Hurdling in the Off-Season

One question that comes up this time of year is how much hurdling should a hurdler be doing in his or her training. If you’re talking the sprint hurdles (110/100m), I would say the answer is twice a week for full-blown hurdle workouts, and that hurdling drills should be included at least twice more each week as part of the warm-up or cool-down. The hurdling workouts should focus on the following things: technique development, hurdle-endurance development, and rhythm development.

In this article, I will talk about all three of these components, then I will describe the two workouts that serve as the staples for my hurdlers in the off-season.

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The off-season is a time to work on technical flaws that had to be put off during the competitive season. Usually, the issue is that trying to make any major revamps of technique, and in some cases even minor changes, can throw an athlete off of his or her rhythm, and thereby do more harm than good. That’s why coaches often have to go with the “cut our losses” approach and have the athlete work through flaws by compensating for them by emphasizing his or her strengths. For example, a hurdler with a lazy trail leg but a really quick lead leg might end up needing to make a major overhaul to his or her technique in order to get the trail leg functioning more effectively. Because time does not allow for major overhauls when races are coming up, it is best for the athlete to just rely on the lead leg and to let the trail leg be what it is.

In the off-season, however, that same athlete needs to work on the trail leg. September through November are the key months to experiment, to make changes and adjustments, and to start putting new modifications into place. The hurdle workouts serve as that practice lab, where problems are addressed, worked out, and new conclusions are drawn. Doing a lot of reps over a high volume of hurdles serves the purpose of weeding out old habits and ingraining new ones. So the fall, for that reason, is a time of year when high volume makes a lot of sense. It’s like a basketball player who has a glitch in his jump-shot; he’ll need to shoot a lot of jump-shots in the off-season to smooth out his stroke and to feel confident with the new muscle memory.

As for hurdle-endurance development, while I can’t say for sure, but hurdle endurance may be a term that I’ve come up with myself, because I don’t remember hearing it anywhere else. To me, hurdle endurance is a type of endurance specific to hurdlers. In other words, an athlete can be in great running shape, great sprinting shape, but not be in good hurdling shape if he or she hasn’t gotten in enough reps over hurdles. What happens, as a result, is that the athlete doesn’t have the instincts necessary to adapt to his or her speed when navigating the hurdles during races, and he or she will also be prone to late-race breakdowns for the simple reason that his or her body hasn’t grown accustomed enough to executing the hurdling motion. The hip flexors, the lower back muscles, the glutes, hamstrings, quads, calves, and ankles fatigue rapidly, and technique falls apart.

So, getting in a good number of hurdling reps twice a week during the off-season gets the body used to pushing off, getting into position on top of the hurdle, descending off the hurdle, and continuing to run in between. For hurdlers to just workout with the sprinters during the off-season doesn’t fulfill their needs. Sprinters don’t have to use their hip flexors the way hurdlers do. They don’t have to concern themselves with getting into position. Hurdlers have to train their body to perform the motion that is unique to their event. And the muscles they use to perform the motion have to be strengthened through repetition. Although some of this required strength can be gained through drills and through specific weight-room exercises, nothing replaces getting in quality reps over the hurdles on a consistent basis.

As for rhythm development, the same rules apply as with hurdle endurance. Hurdling, as all of us know, is a rhythm event. Yes, all events are rhythm events, but no event is as much of a rhythm event as the hurdles. The reason that some hurdlers with poor or adequate technique can run fast hurdle races is often because they have mastered their rhythm. I’ve seen hurdlers with a lead leg that slings out to the side, or with arms that open like parachutes, who still manage to do very well. A big part of the reason why has to do with the fact that they’ve been hurdling that way often enough that their body has grown familiar with the rhythm. Long-term, obviously, they’ll want to fix those technical flaws, but let there be no doubt that rhythm mastery can take a hurdler pretty darn far. Obviously, when technique improves, the rhythm changes, so the hurdler must continually adapt to a new rhythm as he or she grows more efficient technically. Regardless, the answer to rhythm issues is going to be reps. It doesn’t take the body long to adjust to a new rhythm; more so, the fear-filled mind has to be convinced that increased crowding issues are actually a good thing that will lead to faster times.

My two pet off-season hurdle workouts are the quick-step workout and the five-step workout. Both of them are described in detail elsewhere on this website, but let me provide a quick overview of each of them here:

Quick-steps:

• Set up 5-10 hurdles, with the first hurdle on the regular race mark, and all hurdles after that spaced 24 ft apart (males) or 21 feet apart (females).
• Hurdler jogs up to the first hurdle, then speeds up the last three steps into the first hurdle, then continues with a quick three-step rhythm over the rest of the hurdles.
• At the completion of the rep, the hurdler turns around, jogs back slowly on the balls of the feet, then goes again.
• Ten reps would be considered a full set. Five reps would be the minimum.
• Rest between sets should be five minutes minimum, seven minutes max.

I have my hurdlers do a total of 100 hurdles worth of reps to start with (2 sets of 10 over five), and work their way up to 200 or so hurdles by late December, before I put this workout on the shelf in favor of more race-specific workouts. Feel free to make slight adjustments to the spacings to accommodate individual athletes. The key in this workout is for the movement between (and over) the hurdles to be quick, not comfortable. Hurdlers should be feeling crowded every rep. And once fatigue sets in, they will have to heighten their alertness to avoid mistakes.

Sprinting 5-steps:

• Set up 5-7 hurdles, with the first hurdle on the regular race mark, and all hurdles after that should be spaced 12 yards apart (males) or 11 yards apart (females).
• From a three-point start, falling start, or standing start (beginners), the hurdler sprints to the first hurdle and sprints through all the rest, taking five steps between.
• At the completion of each rep, the hurdler turns around and jogs back slowly on the balls of the feet, just like in the quick-step workout, and then goes again.
• As with the quick-step workout, ten reps would be considered a full set; five would be the minimum.
• Rest between sets should be the same as for the quick-step workout – 5-7 minutes.

I have my hurdlers do a total of 60 hurdles to start with (2 sets of 5 over 6), and work their way up to 120 hurdles (2 sets of 10 over 6). The five steps between the hurdles makes for more running, which means less hurdles. This workout helps the athlete to remember the importance of the space between the hurdles. As with the quick-step workout, the spacing can be tweaked to fit the needs of the individual athlete. The goal is for the stride cadence to match the desired race stride cadence.

Generally, I have my hurdlers do the quick-step workout on Tuesday, and the five-step workout on Saturday. I have found that these two workouts, when done on a consistent basis in the fall, serve to provide an excellent foundation, and that my athletes can enter into the competitive indoor season with confidence that their technique, rhythm, and endurance are solid. Yes, there is still plenty of work to be done, but the foundation is in place.

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