Why Drills Matter
Not too long ago, I was reading a Facebook post in a hurdle group where a hurdler was asking other members of the group for feedback on his technique based on a video he posted of a drill with the hurdles moved in. One of the commenters noted that even though the drill looked good, it was just a drill, so it would provide no indication of how he would execute during a race.
Just a drill? That phrase stuck in my head the rest of the day. There’s no such thing as “just a drill,” I thought to myself. To a hurdler, drills are how a hurdler learns to run the hurdles. The comment bothered me so much that I decided to write an article about the importance of drilling, providing specifics on how drilling benefits the hurdler.
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No, there is no such thing as just a drill. Hurdlers who don’t do drills, and don’t do them properly, never learn how to hurdle efficiently. They spend their entire careers getting by on their athletic abilities – their strength, their speed, etc. But to really master the art of hurdling, drilling is essential. And not just occasional drilling, but drilling on a regular basis, even in the off-season. Actually, the off-season is an excellent time for the beginner and the advanced hurdler to drill him or herself into hurdling shape and to refine hurdling technique.
A lot of hurdlers in a lot of programs don’t drill enough; in the worst cases, they don’t drill at all. I hear many stories from many hurdlers at various levels of competition complaining that all they do in practice is set up the first three hurdles and go full blast out of the blocks. No teaching, no drilling, no instruction. No discounting the spacing, no discounting the height. Many hurdlers suffer from a lack of muscle memory. Their bodies cannot respond instinctively in races. Why? Because they don’t drill often enough.
Purposes of Drilling
The primary purpose of drilling is to ingrain technique. You can’t learn how to hurdle when you’re going full speed over the hurdles. You have to slow things down before you can speed things up. You have to learn proper mechanics at slower speeds and lower heights with decreased spacings in order to learn the proper mechanics. As David Oliver once said, if the trail leg is sloppy at 33 inches, then what’s the point of raising them to 42? I have to get it right at 33, then 36, then 39, before even trying it at 42. At slower speeds and lower heights, the athlete has the capacity to think and run at the same time. Don’t underestimate how important that is. By developing muscle memory, movements that once seemed foreign eventually feel natural. Movements that once required a great deal of thought eventually require no thought at all.
To me, a hurdler just going full speed over hurdles all the time is no different than a basketball player who just plays five-on-five pick-up games all the time. You have to do shooting drills, rebounding drills, passing drills, half-court drills, three-on-three drills. You have to learn the various aspects of the game so that you can put them all together.
Besides ingraining technique, drilling allows the hurdler to ingrain rhythm. To me, this is even more important than technique. Once rhythm is established, technical flaws are much easier to address. But for a hurdler who is unfamiliar with his or her own race rhythm, progress comes very slowly, if at all. To me, drills that ingrain the three-step rhythm (or four-step rhythm for some beginners) have to be introduced into the training regimen very early on. In many cases, once the rhythm is established, the technical flaws start to fix themselves. Drills are a good way to ingrain the rhythm without the injury risk that comes with going full speed all day long. Then, when it is time to go full speed, the body will remember the rhythm. Hurdlers who need to open up their stride will open up their stride; hurdlers who need to quicken up the tempo will quicken the tempo. Their bodies will do what they have been trained to do.
Finally, a third purpose of drilling is to mimic race conditions, or to directly address issues that are coming up during races. If a hurdler is getting crowded between hurdles in races, then drills can be created to mimic the crowded feeling and to thereby address it. If the hurdler is hitting a lot of hurdles with the ankle of the trail leg, drills can be created to address that issue.
How often to Drill
I think hurdlers should drill four to five times per week. In most cases, the drills will be included as part of the warm-up. In some cases, drills can also be added at the end of a workout, as part of the cool-down. In the off-season, I like to have at least one day per week that is devoted exclusively to drilling. The thing about hurdling is, drilling can often organically become a workout. As the athletes progress in the course of a drill, I’ll increase the spacing, forcing them to increase the speed, and the next thing you know, the athletes are as tired or even more tired than they would be if they had done a full-blown running workout. I’ve had problems in the past with getting head coaches to understand how physically exhausting hurdle drilling can be, but I’ve always felt that to be a battle worth fighting. Sprinters to have to run over hurdles; hurdlers do. So hurdlers need to practice accordingly.
The Payoff
I think the commenter on the post I mentioned in the beginning of this article was trying to make the point that doing a drill correctly doesn’t mean that it will carry over to the race. I agree in the sense that it won’t carry over immediately. But yes, it will carry over eventually. Races are one-shot deals. You have one rep to get it right, and you have no time to think. It takes weeks and even months in some cases before the hard drill work pays off. It takes time before you can do unconsciously movements that have required a great deal of conscious thought to execute.
Conclusion
For the purposes of this article, I’d rather not discuss which drills are the “best” ones to do, as every coach has his or her own preferences. Besides, there are plenty of drills that I don’t particularly like but that I have found to be beneficial for certain athletes with certain problems. But I will say that the quick-step drill that I kind of created as an alternative to the back-and-forth drill that Renaldo Nehemiah made famous is my favorite. I love it because it ingrains rhythm and technique at the same time, it puts in a lot of muscle memory, it strengthens hurdler-specific muscles, and it is very challenging from a fatigue factor point of view. But overall, the coach’s role is to identify the drills that will best enhance the performance of each individual athlete, and to incorporate them into the training regimen.
I don’t have every athlete I coach do the quick-step drill, for example. Some athletes don’t respond well to it. But I know that if I find the drills that they do respond well to, I can continue to make minor adjustments to them, and that eventually, the mastery of the drills will lead to mastery of the race.
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