Block Start Practice
by Steve McGill
Hurdlers tend to focus so much on the hurdles that they forget to sprint. Often, this habit appears in the very first step of a race. Hurdlers often tend to stand up out of the blocks in their eagerness to run to the first hurdle. Many beginning hurdlers will fixate on the first hurdle, and will run tentatively toward it without even realizing that they are doing so. As a result, they don’t drive out of the blocks at all. To put it simply, instead of running through hurdle one, they run to hurdle one, which sets up a habit of being to erect that continues all the way down the track. For those younger hurdlers who struggle to maintain a three-step stride pattern between the hurdles for an entire race, getting out of the blocks forcefully, pushing out forward (instead of upward), and driving and rising gradually, is essential to maintaining speed and rhythm for the whole race. A first step that is too short can have a ripple negative effect over every hurdle. If the take-off distance to hurdle one is too far away, the take-off distance to every hurdle will most likely be too far away. The only exceptions are those hurdlers who are powerful enough and athletic enough to compensate and recover somewhere further down the track.
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When working on starts in practice, I like to go through specific progressions. First, I’ll always begin the session by having the hurdlers do two or three practice starts, with no commands, on their own, over no hurdles, but driving through where the first hurdle would be. (I’ll put a cone at that mark). The primary purpose of these reps (which come after the completion of a full warmup) is to get hurdlers thinking like sprinters — focusing on driving, not focusing on the hurdle. Even experienced hurdlers, I feel, should begin a block start training session with hurdle-free starts, as it is easy to become complacent without realizing it. The lack of commands allows the athlete to focus on pedal settings, find his or her sweet spots for the mark position and set position, sweeping the arms, and pushing pushing pushing.
After the hurdle-free starts, I’ll put up a hurdle at the first hurdle mark, lowered by at least one click from race height. The hurdle-free reps have established the driving, pushing mentality, so now we can take that mentality over hurdle one.
From there, I’ll keep adding hurdles, one hurdle at a time, usually doing at least two reps each time. In some cases, if the quality has been high enough, I’ll move on after one rep. This time of year, I’ll max out the number of hurdles at four. That’s the most we’ll go over in a rep. Once we get to four, I’ll add cones 1o meters beyond the fourth hurdle as a finish line. With the indoor race consisting of five hurdles, going over four in practice is good training for the race. Outdoor season, I’ll have the athletes clear as many as seven hurdles, and instead of adding hurdles one hurdle at a time, I might add two at a time to minimize the amount of reps, so that quality doesn’t deteriorate toward the end of the workout.
In some workouts, especially this time of year, I won’t give commands at all, especially when coaching inexperienced hurdlers who need to be brought along slowly. In such cases, just getting their pedal settings right, and getting them to push off of the pedals, can consume much of the session. Getting them to respond to commands can cause mental overload. Or I might introduce them to commands if I plan to have them hurdle in the next race, just so they get used to starting with commands, and to ensure they don’t do something stupid like look up at the starter before he says set. Also, I want to make sure they don’t roll from set to go without holding their set position first.
With experienced hurdlers, I’ll give commands for the whole workout after the first couple hurdle-free reps. In the best-case scenario, if I have a good group of experienced hurdlers, I’ll have them do competitive starts, with commands, over 1, then 2, then 3, then 4 hurdles. I’ll have them switch lanes each rep so that they don’t get too comfortable where they are. The reason I call this situation the best-case scenario is because the competitive element is the most difficult thing to mimic in practice. When practicing starts side by side with hurdlers of equivalent talent, hurdlers learn to develop a race mentality: focus on what you are doing in your lane, ignore all distractions, etc. In such a competitive environment, I no longer need to teach and preach because I can count on the athletes’ competitive instincts taking over. Nobody wants to lose, not even in practice, not even to a teammate or best friend.
This time of year, when practicing starts, I don’t put the hurdles at race height. Especially for males, there’s no point in practicing full-speed reps at race height in November. Up to this point in our training, hurdle workouts have been volume-based, with a heavy emphasis on technical development. To suddenly transition to full speed at race height would be foolish, and could lead to regression, or even injury. Also, I never put the hurdles at race spacing. I’ll always discount all hurdles after the first hurdle by at least one foot, maybe two.
Finally, let me add that when practicing the drive to the first hurdle, I emphasize to my hurdlers that they do not need to be at full height at hurdle one. They should be tall enough to clear the hurdle, but they should still be rising to full height. If they are at full height at hurdle one, they will not accelerate through the hurdle like they need to; they will consequently reach top speed too soon, and will therefore decelerate earlier in the race than they should.
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