The Pros and Cons of Walk-over Drills
by Steve McGill
Anyone who knows me well and knows my style of coaching knows that I am not a fan of walk-over drills. However, I don’t totally oppose the use of them. In this article, I will explain my rationale for shunning walk-over drills whenever possible, but I’ll begin by explaining the scenarios in which walk-over drills can be effective.
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Walk-over drills are most useful as a teaching tool for beginning hurdlers. When starting with an athlete who has never hurdled before — whether the athlete is a 10-year-old in youth track or a 60-year-old masters athlete — teaching the basic function of each of the limbs is essential, and should start on day one of training. Similarly, when working with an athlete who has developed bad habits, and you are trying to deconstruct his or her form in order to reconstruct it, walk-overs are again a useful tool. Walk-overs allow the athlete to move at a pace that is slow enough that he or she can think and move at the same time.
Side walk-overs — in which the hurdler walks on the side of the lane beside the hurdles — help to slow things down even further, so the athlete can focus just on that specific limb. So when I’m trying to explain how to lead with the knee of the lead leg, side walk-overs isolating the lead leg makes it easier for the athlete to conceptualize what “lead with the knee” means, and it gives me the opportunity to explain where the knee should be in relation to the heel, etc. Same thing goes for side walk-overs isolating the trail leg. A lot of times, when teaching a beginner how the trail leg functions, I’ll begin with the fence drill (or wall drill). With that drill, I can literally grab the leg and guide its motion from push-off to knee facing front to foot cycling back under the hip. The side walk-over is the next phase of progression, where you take what you learned in the wall drill and apply it to when you’re actually moving.
Over-the-top walk-overs, where you go down the middle of the lane and clear each hurdle with both legs, allows for feeling how the two legs function together. Once the athlete has mastered side walk-overs on both sides, then going down the middle is the next step. At this stage, hip rotation becomes an added element, as both hips need to rotate to avoid any lateral tilting to one side or another.Walk-overs are also good for teaching the other aspects of technique — lead arm action, trail arm action, and forward lean in particular. If I’m working with an athlete who has had some experience and has developed a bad habit, such as the lead arm swinging across the body, I might choose to employ walk-overs as the method to begin addressing this issue. In walk-overs, it’s easier to see the hand going across, to therefore shift the angle, and to then get in the habit of changing to a more up-and-down angle on a regular basis. Walk-overs over the top are also a very good tool for teaching the lean. In the drill, the lead leg cycles back to the ground, then you lean forward while bringing the trail leg to the front. It is easy to feel how the forward lean, from the waist, gives the trail leg the room it needs to drive forward without allowing the hips to twist. Sometimes, even with athletes who are very good hurdlers who run very fast times, I might use part of a training session to do some walk-overs as a means of explaining a technical concept that he or she has yet to master.
For me, I like to do all walk-over drilling to a three-step rhythm. That’s how I am with all drills, because I always want my athletes to visualize themselves racing. A lot of coaches prefer walk-overs with a one-step rhythm, but I consider such drilling to be non-hurdle-specific, as it can be done by athletes of any event or of any sport as part of a dynamic stretching routine. For my walk-overs, I’ll set the hurdles in the range of 10-12 feet apart, and I’ll often use training hurdles with beginners so that I can lower the height to 27″ or even 24″ if need be.
Okay, so on to why I do not like walk-over drills. The biggest reason is the timing issue. Walk-overs do not mimic real-life, real-world hurdling, for the simple fact that you always have one foot on the ground. That is why I feel like, once you’ve mastered the technical aspects at the walk-over level, you should go ahead and move on from the walk-over drills. Walk-over drills, to me, are the equivalent of training wheels for hurdlers. You need the training wheels to learn how to ride, but you’ve gotta take the training wheels off if you’re really gonna ride.
Because one foot is on the ground at all times, there is no explosive element to walk-overs, and the explosive element is arguably the most important part of hurdling! The push off the back leg that propels you into hurdling position is crucial to creating speed through and off each hurdle. In real-life hurdling, both feet leave the ground at virtually the same time. Both legs burst into hurdling position at the same time. It’s not lead leg then trail leg; it’s lead leg and trail leg together. Watch any outstanding hurdler of note, at any level, and you will notice that he or she explodes into hurdling position as soon as he or she takes off. Hurdlers who rely too much on walk-over drills can often lack explosiveness at take-off.
Also, again in regards to the timing, the forward lean does not take place at the same time in the drill as it does in actual hurdling. In the drill, you lean forward after the lead leg has cleared the hurdle and landed on the other side. In real-life hurdling, the lean occurs at take-off, at the same time that the knee of the lead leg attacks the crossbar.
When it comes to side walk-overs, and any side isolation drills, they allow the leg not clearing the hurdle to cheat, and yes, I very much despise that.
For me, once an athlete is beyond the beginner stages, I’ve replaced any and all walk-overs with marching pop-overs. With this drill, the athlete marches to the first hurdle with high hands and high knees, “jumps” off the back leg into hurdling position, and steps down off the hurdle. This drill, to me, much more directly mimics what you need to do when you clear a hurdle in a race. Both legs leave the ground at virtually the same time, both legs explode into hurdling position, and there is a cycling of the leg that takes place when it is done correctly.
So, I’m not just saying, don’t do walk-overs. I’m also saying, do marching pop-overs instead.
When it comes to race day, I say do very little drilling at all. Race day warmup should be all about speed — move the hurdles out the way and do some flying sprints of 30-40 meters. Then put the blocks down and work on starts over the first hurdle, the first two, the first three. Whenever I go to meets, I see so many hurdlers doing so many walk-over drills, and I’m like, Why? You can’t fix any technical flaws on the day of a race. You don’t want to ingrain that “lead leg then trail leg” muscle memory minutes prior to the race. That just doesn’t make any sense to me.
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