Friday, January 06, 2006
Hurdles
Wednesday 4th January 2006
Because of reduced opening hours at the gym on Monday, my "3 times a week to the gym" New Years resolution stumbled at the first hurdle. However, 5:30am this morning I was at the gym, ready to jump into weights. My weight training over the past few months had been somewhere between sporadic and non-existent, and with various leg injuries, I had done virtually no lower body work. Today, however, I did my full program (detailed here), without too much fuss, although the squats and lunges informed me that my legs were doing things they weren't used to.
Was in two minds as to whether to train again today - the schedule said hurdles, but the body said 'tired'. Ended up going, and after an excessive time fart-arsing round with hurdle height and distance, launched into some drills and general familiarisation work. Working with only three hurdles was a little challenging, but probably what I need to focus on individual hurdle technique before worrying about rythym.
Started with three hurdles spaced at 110m distance (13m to dist hurdle, 9.1m between hurdles), initially at 78cm (200m hurdle height). However, this is so low, that I wasn't getting any real feel for hurdling, and so upped them to 91cm and then 99cm (unfortunately the training hurdles I have don't go to the full height of 106cm, but that's not a drama at this stage). After a few run-throughs, I began to get a feel for running over the hurdles, rather than jumping over them. However, at this point my stride pattern (odd number of strides between hurdles to always lead with the same leg) was getting me in all sort of bother, so I switched to even (or odd, not sure if the landing is considered a step), with much better results. If I can maintain this form over all 10 hurdles, I should be able to smash last month's time. Came away feeling much more confident - the hurdles seemed much shorter than at Homebush for some reason.
More measuring as I set up the hurdles 35m apart to simulate a 400m hurdles straight (91cm high). Felt quite rythymic through these reps (about 10x100m in all), and again, shifted to alternate legs, with the left lead leg actually feeling better than the right.
Finally, finished with 4 laps in 80 seconds with the hurdles at 150m, 250m and 350m to kinda simulate a steeplechase. This felt quite easy, as I only wanted to run 84 seconds a lap, but kept coming in at 80 (1 minute recovery between laps). Will need to up these reps to 800m to get a better sensation for hurdling with fatigue. This finish also adds a run/aerobic component to this session, helping with the other distance events, and general endurance.
A good first-up hurdling session, which will provide the template for future sessions. Will need to focus on some 200m hurdle pacing practice, as the low hurdles (78cm) will require a different technique. Jim the super-coach is also a hurdles coach, so I will be getting some technical advice off him after my Sunday pole-vault sessions, which I can ideally incorporate into my Wednesday sessions. Also, another 2 hurdles will need to be acquired shortly.
Because of reduced opening hours at the gym on Monday, my "3 times a week to the gym" New Years resolution stumbled at the first hurdle. However, 5:30am this morning I was at the gym, ready to jump into weights. My weight training over the past few months had been somewhere between sporadic and non-existent, and with various leg injuries, I had done virtually no lower body work. Today, however, I did my full program (detailed here), without too much fuss, although the squats and lunges informed me that my legs were doing things they weren't used to.
Was in two minds as to whether to train again today - the schedule said hurdles, but the body said 'tired'. Ended up going, and after an excessive time fart-arsing round with hurdle height and distance, launched into some drills and general familiarisation work. Working with only three hurdles was a little challenging, but probably what I need to focus on individual hurdle technique before worrying about rythym.
Started with three hurdles spaced at 110m distance (13m to dist hurdle, 9.1m between hurdles), initially at 78cm (200m hurdle height). However, this is so low, that I wasn't getting any real feel for hurdling, and so upped them to 91cm and then 99cm (unfortunately the training hurdles I have don't go to the full height of 106cm, but that's not a drama at this stage). After a few run-throughs, I began to get a feel for running over the hurdles, rather than jumping over them. However, at this point my stride pattern (odd number of strides between hurdles to always lead with the same leg) was getting me in all sort of bother, so I switched to even (or odd, not sure if the landing is considered a step), with much better results. If I can maintain this form over all 10 hurdles, I should be able to smash last month's time. Came away feeling much more confident - the hurdles seemed much shorter than at Homebush for some reason.
More measuring as I set up the hurdles 35m apart to simulate a 400m hurdles straight (91cm high). Felt quite rythymic through these reps (about 10x100m in all), and again, shifted to alternate legs, with the left lead leg actually feeling better than the right.
Finally, finished with 4 laps in 80 seconds with the hurdles at 150m, 250m and 350m to kinda simulate a steeplechase. This felt quite easy, as I only wanted to run 84 seconds a lap, but kept coming in at 80 (1 minute recovery between laps). Will need to up these reps to 800m to get a better sensation for hurdling with fatigue. This finish also adds a run/aerobic component to this session, helping with the other distance events, and general endurance.
A good first-up hurdling session, which will provide the template for future sessions. Will need to focus on some 200m hurdle pacing practice, as the low hurdles (78cm) will require a different technique. Jim the super-coach is also a hurdles coach, so I will be getting some technical advice off him after my Sunday pole-vault sessions, which I can ideally incorporate into my Wednesday sessions. Also, another 2 hurdles will need to be acquired shortly.
