Accelerations Workout
by Steve McGill

This month’s workout is primarily for sprint hurdlers, although it can also be beneficial for long hurdlers. The structure of the workout involves no hurdling, as it emphasizes a concept that I feel to be very important—that hurdlers learn to think like sprinters instead of thinking like hurdlers. My observation has been that hurdlers often tend to run from hurdle to hurdle instead of sprinting through hurdles. Even for advanced hurdlers, we might notice a slight rocking back motion on the penultimate stride before take-off. With many beginning hurdlers, there is often an obvious action of standing up too erectly too soon. Sometimes it happens in the first step. Sometimes it happens somewhere around the third or fourth step, when the athlete looks up to locate the hurdle. Sometimes it happens during take-off. Sometimes it happens after the athlete lands off the first hurdle.

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When it happens in front of the hurdle, that’s because the athlete is preparing to hurdle. I always tell my athletes, Don’t prep to hurdle; run through the hurdle. When it happens on the backside of the hurdle, that’s often because of the snapdown action of the lead leg, or because the athlete is micro-relaxing/pausing after clearing the hurdle. That’s what I mean when I say that hurdlers often run hurdle to hurdle.

So, accelerations, for hurdlers, can serve the same purpose as they do for sprinters. It teaches them how to drive, how to stay forward, how to rise gradually without any jerky motions.

With that thought in mind, here’s the workout:

From a block start, or three-point start:

• 3×20 meters
• 3×30 meters
• 3×40 meters
• 3×50 meters

Walk-back recovery between reps.
Three minutes rest between sets.

Drive phase for a sprinter lasts through about 35 meters, so the 20-meter reps and the 30-meter reps are all about focusing on driving, being patient, not being in a rush to get tall. The 40-meter reps and the 50-meter reps teach how to transition smoothly into max velocity, not reaching it too soon and allowing it to happen naturally.

Even though the reality is that hurdlers will have to be taller sooner than sprinters will, teaching hurdlers to get taller sooner can lead to the habit of getting too tall too soon. By forcing the hurdlers to think like sprinters, to drive like sprinters, you’re teaching them that they don’t need to be at full height to clear the first hurdle. They can still be (and should be) still rising when they clear the first hurdle. Hurdlers should have a drive phase the same as sprinters do. By doing an acceleration workout, the hurdlers will have a shift in mindset, allowing them to sprint through hurdle one, and the presence of the hurdle will instinctively lead them to stand up tall enough. 

The next stage of this workout would be to add the first hurdle into the mix. The distance of the reps would be the same, the amount of reps would be the same, but adding the first hurdle presents the next level of challenge. Here, we’ll want to see if old habits return—will the athletes forget to drive, will they get too erect too soon. If they’re able to maintain their drive through the hurdle, you will see (and they will feel) a significant improvement in their speed to the hurdle and through the hurdle.

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