Lower then Raise the Hurdles Workout

This is a workout designed to help beginning hurdlers to get over the fear of the height of the obstacles. It can also help experienced hurdlers to focus on being fast and aggressive between the hurdles and to get race-sharp.

For beginning hurdlers it should be done from a standing start or falling start. For experienced hurdlers preparing for a race, it can be done from a block start.

Set up four to five hurdles, with the first one on the race mark, and all the rest moved in a foot or two from the race mark. With a raw beginner, you might even want to move them in three or four feet to start with.

Set all the hurdles at least three inches (one click) below race height. In some cases, if the fear of the obstacles has been causing the athlete to run up to the hurdle and stop over and over again, lower the hurdles by six inches. What I’ve done in some cases, for girls or kids just starting out in youth track in the 11-12 age group, is take the top off the hurdle and rest it against the bottom part, so that the crossbar is about 27 inches high. Using practice fold-up hurdles could also be a viable option if it’s not too windy.

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Have the athlete do a rep over all four hurdles, making sure that he or she is in attack mode from the very beginning. A lot of beginners will be cautious with their first few strides, trying to measure whether they’ll make it or not. Their focus is often totally on the hurdle, which makes them passive and fearful. Also be very watchful of the transition off of hurdle one. Often, with beginners, even if they’re aggressive to the first hurdle, they become too erect off of it and start to drop their hands and lower their knees as they try to measure the distance to the second hurdle. Make sure they come off that first hurdle still in attack mode.

With this workout, the emphasis shouldn’t be on technique as much as rhythm. The athlete has to maintain a rhythm between the hurdles, has to learn that even with technical flaws, he or she has to stay aggressive throughout the rep, because that will be essential in a race. Technical flaws shouldn’t be ignored, but they shouldn’t be the focus unless the athlete is being aggressive from the very start of the workout.

Once the athlete has done a series of quality reps over all four hurdles (for me, three good reps in a row proves mastery), the next progression will be to raise the fourth hurdle by three inches. So, if you’re working with a girl and you started with all the hurdles at 30 inches, keep the first three at 30 and raise the fourth one to 33. By raising only the last hurdle, you’re allowing the athlete to get into the same rhythm as in the previous reps, and to then continue that rhythm over the higher hurdle. So it’s a way of tricking the body into thinking the higher hurdle isn’t really all that high. Be sure to instruct the athlete to stay aggressive through the fourth one, to just keep doing what he or she is already doing.

From here, any adjustments you make will be based on how the hurdler adapts. If things continue to go well, then raise the third hurdle, then the second one, then the first one. If not, you may have to keep the hurdles low for that workout, and make it a goal to be able to raise them the next time the athlete does that workout. Or you might prefer increasing the spacing between the hurdles instead of raising the height. Or you might want to do both. It all depends on how the athlete responds. You want to build confidence, establish a race rhythm, so if you’re going to err, it’s better to start with the hurdles lower than necessary and/or closer together than necessary than it is to start with the hurdles too high and/or too far apart.

For a beginning hurdler in particular, it’s important to get the athlete to understand that the height of the hurdle is a psychological barrier he or she has to cross. Even experienced hurdlers often have a latent fear of letting loose that they may not even be aware of. Hurdlers at all levels are susceptible to over-thinking the hurdling part and  underestimating the importance of rhythm and aggression. Lowering the hurdles in practice, and then raising them, helps hurdlers to gradually become as aggressive over race height as they are over the lower height.

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