Be Aggressive
by Steve McGill
In basketball games, cheerleaders will often chant the “Be aggressive” cheer. They spell it out: “B-e-a-g-g-r-e-s-s-i-v-e aggressive, b-e aggressive!” Sometimes I wish track had cheerleaders to remind my hurdlers to be aggressive. I’ve always said that hurdlers are the most extreme over-thinkers in the sport of track and field, and the reason that this is the case is obvious – hurdlers have to think constantly in order to master the nuances of technique and learning to fit their speed into the rhythm of the race. I know that in any hurdle training session that I conduct, I’m inundating my hurdlers with concepts to think about and possibilities to consider in regards to their technique, their approach to the first hurdle, etc. So of course, when it’s time to race, hurdlers will want to know what they should be thinking about as they step into the starting blocks.
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The truth is, they shouldn’t be thinking of anything. They should be focused exclusively on running as fast as they can, on getting to the finish line as fast as they can, and beating as many of their opponents as they can. When the gun goes off, any thoughts will weigh down your mind, and thereby slow down your body. But to a hurdler who has been taught to think, think, think in practice, learning to shut off the mind and just go can prove to be quite the challenge.
As I always tell my hurdlers, there are three aspects of hurdling to master: technique, rhythm, and speed. When learning how to hurdle efficiently, and when focusing on correcting technical flaws, the hurdles are lowered and spaced closer together, the block start is not yet relevant, so speed is the least important of the three aspects. Everything is about improving technique and ingraining the rhythm so that, when the time comes to go full-speed with the hurdles at race height and race spacing, the transition will be relatively smooth.
But when the blocks are behind the starting line, speed comes first. As I tell my hurdlers prior to such sessions, “Forget everything I taught you and just run as fast as you can.” I also remind them that while speed can compensate for technical mistakes, technical precision cannot compensate for a lack of speed.
As a private coach, I often will work with athletes who will come from out of town for a weekend or three days. I’ll put them through my usual routine of drills on the first day, and then add the speed element on the second day. Because the athletes I regularly coach know to switch gears when it’s time to focus on speed, I’m always a bit surprised when athletes I don’t coach regularly will be initially tentative when I tell them to forget everything I taught them the previous day and just go full speed. They’ll ask me questions about their lead leg, their trail leg, their lead arm, their lean. My response is usually along the lines of, “You’re not sprinting. Sprint first, and then when we go back to doing drills, we can fix what we need to fix.” What usually happens, after they finally do sprint aggressively, is that their rhythm between the hurdles is much smoother and they have a lot less trouble maintaining the forward posture that allows them to accelerate through the first part of the race.
The story I often tell that highlights the importance of being aggressive on race day goes back many years. I think it was 1999, at the national high school championships, which back then were held at North Carolina State University, and were sponsored by Adidas. Two hurdlers stood out among all the rest – Joshua Walker and Ricky Harris. Walker, who would later go on to win two NCAA titles in the high hurdles for the University of Florida, had the most impeccable hurdling form I had ever seen. Watching him in the semi-finals, I was amazed at his fluidity and ease of motion as he effortlessly stepped over each hurdle. Harris also won his heat, but looked very sloppy in doing so, hitting hurdles and zig-zagging all over the lane. I felt certain that Walker would soundly defeat Harris in the finals.
But he didn’t. Harris won. That race was nothing less than a moment of awakening for me. Seeing the race right there, in person, it was obvious to me that Harris’ aggression, despite his lack of fluidity, was much more beneficial to getting to the finish line first than Walker’s technical flawlessness. It wasn’t that Walker’s technique didn’t matter, but it didn’t matter more than being fast and staying aggressive. The purpose of technical precision and mastering the rhythm, I realized, is to maximize the speed one can use. If Harris had better technique, he could’ve been running 13-flat. If Walker had been more aggressive, he could’ve been running 13-flat.
This lesson about aggression came to the forefront once again this past summer, culminating at USATF Junior Olympic Nationals, in regards to Josh Brockman – my athlete who was competing in the 110 hurdles in the 17-18 age group. Since I started working with Josh in the fall, he had proven himself to be a true student of the game, so to speak – someone who watched a lot of YouTube videos of past and present greats and asked a lot of intelligent questions regarding technique. He had all the qualities that I look for in a hurdler, both physically and mentally.
But there was something missing. And I noticed it in comparing him to another athlete I was coaching – Falon Spearman, in the girls 13-14 age group. In races, Falon shifted into beast mode. As high-quality as her workouts were, she was always able to raise her level another notch in competitions. I’ve always said that, when done right, a hurdle race is one long scream. You never pause on top of hurdles, you never stand up coming off of hurdles. You never relax, you never grow comfortable. You just scream from one end of the straightaway to the other. Falon epitomized this philosophy.
But Josh, in comparison, ran tentatively. He’d have good starts, but once he began feeling crowded between the hurdles, he’d back off. His body posture would change. He’d be more upright between the hurdles, leading to being too upright over the hurdles, leading to making contact with the hurdles and losing speed. In the finals at Nationals, he finished fifth in 14.00 – slower than his personal best of 13.86 – although it was obvious that if he just stayed aggressive through the last half of the race, he would’ve run faster than his pb and may have won the race.
A lot of college coaches were attending the meet, and one of them was none other than the GOAT himself, Allen Johnson, who coaches at North Carolina State University. I had a chance to talk to him after the race, as Josh’s dad introduced me to him, and when we asked for an honest assessment of Josh’s performance, Allen responded, “He looked scared. He’s not running aggressively.” And that summed it up in a nutshell. For all the improvements Josh had made in his technique, he hadn’t overcome his fear of the danger zone – that feeling that the hurdles are rushing up at him and he doesn’t have enough room to react. That’s where our primary focus will be heading into next year.
To summarize, all hurdlers should be aware that speed and aggression should never be sacrificed in the name of running a safe race or a comfortable race. A comfortable race is a slow race. Embrace the danger zone, and you will see your time drop even if the technical flaws don’t disappear.
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