Russell,
I hope I didn’t imply that my approach to teaching hurdles to developmental athletes (14-18) would apply to all age/skill levels (and I’ve also worked with 12 & 13 year old’s). Certainly, I’d have to change my training plans/methods significantly for college level hurdlers – to account for the taller 42″ hurdles for the guys – and the transition from 300H > 400H for both genders.
The 400H is a completely different animal than a 300H. It’s not merely 100m further – but 25% longer. A 100m doesn’t seem like much – until you add it to the end of a 300H race….
To address the issues you raised:
1) I’ve used a stopwatch, video and even timing gates (although primarily for “flys” – not for hurdles)at practice. I prefer using a digital camcorder (30fps – so 1 frame=.033 seconds) and Kinovea’s “free” motion analysis software (Kinovea[/url])
Sample 100H race (blue uniform – pink sock!) – 100H Prelim – Slow Motion
And I agree – hand timing w/a stop watch isn’t going to be as accurate or repeatable as video. And video taping and analysis at practice can be time consuming and problematic (like viewing the videos on a laptop on a bright/sunny day). And even w/video at 30fps – you’re only going to be accurate to +/- one frame – or .03-.04 (w/rounding). Not perfect – but we don’t work in those tolerances.
I agree that I’d like my hurdlers to be able to “feel” fast, but don’t necessarily agree that they are going to get that same sensation at practice over regulation hurdles vs. the “fast” they feel in an actual hurdle race. To the contrary – I think that training over regulation hurdles in a practice setting, without the adrenaline and competition of a race setting, will often create a sensation/feeling of running slower (because they probably are). So by discounting the spacings of the hurdles – I think you can emulate the same rhythm & feeling of a race (ie. the hurdles are coming just as fast)- but at the lower velocities we inevitably see at practice.
2) I don’t think there is any escaping the reality that the kids aren’t going to be able to produce the same velocities in practice vs. a race.
Assuming this is true – then training over regulation spaced & height hurdles combined with the lower velocities found at practice – we’d be modeling (bio-motor programming) a slower hurdle rhythm/technique (TD’s) than we’d expect in a race plus doing so at the inevitable lower velocities found at practice. So that’s a “lose – lose” situation to me. I can’t do much to compensate for the lack of adrenaline/competition – but I can help maintain the rhythm units (TDs).
To recapture some of the lost velocity – I use discounted hurdles. The hurdle clearance, because the hurdle comes as quickly as in a race – has to be cleared with race like technique/mechanics/efficiency. If the hurdles are regulation spaced – with slower approach velocities – then I’d anticipate a correspondingly slower and less efficient hurdle clearance. In part because they’re not moving as fast coming into the hurdle – but also because the takeoff mechanics are going to be altered/compromised into the hurdle (especially if they’re reaching or over-striding to get to their takeoff window).
We’ll also use “missing hurdle”, “magic hurdles” (24″ hurdles for H2-H3-H4 – in a 5 hurdle set), turn the kids around to run with the wind behind them, 5-step drills (with corresponding spacings) etc. to create an over-speed environment over hurdles – to try to evoke more velocity at practice. Under these circumstances – we hope the hurdler’s velocity actually exceeds their race velocity – so this should also “feel” faster.
It could be argued, and I know hurdle “guru” Gary Winkler has done this, that “jamming” the hurdles to artificially create a desired race TD time (say take a hurdler from 1.20 to 1.10) can be used to emulate the targeted race tempo – and create the bio-motor programming and technique (moving body segments more quickly and accurately) required to run these TD’s in an actual race. In theory these adaptations/technical improvements would manifest themselves in the actual race and then combined with the higher velocities found in a race setting – resulting in a reduction in race time.
…as you noted – this is “competition velocity” – or maximal attainable velocity – which will be less than the athletes true max V – as each hurdle represents a deceleration event and the hurdler is required to deviate from sprint mechanics during the hurdle clearance.
I feel that max velocity work is still best addressed/developed w/o hurdles (flys, etc.) – even though we’ll use the over-speed hurdle drills mentioned above in the later part of the season.
In regards to discounting hurdles for the intermediate hurdlers (300H) – yes…I’ll discount them under certain circumstances. The most common – weather. Our track is marked both directions for the high hurdles so we have some latitude – but is only marked for 300H start on the back straight. If we’re working on starts and specific stride patterns over the first 3 hurdles,and we’re stuck running into a headwind, then I’ll move them in a bit to insure the kids are hitting the hurdles on the correct leg (for a given hurdler). That being said – some of my kids will reverse their block pedals if they’re racing into a strong head wind (so they’ll take an extra step to H1).
Intermediate hurdlers have to be very adaptive and have bigger tool set than a high hurdler (ie. the ability to lead w/both legs, hurdle on turns, run with or without a stride pattern depending on conditions, hurdle in a fatigued state, etc.) so sometimes we’ll even train with extra hurdles or random spacings.