On Hurdle and Mini-Hurdle Exercises (115)

This morning my coffee is nice and warming as I do a bit of a reminisce. Triggered by one of those videos of an athlete doing very high leaps over a series of hurdles, I have an immediate flashback to an early experience. Back to school age times, and I was encountering sprint hurdles for the first time, along with 30 others. It was not fun. In hindsight, it was a test or screening to see who would make it to the end of a full series at regulation height and distances. Only three students did get to the end (I’m sure I looked like a wounded albatross)…
But I did like the idea of hurdles and was in awe of Olympians who ran over the top of them with ease and sprinted between the barriers in a blur. A couple of years later, with a bit of money, I managed to get a decent book that had drills and progressions I could use. On my own, I occupied a hallway after school with a few hurdles, lowered the heights, and within a short time had a technique that was passable. The big issue was figuring out the distance between the barriers depending on the exercise, number of strides, and momentum used. By trial and error, I began to see a pattern emerge and recognised the natural math that could be used to create decent spacing with little footsteps rather than a tape.
Fast forward to coaching and the use of mini-hurdles and related barriers for plyometrics and sprint exercises that have a repetitive rhythm. I managed to keep the formula for hurdle spacing in mind and use it for hops, bounds, leaps and takeoffs. Here is where I had a lightbulb moment. The mini-hurdles were generally low, with some variability, yet many of the same exercises were often shown as mega leaps and hops. When athletes tried to duplicate the mega-leaps, they invariably ran into the same anxiety or terror I had when I first encountered hurdles. Since safety has to be a first concern, my lightbulb was that the barriers regulated distance, and the height exaggerations were part of competitions or circus performances. Further, takeoffs and sprint exercises are about landing management, not airtime extremes and were developmental, not competitive.
I always share the little formula I came up with as a teenager to coaches and athletes in workshops and sessions because I would like to see that their efforts become productive rather than performance limiting or injurious. Did I make mistakes? Of course! Some were obvious big boo-boos, most required minor tweaks of adjustment. For example, I learned to keep the exercises relatively simple and avoid variable distances between the barriers. Otherwise, crashing and awkward efforts were the obvious result. Objectives lost… For coaches, I think one of the big issues is with group work, where you might have a range of capabilities and fatigue issues. Adapting to the situation can prove difficult and requires a strategy, or perhaps avoiding their use in the name of safety.
I smile now as my coffee loses its warmth and signals the end of café time. For years I looked at that early experience with a touch of anger for what it was (certainly not education). Perhaps in the intervening years, I was able to find a little gem of coaching out of it all that looked at how to provide a better experience for a wider range of athletes. Sometimes athletes come back years later to thank me for that formula, as they were able to use it themselves as educators or coaches, or even just remembrance of the fun that was experienced. That is reward enough for me…