Quicksteps & Starts Workout

by Steve McGill

Almost all of the workouts that I have described in past issues of The Hurdle Magazine have been workouts that I had recently used, and this month’s workout is no exception. This is a tricky time of year for training, because, for me personally, I absolutely prefer to continue building a base by getting in a good amount of volume in hurdle workouts, but I also recognize that indoor meets are starting up already. Though I don’t put much stock in meets this early in the season, I do recognize that disappointing performances can lead to long-term confidence issues, so hurdlers do need to prepare for the early indoor meets sufficiently enough to see themselves improving–both in their overall execution and in their times on the watch. With those thoughts in mind, I’ve been using this month’s workout recently with the hurdlers I coach privately. It’s a hybrid workout, as I will explain below.

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The “quickstep” workout is my staple workout for rhythm development, technique improvement, and hurdle endurance. A usual quickstep workout will consist of clearing a total of at least 100 hurdles, building up to 200+ as we increase the reps each week. 

The setup for the quickstep drill is as follows:

Five hurdles, either at race height or one click below race height, spaced 24 feet apart (males) or 21 feet apart (females). From a six-step approach to hurdle one, (beginning 30-33 feet from the first hurdle), the athlete will clear all five hurdles, three-stepping in between, turn around, jog or walk briskly back to the start line, then go again. Generally eight reps will comprise a set. So, two-and-a-half sets will add up to 100 hurdles. The rest between sets will be five minutes, maybe six if the temperatures are very high (which won’t be the case this time of year, but could be the case in September).

So, if we did the full workout prior to doing block-start work, the block starts would suffer in quality as a result. So, in this workout, we’ll do just one set of quicksteps (eight reps, or ten max) for 40-50 hurdles. Then, after a break, we’ll transition into the block starts. 

Because the focus indoors is on the first half of the race, we won’t clear more than three hurdles in the block-start portion of the workout. 

We’ll start by doing at least two reps without any hurdles at all, but placing a cone where we want the take-off distance to be. That will generally be seven feet from the crossbar for males, and six feet from the crossbar for females. We want our last stride (eighth stride for 8-steppers, seventh stride for 7-steppers) to land a little ahead of the cone. That way, when we put the hurdle up, we know we’ll need to shorten and quicken that last stride that pushes us through the hurdle. That stride is commonly referred to as the “cut step” because you want it to be short and explosive.

Once we’ve got our take-off distance right, we’ll put up the first hurdle; usually we’ll start a click below race height, although some hurdlers prefer to go straight to race height. If their technique is solid and they’re experienced at this, going straight to race height is fine by me.

From there, we’ll gradually build. We’ll stay with one hurdle for as long as we need to in order to get it just right, then we’ll add a second hurdle and do as many reps as needed over two, and then add a third hurdle and do a few more reps over three. To save the legs, I try to keep the number or reps as limited as possible. If we spend a lot of time getting the first hurdle right, for example, we might not get over three hurdles in that particular workout. We’ll make it to two, and stop there. I never want to force a preconceived idea of how many reps we need to get in. The key is to get that start looking efficient on a consistent basis. If I have to do a lot of teaching and experimenting with block-pedal settings to get the start just right, then I’ll do so. 

What I like about this workout, as I explained in the beginning of this article, is that it allows me to address hurdle endurance and race preparation in the same session. I can keep the long-term plan in mind while also focusing on the upcoming meet.

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