[rcfan2]

rcfan2 on February 17, 2009 at 1:49 pm #15378

I’m a 2nd year assistant HS coach – focusing on hurdlers and high jumpers. We typically have “technique days” 2 to 3 times per week depending on meets.

Naturally – it’s hard to be in two places at one time – so I often struggle to find a balance in training these events at the same practice. And of course – some athletes do both events. I feel like I’m slighting one group or the other – and it’s difficult to have them training at the same time – as I’m running back and forth. But as both require the athletes to be relatively fresh before we work on technique – it’s hard to train one group and then the other – although this might help the athletes who double up.

Currently – we do a team warm-up (dynamic) and then split into event groups where each group does some form of event specific warm-up type drills (high jumpers will do 3 point line/circle runs, back arches, etc. – while hurdlers do hurdle mobility work, hurdle stretches, etc.) before moving on to more specific work.

I’m contemplating a combined warm-up with both groups – as there are some commonalities (leg swings, etc.) – and drills like hurdle mobility (walk overs, over-unders) would seem to benefit both groups. Beyond that I’m kinda at a loss for what else I can do.

With our training cycles – I don’t think I can split the training days – so that we work on hurdle technique one day and HJ the next.

I’d appreciate any thoughts or suggestions on how other coaches would (or do) approach this.

[RussZHC]

RussZHC on February 19, 2009 at 3:31 am #78248

This is difficult. You are working two events that do “fit” together, at least that has been my experience in working with combined events athletes as a hurdles specific coach, compared to trying to work on hurdles and long jump for example as with that it has been my experience those two events just have too many differences (primarily with long jump to some degree you are trying to stay in the air, with hurdles you are not).

It is not as if you are looking for more time per se but if a re-shuffling is needed there is always the choice of moving the hurdle mobility drills (for some or “all” to induce a “stagger”, next) to the end and making them an early part of cool down.

The something that may help would be is if you can figure out a slight stagger between the two groups so that you could move back and forth but not be as rushed, sometimes that is possible but it takes several attempts to find the correct stagger.

It sounds stupid but how is the equipment arranged? I ask as for us, indoors, the high jump pit is at the end of the sprint lanes so it is possible to position oneself to be able to observe both the pit and the end of hurdle runs if they were say doing rhythm unit work but if they were working on starts over 1H there is no way one person could move back and forth fast enough and still have some focus.

This question complicates itself if there are fairly high numbers of athletes within each group as for me part of the problem has been solved as relatively few who high jump seem to hurdle (that could just be a local situation; I mention the events in that order as, again locally, there are a lot more high jumpers than hurdlers). Talk to a combined events coach(es) as they often have good insight into training different events “together”.

[rcfan2]

rcfan2 on February 21, 2009 at 1:54 pm #78444

RussZHC,

Thanks for taking the time to read and reply to my post. Ironically – I have more hurdlers than high jumpers – go figure.

We have no indoor track – so we’re in one of the two gyms – typically the multi-purpose gym. I have to share space with the throwers, middle school basketball, and even soccer. Track isn’t always at the top of the totem pole…

Indoors I’m ok – as we brought in 10 hurdles and the high jump pit. I have a couple “power hurdles” as well.

As we’re just starting our general prep – I have both groups doing hip mobility hurdle work, etc. and some general work (jumpers running 3 point lines to work on curve running, etc. – hurdlers doing some wall drills, etc.).

Once we get outside – then we’re a ways apart. I think this is where I slipped up a bit last year – as I ended up focusing on the larger of the two groups – the hurdlers. Most of the high jumpers improved 4-6″ early on – then leveled off. Just two of the girls bumped their PR’s by 2″ midway through outdoors. Nobody jumped better at the end of the year during the “taper” for sectionals & state meets.

I may lean on one of our captains (my daughter is one!) to lead the hurdlers through some of the drills once I’m confident everyone has a handle on them. I can then stagger the training a bit and work w/the jumpers first.

Just not enough days in the week to do technique on seperate days (we practice mon-fri).

Thanks for your suggestions…