What's New

****If you are willing to make a donation to help offset the costs of maintaining this website, please click on the following link to make a donation through paypal: Donations If you'd prefer to donate through the mail, click the "Contact Me" link to the left to email me for my address. Thank you.****
_____________________________________________________________________

****In October of 2010 I did an instructional video for Championship Productions, and it is now available on their website. It is a part of their track and field High School Coaches Blueprint for Success series. The video is over an hour long, filled with strategies for coaching hurdlers, workout plans for hurdlers, as well as demonstrations of key drills to help hurdlers develop efficient technique. I have seen the final product and am very happy with it. Click here to go to the Championship Productions page of the video, where you can view a sample portion of the video prior to purchasing it.****

_______________________________________________________________________

An Emphasis on Sprint Mechanics (added 1/27/12)
While hurdlers and hurdle coaches tend to place a tremendous amount of emphasis on hurdling mechanics (and rightfully so), it is also equally important to emphasize sprint mechanics. How one runs over hurdles is, after all, an extension of how one runs. Flaws in one’s sprint mechanic Flaws will inevitably lead to flaws in hurdling mechanics. That is why, often, trying to fix the hurdling flaw can be an exercise in futility if the sprinting flaw causing the hurdling flaw isn’t addressed first. . . . [more]

Rodney Milburn, The Quiet Champion, Chapter Seven (added 1/9/12)
Rodney liked Munich but was homesick. Instead of sticking around for the closing ceremonies, he “booked passage on the first thing heading home,” as he told a reporter shortly after the end of the Games. Throughout his stay in the Olympic village, he had been sending postcards to his mother Mary and sister Mary Ann. . . . [more]

****I finally updated the "Site Author" page to reflect my current status. I usually do so every September but forgot this time around.****

The Zone (added 12/18/11)
In an article from last week entitled “Slow Down to Speed Up,” I talked about how the highest level of achievement in the hurdles comes when you enter “The Zone,” where you can execute all the aspects of speed and technique without the need for any conscious thought, while competing under very stress-filled, high-pressure conditions. For this article, I want to focus more on this elusive, nebulous concept that in sports we call “The Zone,” because it’s difficult enough to describe, and difficult enough to get to, that it merits looking into in depth. . . . [more]

Slow Down to Speed Up (added 12/11/11)
This article goes out to all the impatient hurdlers out there, those of you who want to work on a technical flaw today and be able to apply the improvement to a race tomorrow. A common complaint that I often hear from hurdlers is, “I can do it in the drill, but when I try to do it full speed, it doesn’t work.” To them, this failure at full speed serves as evidence that the drill is pointless because it can’t be applied in a race. That logic is ridiculous. . . . [more]

At Home in this World (added 12/5/11)
Inspired by the facebook videos of Terry Reese, I've started doing some hurdling again, for the first time in a long time. I've hurdled on four separate occasions in the past two weeks. The 44-year-old Reese, a former national-caliber hurdler back in the 1990s who has gone on to coach at the collegiate level for almost two decades, still trains like a track athlete, doing sprint workouts and hurdle workouts on a regular basis. He often films his hurdle workouts and uploads them to his facebook page. . . . [more]