Reverse Order Workout

by Steven McGill

Usually when I have my hurdlers do block starts in practice, I’ll gradually add hurdles as we go. We’ll start with no hurdles and go past where the first hurdle would be; then we’ll do reps over one hurdle, then two, etc., up to however many hurdles I want the athlete to clear that day. The point of going in ascending order is to establish the first part of the race first. You can’t expect a good rep over one hurdle if you haven’t already established a good take-off distance first. You can’t expect a good rep over two if you haven’t established an effective clearance over the first hurdle. Etc. By building up, you build the athlete’s confidence, and you address any minor issues that need to be addressed that can lead to major issues further down the track.

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But when you’re talking about more experienced hurdlers, whom you know you can trust to train at a high level of quality, and who have demonstrated the ability to do all the technical things correctly out of the starting blocks, it makes sense to go in reverse order. The logic is, going in ascending order can lead to lower quality reps late in the workout. By the time the athlete is going over six or seven hurdles, his or her legs are already rubbery from doing reps over one, over to, over three, over four, and over five. If the purpose of the workout is to work on getting stronger in the second half of the race, then it’s best to get the athlete over six or seven hurdles at the beginning of the workout, and then work your way down.

With that thought in mind, here’s the workout:

• 2 block starts over the first seven hurdles (hurdles are at race height, with all hurdles after the first hurdle moved in one foot from race distance).
• 2 block starts over the first five hurdles.
• 2 block starts over the first three hurdles.
• 2 block starts over the first hurdle.

A good standard rest between reps would be four minutes in order to ensure high quality.

At the end of the warm-up, prior to beginning the workout, I’ll have my athletes do some easy five-stepping at race spacing just to get their legs over the hurdles. About three reps of that. And then I’ll have them do a few practice starts (without commands) with no hurdles and then over the first hurdle. Then we’re ready to rock and roll.

For derivations, you could do an even-numbered amount of hurdles – 8, 6, 4, and 2 as opposed to 7, 5, 3, and 1. I prefer an odd-numbered amount because I like to think in terms of zones. To hurdle three is the first zone. Hurdle seven takes you through the second zone. I don’t like practicing the third zone because the late-race endurance necessary to excel there can be addressed through running workouts. But that’s just me; that’s not written in stone.

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