Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #115: Gill1918 presents Zontavious Johnson "Coaching the Short and Long Hurdles Part 1"
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
- 0:03coaches, for coaches powered by Gill Athletics.
- 0:06Think of this as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
- 0:09Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
- 0:12you grow as a coach. We'll bring in the once a year
- 0:15track clinic straight to your ears daily.
- 0:17Interested in creating your own episode?
- 0:19Everyone's welcome to participate.
- 0:21Check out the show notes below For more information.
- 0:23Now let's get into today's topic.
- 0:27Our next speaker, another Guild Podcast alum.
- 0:30So if you'd like to learn more about his journey, how he got a
- 0:32track and field, how he got into coaching, when that became a
- 0:34thought process for him that could be a career and stops
- 0:36along the way, check out his episode on the Guild Connections
- 0:39Podcast. And, and you know, he's heard me
- 0:42say this before. He used to run his own podcast
- 0:44and I highly encourage that. And I know you're busy, but we
- 0:47got to get back on it because I think that has provided a ton of
- 0:49value. So I'd tell you to check that
- 0:51out as well. Remember earlier I told you
- 0:53every good relay needs a good lead off JC did a great job.
- 0:56Every great relay also needs an anchor.
- 0:59And my favorite thing in the entire world, it changed my life
- 1:03was hurdles. And so I'm super happy that
- 1:07that's how we're going to end with our last presenter here.
- 1:09Help me welcome the the wonderful talk about.
- 1:11Hurdle madness from all levels. So Z, let's go baby.
- 1:15All right, how you guys doing? So first thing first, we will
- 1:21not get through this whole PowerPoint.
- 1:22I promise you, you guys, I'll e-mail it out and make sure you
- 1:24get it. It's not going to happen When
- 1:27low texting was like, hey, you want to be in the clinic?
- 1:28I said sure. I sat down.
- 1:31I sat down that night and put this thing together and it was
- 1:34long hold to short hold. And I was like, this is over an
- 1:38hour long, let's change this. And so over the next couple
- 1:41weeks I change it and change it. I was up to like 1:00 AM
- 1:44changing them again. And then my wife made me put a
- 1:47nice script together so I can actually get through stuff.
- 1:49It's not going to happen. So I'll get as much as I can.
- 1:52We're going to talk about short huddle.
- 1:56I'm a really big into coaching education, but when I got into
- 2:02coaching education 16 years ago, I would go to everything and pay
- 2:05for everything. Then I would leave with all this
- 2:08knowledge, but no way to how to actually input that knowledge or
- 2:12like use it. And so I'll say over the last,
- 2:15since COVID, I started really getting into more education, but
- 2:19understanding the what, the why and the how of that.
- 2:22So that's what this is going to be about today.
- 2:24It's going to be, yes, we're going to talk about hurdles.
- 2:26Yes, we're going to talk about why we hurdle, why the the thing
- 2:30that you do to get your hurdle ready to go.
- 2:31My whole point is when you get done with this, you're able to
- 2:34take what I put in here and actually input it on the track
- 2:37with kids. And so first is this is just
- 2:40people that have impacted this journey of mine from coaching
- 2:44culture that I've either been to their clinics or I call on the
- 2:47phone. A couple of them I probably
- 2:49called too much. Justin Wicker, if you really
- 2:52want to get technical about hurdle splits, things like that,
- 2:56put him on Twitter or on Instagram.
- 2:59He has a program that is amazing for as far as total setup.
- 3:05And if you don't like math, like I don't like math, he's a good
- 3:07person to talk to. But these are the people that
- 3:10have inspired me to do what I do.
- 3:13And these are just a couple books that if you do not have
- 3:18this book and you coach hurdles or sprinters, you should
- 3:20probably buy it. Ralph Mann passed away a couple
- 3:23months ago, but his book has really just kind of changed my
- 3:27thought for us on how I set up sprinting workouts and how I set
- 3:31up hodling. He was the bio mechanist for USA
- 3:36Track and Field for 30 years and so everything he does is
- 3:40data-driven, which is where I get my data-driven approach
- 3:43from. So why of Hodling?
- 3:48Hurdling is rhythm, power and precision.
- 3:50Most technical Sprint. I think it's the most technical
- 3:53event in track and field. I don't think there's another
- 3:56event where you have to run full speed and navigate 10 obstacles
- 4:01while still running full speed and staying on your feet.
- 4:04So, you know, for me what separates a good program or a
- 4:09good, I say good program because when I was a high school coach,
- 4:13we had short hurdlers, we had long hoes, and as a college
- 4:17coach we have short hoes and we have long coats.
- 4:18I think I probably coached one of the better dual hurdlers in
- 4:21the country the last three years.
- 4:22Over at Olivet we have a young baby who ran 55, nine in the 400
- 4:27hurdles and 13O2 in the 100 hurdles, and that was some small
- 4:33NAI school. Speaking of NAI school, what's
- 4:34she got? My young lady said if you look
- 4:37at somebody's roster and they got a lot of kids in that event
- 4:39group that school not recruiting it.
- 4:40I'm telling you now, Olivette Nazarene, I have 7400 meter,
- 4:437400 meter runners on the men's side and 9 huddlers.
- 4:47We going to keep recruiting them because there is no limit to how
- 4:50many can actually go to Nashville for us.
- 4:52So you hit a stand up, you go. So we're going to always keep a
- 4:54house full. It is what it is.
- 4:57So there's room for everybody. What defines an elite huddler?
- 5:03Speed first, please, please, please, please high school
- 5:05coaches stop taking that failed sprinter and say hey, let's go
- 5:10hurdle 9 * / 10. It never works because you have
- 5:16to be able to Sprint and you have to be able to generate
- 5:19power from hurdle one through 10.
- 5:23I'm going to go on a tangent, which is why we're never going
- 5:26to get through this whole thing. Force posture.
- 5:30Well, force, rhythm and posture are the three things again.
- 5:34Ralph Mann said the best fast hurdlers win races.
- 5:37Not necessarily the best technician.
- 5:39I am not the best person at teaching, like making your
- 5:44technique perfect, But when I I can assure you, when you get
- 5:48over hurdles, you are going to run fast.
- 5:50Because it's like my college group, my Hurtlers just started
- 5:54hurdling 3 weeks ago. We started training in
- 5:57September. They've been with the sprinters
- 5:59the entire time. We must improve your flight 30.
- 6:03We must improve your top end speed before I put you over
- 6:06hurdles because I know if I can put you over hurdle and you can
- 6:10get to hurdle one for our women in two point 2.5 O 2.49 to the
- 6:16first hurdle, we're going to run fast on.
- 6:19On the other hand, if we can continue to teach positive
- 6:22rhythm and things like that. And so that's my goal.
- 6:25For me, speed is going to be the number one predictor of how
- 6:28we're going to do in the hurdle race.
- 6:30Again, I coach at the NAIA level.
- 6:32I get hurdles of all levels. I have three young ladies that
- 6:35will talk to to 9 step to hold a one and four step in the race.
- 6:42Neither one of those young ladies will hurdle a race this
- 6:45year until they get to 8 and three.
- 6:46They know. They knew that when we was
- 6:48recruiting them. They've known that all fall.
- 6:51One just had a breakthrough. Yes, this morning, in fact, she
- 6:53finally got 833. They should go back to form.
- 6:57But it's a rhythm thing. You got to teach the rhythm.
- 6:59They have to understand that rhythm and then they have to get
- 7:01stronger. But again, I coach through coach
- 7:06through threats and force. We're going to do the thing 3-4
- 7:10times and after that, everything after that, push ups on the
- 7:13line. You want a four step?
- 7:15OK, it's going to cost you 25 push ups every time you 4 step.
- 7:18Because most of the time it's a fear thing.
- 7:20It's not a technical thing or it's comfortable.
- 7:23I do not want you being comfortable to learn the three
- 7:25stuff because it's not supposed to be comfortable.
- 7:28But how do we get there, right? How do we get them from those
- 7:31things? Again, we're going to kind of
- 7:33skip them out again. First total, you want to you
- 7:35want you want to be a great accelerator out of the block.
- 7:38You want to get your first three steps are going to be similar to
- 7:42your race plan of the 100 meter dash.
- 7:46You're getting out, you're aggressive.
- 7:47We're not trying to be short and choppy.
- 7:49We're trying to be big, aggressive, cover ground.
- 7:53Step 4. My eyes are up.
- 7:55I'm trying to find the hurdle. I coach a lot of hurdlers that
- 7:59like to keep their head down because they think they run in
- 8:02100. My own daughter, she's 13.
- 8:04She's a thirteen 7800 meter hurdle over the 30 hurdles at
- 8:11the Junior Olympics. She got there and she got no,
- 8:12but she kept her head down till step 7.
- 8:16She picked her head up and forgot where she was at because
- 8:19there was a hurdle right here. Luckily, she's been taught to
- 8:23steer and correct. Didn't run a great time, but she
- 8:25didn't fall on her face. And then when she got to the
- 8:28finish line, the first thing she said was I kept my head down.
- 8:30Yeah, I know we talked about this.
- 8:32Let's not do that again, but fast to hold the one fast rhythm
- 8:37in between three-step rhythm. Think about it as a three count
- 8:40beat. A lot of athletes like to hear
- 8:43that so you can clap it out. We play I, I didn't put it in
- 8:48here, but we play a video that I found on YouTube.
- 8:51That's just a three count. This is a three count beat.
- 8:53We play that in practice. My athletes hear that when
- 8:58they're hurtling, they get sick of it and I told them until the
- 9:02entire group is 3 stepping on this beat, we're going to keep
- 9:04it playing. So I have two hurdles. 2 of my
- 9:07seniors, they were headphones doing that part of practice
- 9:10because they are tired of hearing that beat because they
- 9:13can do it in their sleep and I'm OK with that.
- 9:16It doesn't bother me. But I always tell them also if
- 9:18your headphones fall off while you're hurdling, you'll be push
- 9:20ups. So they take that, they take
- 9:22that chance and they do it fast off the last hurdle.
- 9:27This cost me a national championship two years ago.
- 9:30Hannah and Koviak came off with the last hurdle after running a
- 9:34brilliant second-half of one point O, one point O, one point
- 9:39O split to her last three hurdles.
- 9:41She came off the last hurdle and jogged through the line and got
- 9:44nipped for a national title last.
- 9:48First time and last time she's ever done that in the race.
- 9:50But we have to run off that last hurdle again.
- 9:53We're talking about speed is king.
- 9:56If you have the speed, you can use the speed.
- 9:58You cannot make up speed if you don't have it.
- 10:01So we we have to teach them as spinners, hurdle drills that we
- 10:06use. I am not a big drill person.
- 10:08What you're going to see is exactly what we use and that is
- 10:11all we do. I don't, I don't believe
- 10:14drilling makes you a better hurdler.
- 10:17I think drilling makes you a great driller because you can't
- 10:20take it from the drill to the track.
- 10:22What is the point of it? So we do enough to get them
- 10:25warmed up. I set my iPad up on a tripod and
- 10:30we hurdle and we coach in real time and we talk about
- 10:33adjustments in real time and we hurdle.
- 10:35We we also only hurdle twice a week.
- 10:37We hurdle on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
- 10:41One day is an acceleration day, other day is a speed endurance
- 10:44day or hurdle endurance day. Everything else is acceleration,
- 10:48Max velocity, speed endurance. And if you are a long hurdler,
- 10:52then you're with the 400 group once during the fall, twice a
- 10:56week. Once we get into January, you do
- 10:59the long hurdlers once a week up until in the February beginning
- 11:03of March. And then you'll start picking
- 11:05back up with more for stuff for the 400 hurdles.
- 11:07But I'm going to hopefully play some videos.
- 11:10So this young lady right here, she is not the best jeweler we
- 11:16have, but she's also a 13, fourteen, 1400 meter hurdle
- 11:23going to her single year. But I put this PowerPoint
- 11:26together and I didn't have videos because I don't know
- 11:29where my other tablets at with videos on it.
- 11:31So we filmed all these in practice the other day.
- 11:34So she was the only one that was still standing after the workout
- 11:39they had that day. So she's doing drills now.
- 11:42The question is, how do I get this thing going?
- 11:44Stop. Oh, there we go.
- 11:45Hey, so this is just going to be your typical wall drill.
- 11:50And the thing of it is she's just cutting her steps, a quick
- 11:52step rising for the wall. She should be leaning more.
- 11:57I can get it to pause, pause it right as she hit the wall for
- 12:02me. Yep, right here, if we can get
- 12:06it right here. So she's too close until the
- 12:10hurdle, first of all. So even when we drill, we do not
- 12:14drill back. This is a bad drill.
- 12:16And I told her that after we filmed it.
- 12:17This is a bad drill. She should be more so back here
- 12:21because I take off 1 is 2 meters.
- 12:23So when we drill this drill, I want her about a meter away from
- 12:26the huddle. So when she hits the wall, she's
- 12:28leaning into the wall better and she's getting that proper angle.
- 12:31And I'll show you that angle as we get to these other videos.
- 12:36What happened? No, this is so this is the same
- 12:391. So this is the same drill.
- 12:40It's it's the same way she's stepping football.
- 12:45So did you talk about here? So I'm fine here.
- 12:48I don't really, I honestly don't care about where the foot lands
- 12:51on the wall. I'm I'm more so worried about
- 12:53this should be straight. So, so this should be a straight
- 12:56line all the way through her shoulder.
- 12:57And the reason she can't do it because she's too close to the
- 13:00wall. If she was farther back, she'd
- 13:02be more at a 45° angle and she'd be more attacking right now
- 13:05she's attacking with her foot. So matter of fact, we're going
- 13:07to change this because it's the same.
- 13:15It's the same Rep. It's the same Rep.
- 13:26No, the whole drill is back. She's too close regardless,
- 13:28She's too close. If her feet is inside of this
- 13:31pole she's too close. This is a little bit better she
- 13:34should she should be back probably about right here
- 13:36because again when you hit that wall, you want to be in that
- 13:38same angle that you would be in as you're going over the hurdle.
- 13:41So you want to be more at a 45° angle with your knee and with
- 13:45your hips yes Sir what happened yes well it's a athlete
- 13:55preference. I don't care.
- 13:56I personally don't care. I facility don't like us on the
- 13:59wall at all. But as you can see, I, I got we,
- 14:03we, we got to get practicing. Next one is going to be your,
- 14:07your standard trail leg drill. I mean, you're just starting at
- 14:13the bottom of the hurdle and she's going to pull that trail
- 14:14leg all the way up, all the way off.
- 14:17We I like to have them do it really slow to feel the movement
- 14:20of it. A lot of time they try to speed
- 14:23through it, but we do 2 sets of ten of these on both sides.
- 14:26Again, I coach a lot of combo hurdles, so we hurdle on both
- 14:29sides. So we go there.
- 14:32It's a really simple drill. I like to keep them up on the
- 14:35ball of their feet and just pull that all the way through, whip
- 14:39that foot off the very edge of the hurdle and then stop it.
- 14:41She could come a little bit more off of that, but she is not
- 14:45moving as much. How do I, OK, can you just
- 14:47control this from how do I? I'm going to go to the next one?
- 14:49Yeah, because I want to get through these drills for people.
- 14:53You got to go to the next one. There we go and this is hurdle,
- 14:57this is going to be this is going to be trail leg circles
- 15:01again on this drill. Foot should be tight to the butt
- 15:05and you're just circling around just going her her lead leg
- 15:08honestly should be even with the hurdle.
- 15:13You never want to have your lead leg that far back because your
- 15:16lead leg is never going to be behind you as you're hurdling.
- 15:18So you either want to be even with that hurdle or slightly in
- 15:21front. And so, but again, the whole
- 15:24point of that is just opening up the hips, opening up the hips,
- 15:27loosen up the hips. Again, we're going to get way
- 15:29more technical as we get into, OK, here we go.
- 15:35This is going to be this is the lead leg drill.
- 15:38We do this drill walking and running.
- 15:42This is sophomore Olivia. She ran last year.
- 15:47She came in as a she came in last year as a freshman.
- 15:50She went 16 O 2IN high school. Last year she ran 1491, but
- 15:56again, it started because she also ran 13.
- 15:59Here we go. It's just lead leg over the top
- 16:02and we would just want to go straight up with the knee and
- 16:04tack right back down under the ground.
- 16:05Again, mimicing what we're trying to do as we're going, but
- 16:08also really just getting loose. Again, These aren't.
- 16:15And so we do that job both walking early where they'll just
- 16:18walk and do it and then we progress to them moving faster.
- 16:26That right there, I give it to the athletes.
- 16:28For me with my feet, it's, it's, it's normally five of my steps,
- 16:33but my tiny feet, young ladies, it's probably like 6 or seven of
- 16:35those steps. This is lead leg.
- 16:38So we're doing it. Like that you stepping over
- 16:43instead of a. Kick out, you don't want to kick
- 16:45out and I'll show you why in a minute.
- 16:46I, I, I'll show you why you don't want to kick out in a
- 16:48minute. What do you see next?
- 16:53I'm pushing that. It's not working.
- 16:55No, I want to go to the other side.
- 16:57Go to the other side. I don't think there we go.
- 17:00OK, here. So this is Trellack here.
- 17:02This is Trellack. It's going to look similar
- 17:04again. We're just trying to get over
- 17:06the top of the hurdle and get everything down because when we
- 17:09come to the top of the hurdle we want to hit the ground the same
- 17:12way. OK, so when you coming, I told
- 17:16you we're not going to get through it because I can't hold
- 17:18that. I hate something when you come
- 17:20over the top of the hurdle. When you come off a hurdle, you
- 17:22want to hear that off the ground and so you can't do that.
- 17:26If I'm hurdling, then I just drank a strolling right?
- 17:29So we don't train that rhythm even though when you hurdle, so
- 17:34that comes through flat and I come through right here.
- 17:36We're trying to get you in the mindset of hearing that pop off
- 17:39the ground, right. And so that's what this drill
- 17:41does. Olivia does a pretty good job
- 17:43here of it. She's not using her arms as much
- 17:48as I would like her to use her arms.
- 17:50Again, we try to drill those things to where we are using our
- 17:54arms as well. I don't think your clicker likes
- 17:58me. Have I got to point it somewhere
- 17:59here? It doesn't like me.
- 18:01I think it is. Can we go to the next to the
- 18:03next slide? It doesn't like me.
- 18:04I don't know. I didn't do it, coach.
- 18:06Coach broke it. I did.
- 18:08I did drop it. Didn't.
- 18:09That's because it got videos. In this.
- 18:19Thing Yeah, OK, here we go. Now this is the drill we're
- 18:22talking about when we talk about I want to hear the over the
- 18:24hurdle and so again, start the leg over.
- 18:29Here's the thing, if you have a kid that has bad coordination,
- 18:32don't do this. You know I will not be
- 18:35responsible for your kid getting hurt.
- 18:38But foot over the top. You're pushing off of the the
- 18:42base leg. You have to push through the
- 18:43hill. Push up together and both feet
- 18:46should come over at the same time.
- 18:47Cycle over the top and off the ground.
- 18:50We can go to the next one for me please.
- 18:53Yep. The trail leg is on the side of
- 18:57the hurdle, The lead leg is on the outside of the hurdle to
- 19:00bring it over. Yes.
- 19:02So you start with lead leg on top of the hurdle and off the
- 19:06the other leg you're pushing up. The goal is to get up, cycle
- 19:09through, hit the ground like that.
- 19:13Quicker you go with that, the better they're going to get a
- 19:15chance to understand how we are talking about snapping down off
- 19:17the hurdle because you got to get up and snap down with this
- 19:20leg also getting this one over and so that drill and then this
- 19:24is our last drill. This is one of the last drills
- 19:26that we do, which is just a one step drill over top.
- 19:28This is why I said you don't want to kick out because she's
- 19:31going one step. You start kicking out a one step
- 19:34drill, you're going to probably land under a hurdle.
- 19:36It's not going to feel good. She knows that because right
- 19:38before this video, the right before this one, she went down
- 19:43at hurdle too and she knows better, but she hit hurdle, she
- 19:48kicked out, she hit hurdle 2 and she went under hurdle 3 and I
- 19:51was like, are you OK? She was like cool.
- 19:53She said yeah. I said OK, well let's finish
- 19:54shooting the video please. We need video.
- 19:56So she did we can go to the next one now.
- 20:00We talked about speed. My hurdlers remember we only
- 20:03hurdle twice a week, but my hurdlers Monday through Friday,
- 20:08they do this. We put the eight step pattern
- 20:10out, which I can give you guys that as well.
- 20:11We use a generic eight step pattern.
- 20:13Hannah had a different one because she's a little bit
- 20:15faster. Kayla has a different because
- 20:16she's a little bit faster, but. We use a generic eight step
- 20:19pattern. We put this out on the track
- 20:21every day after they get down, warming up, the holders put
- 20:25their spikes on. I don't care what we got going
- 20:26on that day. They put their spikes on and
- 20:28they run this pattern. You can push through from the
- 20:30coach. This one's going to be this
- 20:31might, this should be force. It might be slow motion though.
- 20:34Goal is we're trying to get their hips to all the comb.
- 20:38She's going to be slightly behind, then slightly in front
- 20:40of them. But the goal is this is your
- 20:44eight step pattern. By the time she gets here, we'll
- 20:47take it off. She's actually about to hurdle
- 20:48this one because the hurdle's up.
- 20:50So you you skip one. Yeah, it was, I don't know.
- 20:54So, so this is so this is this is going to be slow motion, but
- 20:57you're going to watch. This is fine.
- 20:58We can watch her take off here and I can come back and talk
- 21:01about it. She should have been in a better
- 21:04starting position. But again, that's Kayla and
- 21:05Kayla don't always listen. But can you rewind it for me and
- 21:11just pause it? But when she get to step 8
- 21:14again, we're going to jump around a little bit, pause it,
- 21:17right? OK, so she pushed through for
- 21:20eight steps. She's in a really good hurdle
- 21:22position. Reason why she's nice and tall.
- 21:25Her hips are up. She can project.
- 21:29If she was in a, if she was reaching, she would be at this
- 21:32position at 8. And so now for me to hurdle, I
- 21:35have to force all this forward before I can hurdle.
- 21:38Now she's stepping down, she can go over the hurdle, right?
- 21:43Here's where it gets tricky. If you have a person that long
- 21:46jumps and hurdle, they have a tendency they want to do that
- 21:49and then go up again. Remember I said I coach out of
- 21:53fear and threats. So if you do that with me and if
- 21:58you're going to long jump, it's push ups.
- 22:01You will be surprised how push ups solve a lot of problems
- 22:05because they don't like doing push ups.
- 22:06And so I tell them all the time, either we're going to look good
- 22:08in our uniform or we going to be technically sounding better
- 22:13because you don't do push ups if you do it all, especially after
- 22:16we've talked about it and try to fix it over and over, right?
- 22:18Because for me, push up thing to work for them.
- 22:20I don't know why. But again, can you go back and
- 22:23pause for me? Can we?
- 22:24You might have been, I should have kept it on my tablet.
- 22:26You might not be able to do it if you can drag it over for me
- 22:29since we have this video up and I can talk about it before we
- 22:32move on. Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here.
- 22:35Hey, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Guild 1918
- 22:39Project series. It's really my mission, my
- 22:42passion to bring you massive amounts of value and I hope this
- 22:46one hit the mark. The Gilt 1918 Project is really
- 22:50dependent on you if for you to build your own episode, to hear
- 22:54your voice, to have your voice heard you have something to say
- 22:58and teach other coaches out there.
- 22:59So please get a hold of me, e-mail, text message, Twitter,
- 23:04smoke signals, get a hold of me and let's help create your
- 23:08episode of the Guild 1918 Project.
- 23:10Hope you enjoy today, they will see you tomorrow.