Herb thought of a great idea to seperate the aspects of coaching the hurdles. The previous thread can be saved for current hurdler, and this can be used for our ideas on teaching beginners.
what would a good ratio be for a beginner?
20% Drills : 80% Hurdling.
This keeps practices interesting.
80% Drills : 20% Hurdling.
This ensures that no bad and permanent habits are fromed and practiced.
To be honest, I have never put a percentage on it. Not to keep saying a cliche, but I keep it very individualized. I stay with a short amount of drills to keep the confidence level up and gradually work in more as mastery allows. The athlete may go over a small hurdle, but we vary the focus. When working with a beginner, the biggest obstacle to cross (in my experience) is the confidence I alluded to earlier.
The biggest problem I have faced is when the athlete moves from a standing start, to using blocks. That first hurdle is a doosey because there are so many factors involved, such as Power (Strength & Speed), technique, confidence, where if any one of these is missing the athlete simply will not run fast over the hurdles.
Clemson,
Have you worked with developing hurdlers as well as elite-world class hurdlers? If yes, what are some differences between fine tuining an athlete compared to starting with one from scratch.
Herb, Do you begin the hurdlers with a start progression, such as 3-point stances, etc to get them comfortable approaching at a higher speed than going straight to blocks?
in general with beginnners I try to ingain the element of speed. so they understand that hurdling is not jumping even there are a lot of similarities to LJing.
the other thing i try to do is get them to establish a feel for the rhythm/cadence of the race. So i’ll put hurdles at 6.5m if need so they learn that there’s never really a down moment in the hurdle run.
good ktolbert.
assisting the athlete in correct step sequence and cadence should be looked at before stepping out into the normal spacing. Assists as well in confidence.
I think that just like the advanced hurdler but probably even more, the novice or beginner should train with the hurdles started and for a while kept 1)very low 2)reduced spacing so the athlete can comfortably be aggressive and avoid bounding to and from hurdles because they lack both speed/power and confidence. The other thing I see a lot of hurdle coaches do(certainly NOT the better ones) is NOT emphasize sprint mechanics/posture first in the development of these people. I mean how can you expect someone to hurdle well or even near their potential if their sprint mechanics/posture are awful. It’s the cart before the horse scenario. Those “little” problems(if in fact they are just little or minor) in sprint tech. become MAJOR failings during hurdle execution.