Elitetrack: Sport Training & Conditioning

Is it OK do practice hurdle work on your tempo days, or would this only tire you out?

I think you could do some hurdle technical work and hurdle flexibility work on tempo days but I don't think you'd want to do a real hurdle workout on tempo days unless you wanted to incorporate hurdles into some tempo runs. This would have several pros and cons. It could make your tempo runs a little more specific if you were a hurdler but I don't really think this kind of thing is necessary. On the negative side, it might screw up the step patterns and rhythms that are so key to good hurdling.

Mike, you're in CA right now?  Why don't you stop by AZ and say what's up :D

I agree, hurdle mobility work is good, but actual running w/hurdles is bad.

Doing hurdle work on "tempo" days is fine, but you must think about…

The hip height or technique level of the hurdler

Time during the season

Strength training program and fitness

i agree with mike here….
i have found that hurdle mobility is helpful, and maybe some easy 5-step drills, but too much hurdle work definitely did a number on my hamstrings and hip flexors.

Originally posted by mike
I think you could do some hurdle technical work and hurdle flexibility work on tempo days but I don't think you'd want to do a real hurdle workout on tempo days unless you wanted to incorporate hurdles into some tempo runs. This would have several pros and cons. It could make your tempo runs a little more specific if you were a hurdler but I don't really think this kind of thing is necessary. On the negative side, it might screw up the step patterns and rhythms that are so key to good hurdling.

If you are a 300/400 hurdler it could be beneficial right? And what phase of your training would this be best to start doing?

I think it could work for long hurdlers but you'd want to keep a couple things in mind:
1. Tempo shouldn't be overly strenuous and you'd need to be careful to make sure the hurdles (if used) didn't make it that way.
2. If you added hurdles, you'd need to drop the volume accordingly to keep the workload equivalent to the same workout without hurdles.
3. There are (or at least there should still be) set step patterns for the long hurdles; so what I said previously about the potential negative effects of tempo runs with hurdles would still apply, albiet to a lesser extent, to long hurdlers.
4. If you were going to do it (and I still am shaky on how valuable it would be), and used the advice given above, I don't see any real reason why it couldn't be incorporated sparingly into GPP training and then phased out as more and faster hurdle specific runs were included into the training.

Thanks Mike, I'll keep that in mind. But if I decided not to do that on tempo days and just saved it for speed/speed endurance/spec. endurance days, wouldn't that only tire the runner out also? I mean, if you do a decent warmup, stretch, do whatever workout you are gonna do, plus you gotta lift, how can you incorporate hurdle work into it all?

You could incorporate hurdle work into acc. dev. days by doing 1-3 hurdles coming out of blocks instead of running the typical 10-40m flat sprints. On speed and special / speed endurance days, you could just set up hurdles with appropriate spacing in the workout you had planned to do.