Practicing at Race Spacing
by Steve McGill
One question I am often asked in regards to how I coach my hurdlers is, “How often do you practice with the hurdles at race spacing?” The answer is, almost never. In this article, I will address the reasons why. But before I do so, let me get into the reasons why coaches do have their athletes train with the hurdles at race spacing. And just to be clear, we’re talking about the sprint hurdles here, not the long hurdles.
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Reason #1
The coach doesn’t know any better. Yes, there are coaches who coach the hurdlers because they’re not really hurdle coaches and got stuck with the hurdlers. They don’t know any better, so they just put the hurdles on the marks and have their athletes go at them full speed. They never have their athletes do hurdle drills and they never have their athletes work on technique or rhythm between the hurdles. Obviously, this approach can lead to hamstring tears and groin pulls and calf strains, etc., and it also encourages and ingrains poor technical habits.
Reason #2
The coach may have a hurdler who is just learning how to three-step, and wants to make sure the athlete can reach the second hurdle, etc. in three steps. This logic makes sense on the surface, but it also leads to bad habits. The hurdler learns to reach for the three strides instead of sprinting for the three strides with proper sprint mechanics between the hurdles. And once a hurdler learns that he or she can successfully three-step by reaching, that athlete will have a very hard time breaking that habit later in his or her career.
Reason #3
The coach is preparing the athletes for a championship meet. This is a good reason, and this is often the only time I’ll practice with the hurdles at race spacing. Even then, though, there has to be more than one hurdler, so that the competitive environment of the race can be at least somewhat simulated. And the amount of reps we’ll do will be minimal. Three at the most.
Reason #4
The coach is coaching professional athletes. For professionals, a lot of the rules of training change. This is their employment. They’re not taking classes, they’re not holding down part-time jobs, they have access to the best facilities and equipment and training staff, their bodies have reached peak development. Plus their technique is pretty much set in stone, so they’re not working on things like younger hurdlers are. For all of the above reasons, professionals can practice with the hurdles on the race marks often because they’re in a training situation where they can always simulate race conditions when they need to.
Now, for the reasons not to train with the hurdles on the race marks:
Reason #1
Track surface. Most of us don’t train on a mondo surface, yet many of us compete on the weekends on a mondo surface. Mondo is designed for speed. Most rubber, all-weather tracks are better than mondo for training because they’re not so hard on the legs, yet they don’t prepare athletes for the speed they will feel when race day comes on the mondo track. Here in North Carolina, a lot of big indoor meets are held at the JDL Fast Track in Winston Salem, and a lot of big outdoor meets are held at NC A & T University in Greensboro. Both tracks are mondo, and both are very fast for hurdlers. For sprinters, training on a rubber track and then competing on a mondo track is excellent because it makes you faster and gives you a big psychological boost. But for hurdlers, the increased speed means increased crowding between the hurdles. So if you train on a rubber track (or worse) and then compete on mondo, training with the hurdles at race spacing will throw off your timing in a big way, potentially causing you to crash.
Reason #2
Adrenaline. This one is pretty simple. No matter how amped up get for practice, you get more amped up for a race. So, by moving in all hurdles after the first hurdle by just a foot, you’re allowing room for that adrenaline factor to kick in on race day.
Reason #3
Competitive environment. There’s not as much of a competitive component in training as there is in a race. Most of the time, because we’re working on things in practice, our focus is on making improvements more so than just going all-out thought-free. Often, hurdlers do reps out of the blocks by themselves in practice. Often, I’ll intentionally have the athletes go one at a time so that I can give each one an individual critique. Even when you do have teammates beside you in practice, it’s not the same as the race environment. Your teammates serve as a measuring stick so that you can gauge your progress and where you stand. It’s not win at all costs like it is in a race.
Reason #4
Reps. In practice, you’re going to be doing multiple reps, whereas in a race, you have one rep, and in that one rep, you either perform well or you don’t. With multiple reps comes muscle fatigue, and, perhaps to a lesser degree, mental fatigue as well. So “all out” in practice isn’t the same as “all out” in a race.
Reason #5
Rhythm. In practice, you want to mimic the cadence that you are seeking to attain (and maintain) in the race. Because of several of the factors mentioned above, practicing with the hurdles at race spacing can prevent that from happening.
My Standard Discounts
My usual spacing discount for the fall and winter is two feet, meaning all hurdles after the first one will moved in two feet from race spacing. One foot, as I tell my athletes, is for the lesser adrenaline, and one foot is because it’s cold and/or the speed we’ll have indoors on race day will be a lot faster than out here in lower temperatures. During the outdoor season, I’ll discount all hurdles after the first hurdle by one foot, again because the adrenaline factor is so hard to duplicate in a workout session. Now, if I have a hurdler who is having issues with crowding in races, I’ll move the hurdles in two feet or even three feet in practice to duplicate the jammed feeling so that he or she can learn to adapt to it without backing off. The only time I’ll practice with all hurdles on the race marks might be the week of a major championship. Even then, if we’re not training on a surface as fast as the surface they’ll be racing on, I’ll still move in the hurdles at least 6 inches.
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