of my athletes this winter. It’s an excellent off-season hurdle-endurance workout that, in addition to building hurdling endurance, also serves to improve technique and overall efficiency between the hurdles and over the hurdles.
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The Setup:
For females, the odd-numbered hurdles of the 100h race will be placed on the track–five facing one way, five in the adjacent lane, facing the opposite direction. Hurdles will be on the marks for hurdles 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 of the 100h race. Hurdles should be at race height for the 400m hurdles.
For males, the setup is the same, except the hurdles will be on the odd-numbered marks for the 110h race. Again, five facing one way, five facing the opposite direction.
What Each Rep Consists Of:
Each rep, the athlete will start at the start line for the 100m hurdles (females) or 110m hurdles (males). Going up, the athlete will, from a standing start, take an eight-step approach to the first hurdle, and then take nine steps between the rest of the hurdles. After crossing the fifth hurdle, the athlete will continue running through the finish line, slow down naturally, turn around, get the feet set behind the 100m finish line (which now serves as the start line on the way back), and then head back toward the start line, taking twelve steps to the first hurdle, and trying to maintain the nine steps between all the rest. The rep is complete when the athlete has crossed the finish line (the original start line).
The Workout:
The workout consists of five such reps as explained above, with five minutes rest between each rep. Females will run 200m (100 up, 100 back) per rep over 10 hurdles. Males will run 220m (110m up, 110m back) per rep over 10 hurdles.
With this workout, there are many variations I add throughout the off-season to keep adding challenges. I’ll have the athlete do this workout once a week. The first week will serve as a soft introduction, in which the athlete will run the 100/110 meters on the way up, but will jog back to the start line instead of clearing a second set of five hurdles in the other direction. Then once that is done successfully, then we’ll graduate to the full-blown back-and-forth workout as described above.
Once the athlete is able to do five back-and-forths with five minutes rest between each one, I’ll decrease the recovery time. I may say let’s have four minutes rest after the first two reps, and then five minutes after the third and fourth reps. Something like that. Or, if the athlete is still looking strong after the second rep, I’ll have him or her maintain the four minutes rest for the whole workout. The goal, if you will, would be to work down to just three minutes rest between all the reps.
At that point, I can increase the challenge by having a single rep consist of running back and forth and back again, for a total of 15 hurdles, and 300m (females) or 330m (males) worth of running. If so, I’ll put the recovery time back up to five minutes between reps, and gradually work our way down to three minutes again.
At that point, I can increase the challenge again by having a single rep consist of running back and forth twice, for a total of 20 hurdles, and 400m (females) or 440m (males) worth of running. Again, I’ll put the recovery time back up to five minutes between reps, and gradually work our way down to three minutes once more.
I’ve only had one athlete who has ever done five reps of back-and-forth-and-back-and-forth with three minutes rest. That was Johnny Dutch.
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Besides being a hurdle-endurance workout, this workout can also be used during the season as a speed workout. The athlete would sprint full speed from the start line and seek to take seven steps between the hurdles, just going up, and walking back. There’d be plenty of recovery time between reps, in the range of 7-9 minutes.
This workout could also be used as an alternating drill. The athlete would seek to take 8 strides between the hurdles, which will mean more speed needed to hurdle one. Again, the number of reps would decrease, and the recovery time would increase, according to the coach’s discretion.
I always end these sessions with some drilling, working on technical flaws I may have noticed during the workout. The drilling will be light and very specific to that particular athlete’s needs.
The video below features one of my athlete’s doing the back-and-forth workout. Two reps are in the video–one from January 5 and one from January 12, 2020. The video gives a good visual of how the reps should be performed.
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