Hello Subscribers, and welcome to the December 2020 edition of The Hurdle Magazine. In this month's issue, I wrote four articles, and freelance writer Melinda Burris wrote two.

In my first article, "Cycle Arms, Injuries, and Covid Blues," I discuss the progress of my athlete, Brandon Johnson, and the difficulties we've faced as he suffered an injury recently, and the latest surge of the coronavirus has set us back in our training. The article includes video footage from a recent training session that went very well.

My next two articles, "Dedication and Learning to Lose," and "Getting Back Up" kind of go hand in hand, as both focus on the psychological side of being a hurdler. In the first one, I focus on my hurdling days as a senior in high school and then making the transition into college, where, it seemed, everybody in the world was fast. In the second article, I include several passages from an essay that a student of mine wrote who is a horseback rider. In her essay, she asked the question, "Is it worth it?" when referring to all the challenges and setbacks that are a part of the life of a horseback rider, and I make the connection of how her insights also relate to the challenges and setbacks that a hurdler faces on the daily.

This month's workout, "Ladder Workout for 400m Hurdlers," is a good workout for long hurdlers that begins to introduce speed into the mix after building a conditioning base in the fall.

In Melinda Burris' first article, "Why Athletes Should Include Winter Vegetables in Their Diet," Burris goes in depth in discussing the topic that the title suggests. In her second article, "Weight Training Correctly & Avoiding Overuse Injuries," Burris discusses causes the importance of lifting weights in such a way that maximizes reps as opposed to maximizing heavy weights, especially in a sport like track and field; in the second part of the article, she discusses the importance of training properly and avoiding technical flaws in order to stay injury-free.

Thanks to all of you for your continued support. Enjoy the articles, and good luck with your training and the upcoming season.

For the long hurdler, December is still a time of conditioning, but it is also a time to start putting speed into the mix in order to prepare for the stride pattern work that will be a staple in training toward the end of the indoor season. I'm not big on doing a lot of stride pattern work in the long hurdles until the conditioning is at a high level and the speed is at high enough of a level that the athlete is ready to execute the desired stride pattern. This month's workout is a good one for transitioning from the purely conditioning-based work of the fall to the emphasis on speed that will be more prevalent in the spring and summer.

Workout:

(500m-400m-300m) x 2

This is a very demanding workout, so if the fall conditioning was lacking, then the athlete might need to wait before doing this one. I'm big on the idea that quality is as important as quantity, if not more important. So just finishing the reps isn't anything to be proud of if the times are slow and the athlete's sprint mechanics break down.

Figuring out the desired pace:

The pace for all the reps should be based on how fast you want the 400m reps to be. Generally, the reps should be about 85-90% of full speed, depending on how fit the athlete is. Let's say you want the athlete to run the 400m reps in 60 seconds. That's a 15 seconds per 100m pace. So, the 500m rep will be at a slightly slower pace than that overall because the last 100m will be slower. So, instead of trying to run the 500 in 1:15, more realistic would be 1:20. The 300 will be at a pace slightly faster than 15 seconds per 100, so :42 would be a reasonable target time. So, that's a 500-400-300 set of 1:20, :60, and :42. That's a good set. And to be able to maintain the pace each rep for a second set means the athlete is getting into race shape in a measurable way.

Recovery:

In the spirit of quality being most important, and giving the athlete a legit opportunity to hit the times on every rep, I say the rest should be five minutes between reps, and ten minutes between sets.

Variations:

If the athlete gets to the point where he or she has mastered the workout, it's okay to add some hurdles into the mix. Maybe randomly add one hurdle on each straightaway. Or maybe put up the first two hurdles of the race. You might want to add hurdles just on the 300m reps, but not on the other reps. It depends on what you're trying to get out of the workout. Be creative here, but be practical. Always be able to explain to the athlete why you're doing what you're doing.

Change the distances to 400-300-200 for high schoolers who run 300m hurdles. But for hurdlers who run 300m hurdles in the spring and 400m hurdles in summer track, stick with the longer distances.

Hello Subscribers, and welcome to the November 2020 edition of The Hurdle Magazine. In this month's issue, I wrote three articles, and I got all my freelance writers back, which means Savannah Cress wrote one, and Melinda Burris wrote two.

In my first article, "Translating Training into Races," I discuss how difficult it is to implement new changes to one's style during the adrenaline-filled environment of a race. My athlete, Brandon Johnson, had his first race a couple weeks ago, and though he won and ran well, there is much we are working on that didn't show up, letting us know what we still need to work on.

My second article, "College Programs on the Chopping Block," focuses on the recent COVID-related phenomenon of collegiate track and field programs being blasted out of existence due to cost cutting. The article centers around the Clemson University program, which has been one of the most successful programs in the country for decades.

This month's workout, "Hurdle Speed Workout," is a good workout to use when transitioning from the fall season to the winter season, as athletes want to start cranking up the speed in preparation for races. The workout involves block starts with and without hurdles.

Savannah Cress' contribution this month, "Why Christian Why?," takes a look at the somewhat bizarre Christian Coleman situation, in which the world champion sprinter has received a two-year ban due to not being available for drug tests three times in the past year, meaning that he won't be eligible to compete in the 2021 Olympic Games.

In Melinda Burris' first article, "Gaining Weight during Covid-19," Burris takes a look at the ways the pandemic has affected the way people exercise and how regularly they are able to do so, as well as the difficulties that come with not being able to follow usual routines. In her second article, "All About Ankle and Foot Tendinitis," Burris discusses causes of these common hurdler ailments, as well as preventative measures and treatments.

Thanks to all of you for your continued support. Enjoy the articles, and good luck with your training and the upcoming season.

This month's workout is one that is designed for helping an athlete to get race-sharp, and making the transition from the fall training that is more volume-based to the winter training that includes an element of meet preparation. This workout is good to do once a week as a speed workout, two days prior to a meet, or on a Saturday in place of a meet.

Here's what the workout consists of, all from a block start:

2x20m sprints.

2 reps over the first hurdle.

2 reps over the first two hurdles.

2 reps over the first three hurdles.

I don't time the 20m sprints. I put those in there as a way of getting the fast-twitch muscles firing prior to going over any hurdles. Prior to these two sprints, I'll have the athlete do 3x40m sprints from a three-point start at the end of the warmup. When doing any kind of speed work, it's always important to do as much preparatory work in the warmup to avoid injury.

For recovery, I give a walk-back recovery between the two sprint reps. For all the hurdle reps, I'll give 2-3 minutes rest between reps. The rest will increase as I add more hurdles. I don't want to go over three minutes, though, as I want to make sure the athlete stays in rhythm and doesn't get too stagnant between reps. Of course, if we were to be doing a similar type of workout in the late spring or summer, there would be a longer rest between reps, and we'd be going over more hurdles.

After the sprint reps, before the first reps over the first hurdle, I'll have the athlete do some hurdle drilling, just to get the legs over hurdles prior to going full speed out the blocks over the hurdles. In the video above, you'll see that my athlete Brandon does a couple reps of quicksteps prior to his hurdle block starts. We'd want to do something similar in a race warmup. Get the speed up first, get in the hurdling frame of mind, then put the two together.

By the way, the above video includes all the reps from the workout, in the same order as I listed earlier. So you can follow the progression quite easily.

Variations:

I keep the hurdles at race height for all the hurdle reps for an athlete like Brandon, who is experienced and knows what he's doing. But if you have an athlete who hasn't been training throughout the fall, or whose technique still has a lot that needs to be improved, then lowering the hurdles one click below race height would be appropriate. But that's as low as you should go. If you need to go lower than that, then the athlete isn't ready for this workout yet.

If the athlete has a bad hurdle rep for whatever reason, you can always decide to add another one.

If the athlete is feeling any twinges that could potentially become strains or tears, shut the workout down. Ask the athlete after every rep how he or she is feeling.

Hello Subscribers, and welcome to the January 2021 edition of The Hurdle Magazine. In this month's issue, as in last month's I wrote four articles, and freelance writer Melinda Burris wrote two.

In my first article, "Quickness from the Lower Legs," I discuss the importance of lower-leg strength when it comes to explosive quickness for hurdlers. In the article, I begin by referring to great rebounders in basketball as a frame of reference for what quick explosiveness looks like and how it is advantageous.

My next article, "Will There Be a Tokyo Olympics?," takes a look at whether or not the 2020 Olympics, postponed to July of 2021, will actually take place this year, based, obviously, on pandemic-related issues. The article takes a look at a recently published New York Times article in which Tokyo officials and the President of the International Olympic Committee give their thoughts and insights regarding whether the Games can be held and, if so, in what capacity.

My third article, "When it Comes to being my brother ...," is a personal piece of writing in which I provide my perspective on some of the turmoil taking place in the United States these days, focusing on a personal friendship of mine with a close friend and one-time neighbor with whom I used to run on a regular basis, and with whom I still keep in touch.

This month's workout, "Speed Ladder Workout," is designed to be challenge sprint hurdlers to improve their speed and to improve their ability to maintain their speed. It's a good workout for this time of year, as well as for the early outdoor season.

In Melinda Burris' first article, "Stride Length vs. Stride Frequency," Burris takes a research-based, scientific look into the age-old question of how stride length and stride frequency interrelate.

In Burris' second article, "Proper Training for 3-Stepping," Burris addresses another issue vitally important to hurdlers. In both of her articles, Burris includes some input from me as a long-time coach.

Thanks to all of you for your continued support. Enjoy the articles, and good luck with your training and your competitions.

You may have noticed if you've followed my blog and have been subscribed to this magazine for a while that I'm a big fan of NBA basketball. That love goes back to my early childhood years, when my dad used to take my brothers and me to go watch the Philadelphia 76ers play at the old Spectrum in South Philly. My athletic heroes growing up, besides Renaldo Nehemiah, were the 76ers star players Julius "Dr. J" Erving, Moses Malone, Andrew Toney, Maurice Cheeks, and Bobby Jones. A couple years after that team won the NBA championship in 1983 (and we haven't won one since), they drafted a pudgy rookie from the University of Auburn named Charles Barkley. He came into the league with the simultaneously complimentary and insulting nickname, "round mound of rebound." But as he learned how to be a professional and take care of his body, he was no longer a round mound, but remained a beast of a rebounder. In watching Barkley night in and night out, I was able to see the many qualities he possessed that made him an outstanding rebounder. The one that stood out most to me was that he was quick off his feet. And that's the quality I want to talk about as it relates to hurdling.

A little more on Barkley first, just to continue the thoughts from above: whereas a lot of rebounders needed to bend their knees deeply before springing into action. While the opponents were busting gathering in preparation to leap, Barkley was leaping. He didn't need to bend his knees, yet he was able to jump very high and grab the ball. How? The conclusion I came to was that he was very strong in his lower legs—in his calves, ankles and achilles. Other great rebounders, like Dennis Rodman in his days with the Detroit Pistons, San Antonio Spurs, and Chicago Bulls, was another one who was exceptionally strong in his lower legs and could beat other guys to the ball with his quickness. The other night I was watching a game in which the Sixers were playing the Miami Heat. The Heat had a young dude playing center because their starting center was out due to covid protocols. Our star center Joel Embiid dominated this kid, but, there were a couple plays when the young kid jumped up and grabbed two or three offensive rebounds while Embiid just stood there. It wasn't that Embiid wasn't trying, or that he wasn't bigger or stronger, but that the other dude was quicker. It's all about the lower legs.

So, applying that principle to hurdling, hurdlers must be quick in a manner similar to how rebounders in basketball must be quick. That's especially true when it comes to faster hurdlers who have difficulty fitting in their three steps without getting too close to the barriers. Then it really becomes relevant when talking about elite hurdlers who are going sub-13.5 (males) or sub-13.0 (females). These athletes are the tap dancers of hurdling, who have no room to sprint, so extraordinary quickness is absolutely essential for them.

In making the comparison to NBA rebounders, let's focus on male hurdlers in particular. At the collegiate level and professional level, the hurdles are 42 inches. So, elite hurdlers are taught to "shuffle" between the hurdles. Which means very low hands, very low feet, and then explode into hurdling position. This ability to explode into position is a function of the lower legs—the calves and ankles—because, just like with the elite NBA rebounders, there isn't time to gather before exploding. An elite hurdler who raises his knees too high in an attempt to apply more force will cover too much ground and end up on the ground.

The same is true for female hurdlers at the elite level in terms of negotiating the space, but the explosiveness isn't as exaggerated simply because the hurdles are so low.

In my years of coaching, I can say that all of the athletes I've coached who have really stood out as being exceptionally gifted, all of them were strong in the lower legs and all of them could explode into position in a remarkable way. Wayne Davis, who was smaller (5-10), stands out the most to me in this regard. Even at the collegiate level over the 42's his quickness when it came to getting into hurdling position was something to see.

When you think about it, the muscles we associate as being essential to sprinting—the quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes—are not the muscles that are essential to the quick explosiveness that high-level hurdlers need. Hurdlers who overemphasize upper-leg strength can actually worsen the problem of getting too crowded between hurdles. Even in the weight room, hurdlers can't afford to lift the exact same way as sprinters do.

With my more advanced hurdlers, I have them do drills specifically designed to help them improve their quickness and their explosiveness. Two that you are probably familiar with if you follow my YouTube channel are the lane-line drill and the marching popover drill. With the lane-line drill, the emphasis is on quick feet. With the marching popovers, the emphasis is on pushing off the back leg. The push-off is supposed to be a quick, short, instantaneous action. As your speed increases during a rep, your quickness has to increase and your explosiveness has to increase.

Starting at the :15 mark of the above video, you'll see four reps of the lane-line drill. As we progress into faster drills—the cycle drill and the quickstep drill, the same principles apply: quick feet between the hurdles, and explode into position. Again, if you try to be powerful the way a sprinter needs to be powerful, you'll end up rolling on the ground.

The video above features the marching popover drill. Off the track, jumping rope is a very effective way to develop the lower leg strength that leads to the type of explosiveness I've been talking about. Jumping rope forces you onto the balls of your feet, where the calves and ankles are doing the work. Single-leg jump-roping is especially beneficial, as it requires a more forceful push-off.

Hello Subscribers, and welcome to the February 2021 edition of The Hurdle Magazine. In this month's issue, there are four articles by me again, and two be freelance writer Melinda Burris.

In my first article, "Healing after the Loss of a Friend," I take a look back at my relationship with my first-ever national-caliber athlete, Cameron Akers, whom I coached in 2000-01, and who tragically passed away in 2012. Though it's been nine years, the memories still linger, but I've been able to transform much of the grief into action and even serenity. It's been a long road.

In my next article, "How Young is too Young?" I take a look at the pros and cons involved with beginning to hurdle at the first legal youth age group of 11-12 years old, vs. starting later in life, like in high school. One of the conclusions I come to is that it all comes down to coaching, regardless of when you start.

My third article, "Creating, and Solving, Rhythm Problems," discusses how advanced hurdlers who elite-level times can continue to improve without falling victim to plateauing. As I discuss in the article, the key is to constantly look for ways to improve one's quickness. That can often mean creating crowding issues in practice so that the athlete is prepared to adapt to crowding issues in races.

This month's workout, "Fun Competition Workout," is based on a fun competition that the athletes did at the last camp I ran pre-Covid in November of 2019. The workout is designed to create a sense of urgency when doing common drills by adding a competitive component to them.

In Melinda Burris' first article, "Neuroplasticity and Muscle Memory," Burris takes a research-based look at neuroplasticity, otherwise known as muscle memory, as it applies to repetitive athletic movements, such as hurdling. The article was inspired by a recent video of professional basketball player Steph Curry making 105 consecutive three-pointers in a practice session.

Burris' second article is not completed yet at this time, but will discuss the relationship between sprinting speed and vertical jumping ability.

Thanks to all of you for your continued support. Enjoy the articles, and good luck with your training and your competitions.

Nine years ago today, my good friend and former athlete Cameron Akers took his own life at the age of 28. I want to take some time in this article to discuss where I am in regards to this tragic loss, and how our relationship continues to influence who I am and what I do in my roles as teacher and coach.

I've written about Cameron in previous articles for this magazine, and for this website before the magazine came into existence. His death was actually a source of inspiration for starting the magazine back in August of 2013, as I was looking for ways to honor his memory and to keep his memory alive. When I started conducting the Team Steve hurdle camps in 2017, using an image of Cameron on the camp T-shirt was a no-brainer, as doing so would serve as another way to honor him and to let current athletes know who he was.

Some background for those of you who aren't familiar:

I coached Cameron in 2000-2001, his junior and senior years of high school. I was six years into my coaching career when I first started with him, and had yet to produce an athlete who could compete on a national level. Meanwhile, he had never run track before, and only came out for the team because some of his friends on the football team had encouraged him to since he was the fastest player on the team. They also let him know how "cool" I was, as many of them had had me in the classroom. So he decided to come out, and when he saw me training another athlete in the hurdles on one of the first days of practice, he asked if he could try hurdling too. I hesitated at first, because I had pegged him for a sprinter and long jumper, as he looked to be a little short at 5–10 to be a natural in the hurdles.

But I was so wrong. He ran a 15-mid in his first race over the full flight of ten, dropped under 15.0 a couple meets later, won the state championship with a 14.40, then got his personal best down to 14.23 over the summer, when he won the regional championship in the 15-16 age group at the USATF Junior Olympics.

His senior year, I was fully expecting him to go under 14.0, but he grew bored from a lack of competition and because he had already gained plenty of scholarship offers, but he still had a very good season, and we remained close and stayed in touch after he left for college.

In his last two years of high school, we formed an inseparable bond, as I often drove him to and from practice during the summer, and we traveled together to all of the out-of-state meets. Without realizing it, I had become a father figure to him, as he was raised by his mom and didn't know his dad. On my end, coaching Cameron enabled me to realize that I was a really good coach. Whenever he would receive praise from teammates or opponents or other teams' coaches, he would always deflect the praise and point to me. He did it so often that I finally had to acknowledge that yeah, maybe it _is _me, or, at the very least, I played a significant role in his success.

Over the next ten years we saw each other infrequently but, as I said before, we still managed to stay in touch. He went to a Clemson University for college, where he ran track for two years before deciding that collegiate track wasn't for him. He then joined the Air Force and was stationed in Japan for long chunks of time. I think it was 2009 or 2010 when he took me and my daughter to dinner as a last goodbye before heading to Afghanistan, where he would be working for a private company aiding the Drug Enforcement Administration.

When he came back from Afghanistan in January of 2012, he contacted me via email and was talking about being "enlightened" and how he "knew the truth" — the mind of talk which I would later come to discover was symptomatic of bipolar disorder. He became infatuated with science, and physics in particular. He was saying a lot of weird things that were completely over my head. Finally, in early February, he flew from his home in San Antonio to Raleigh — where I was living at the time, and where his mom and two younger siblings also lived.

Again, we went out to dinner and had a great time catching up. He looked happy and healthy and full of life. The next morning, he picked me up at my home and drove me to an indoor meet where two of my hurdlers would be competing. At the meet, it felt like old times as he was giving tips to random hurdlers from other teams and pointing out flaws in their technique.

By the time he dropped me off back at my house, I felt convinced that Cameron was more than okay; he was the same Cameron I had always known, and was an older, wiser version at that. But in the next week, he was putting up weird YouTube videos explaining physics-related stuff, and he was texting me and calling me all the time with strange theories that made no sense to me. On the morning of his death, I texted him saying that I needed some space and that I'd get up with him soon. He texted me back "okay," and the next day his mom called me with the news of his death.

For several years I regretted that last text, convinced that it had contributed to his decision to end it all. For several years I beat myself up over having either missed or ignored so many warning signs that Cameron was ill and needed help. For several years I looked upon myself as a failure when it came to being a mentor and father figure.

The magazine and the hurdle camps helped me to keep moving forward, and to translate much of my grief into productive, creative action. As time has passed, I have learned to let go of the guilt, I've come to understand that there was nothing I could have done to prevent the inevitable; Cameron had made up his mind to the me his life before he'd even flown to Raleigh to visit, and the visit itself was both a final thank-you and a final goodbye.

I miss Cameron. I miss his humor, I miss his kindness, I miss our friendship. But I no longer seek out overt ways to honor him or to make sure he won't be forgotten. He's a part of who I am. He's a part of everything I do. Anyone who knows me knows him. Anybody who is influenced by me is influenced by him. That's forever, just like the hurdles are forever.

Taking on a book project can be a daunting task, even as it's also thrilling and exciting. Back in March of 2019, I embarked on a journey to write the biography of hurdling great Renaldo Nehemiah. My mother passed away that June, which led to a pause in my progress. But after I picked myself up from that devastating loss, I continued working on the book, and was making good progress — much of which I documented in previous articles. When quarantine began in March of 2020 and the school where I teach shifted to online classes, that actually helped me in regards to the book. Because I was home all day, there were no school activities taking place after school or in the evenings, I had a lot more time to devote to the book. Then spring rolled into summer, and I made lots of progress; I finished the first draft of the first seven chapters, which covered Renaldo's childhood years through his 12.93 race and his decision to leave amateur track for professional football in 1982. The last article I wrote about the book was about that final 1982 indoor season, when Renaldo was breaking his own indoor records, and it was looking like he was on his way to breaking his outdoor 110m record as well.

Then, in August of 2020, school started up again, and my school returned to the building as opposed to remaining online. Meanwhile, I was teaching, for the first time in many years, an English Composition course that was a huge time-consumer because of all the grading and all the reading of rough drafts. In addition, because of all the social unrest that had happened over the summer, several students turned to me to ask how we could raise awareness at our school and ensure that our community stay close-knit. So I started up a Student Diversity Council and organized monthly Zoom meetings that served as forums where students, faculty, admin, and alumni could talk about about various diversity-related topics. And, finally, as per usual, I had a boatload of reference letters to write for seniors who were applying to colleges. As a result of all of that, my plan of writing one chapter of the Nehemiah biography per month went down the toilet bowl.

My inactivity regarding the book gnawed at me as month after month went by. But writing a book is difficult. You have to be "in the zone" of it. You can't just pick up where you left off after spending tie away from it. You have to go back and reread past chapters so you are back to living in that space again. And, in the case of biography, you have to put yourself back in the zone of being that person again. So I faltered. Then finally one day in early February, I woke up and asked myself, "Steve, do you want to be a writer or not?" And in that moment, I stopped procrastinating. I read through some research I had gathered, watched some videos from when Renaldo played for the San Francisco 49ers, and later that night I wrote about 600 words to get the eighth chapter started. Two weeks later, I finished the chapter, and now I'm working on Chapter Nine, which will detail his battle with the IAAF for reinstatement of his amateur status.

So, Chapter Eight covers the years that Renaldo played for the 49ers — 1982 through 1985. When Renaldo first signed for the 49ers, his contract was historic in that he received a signing bonus of $100,000 — a figure unheard of for someone who hadn't played football in college. Also, his four-year contract was guaranteed — another extreme rarity in professional football. When Renaldo joined the ranks of gridiron gladiators, what set him apart from the average free agent or draft pick out of college was that he was already an international superstar. Everybody knew his name, even people who didn't follow track. After signing, he was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, with the cover photo being of him clearing a hurdle while carrying a football in a 49er uniform. Meanwhile, the 49er team he was joining had just won the Super Bowl the year before, so they were stacked with talent. At Renaldo's position, wide receiver, they had Dwight Clark and Freddie Solomon, and the offense was led by quarterback Joe Montana, known as "Joe Cool" because of his ability to lead miraculous comebacks without hardly breaking a sweat. The team had a lot of weapons on offense during the years Renaldo was there. Besides the players just mentioned, they also had two running backs — Wendell Tyler and Roger Craig — who were equally adept at running the ball and catching the ball out of the backfield. Plus, the starting tight end, Russ Francis, had played several All Pro years with the New England Patriots before joining the 49ers.

So Renaldo's role in the offense was to stretch the field with his speed. The 49ers' coach, Bill Walsh, had created a system that featured a short passing game in which the skill position players could use their athleticism to gain yards after the catch. When defenses would key on the short passing game and the running game, Renaldo could be inserted into the lineup for a big pass play. His very presence on the field made it easier for the other receivers to get open, as defenses had to respect his speed.

Although Renaldo did have some success as a receiver, and even though he did play a cameo role on their 1984 Super Bowl team, he never achieved anywhere near the level of success that he had achieved on the track. Part of the reason had to do with the fact that Walsh, who admired Renaldo's unmatched athleticism and respected his status as one of the greatest athletes in the world, was very protective of him and very cautious about using him. In Renaldo's first training camp, Walsh wouldn't allow the defensive players to hit Renaldo, saying he was "off limits." In games, he only used Renaldo situationally, with the bulk of the playing time going to Clark, Solomon and slot receiver Mike Wilson.

Walsh's fear of Renaldo getting seriously injured or maimed was not unfounded. In a 1983 game against the Atlanta Falcons, Renaldo got "lit up" by Falcon safety Kenny Johnson while running a crossing route. The Falcons were in a mixed coverage on the play. The cornerback on Renaldo was playing man-to-man, but the defensive backs on the other side of the field were in a zone. So when Renaldo crossed the field and caught the ball, he kept running instead of turning around and "sitting," as he would've done if he had realized Johnson was in zone coverage. When the ball hit Renaldo's hands, Johnson hit Renaldo with a booming blow that knocked him unconscious before he even hit the ground.

That play marked the beginning of the end of Renaldo's professional football career. Walsh become even more cautious in putting Renaldo on the field, and Renaldo's injuries started piling up. The worst injury came in a preseason game in the 1985 season, when he tore two discs in his spine and had to miss the whole season. Meanwhile, the 49ers had drafted wide receiver Jerry Rice out of Mississippi Valley State, who would go on to have a very good rookie season and then go on to have a legendary career.

Tired of being injured so often and tired of not playing as much as he would've liked when he wasn't injured, Renaldo made the decision after the 1985 season to return to track and field, which by that time was allowing professionalism both nationally and internationally. Many people in the track world said, and still say to this day, that Renaldo never should've left track to begin with. Professionalism entered the sport right after he left, and he would've gotten paid on a level equal to or higher than the likes of contemporaries like Carl Lewis and Edwin Moses. But there was no way that Renaldo could've known that such a development would take place in track and field when he signed with the 49ers. As it stands, he and "Bullet" Bob Hayes are the only athletes to have owned a world record in track and field and to have earned a Super Bowl ring in the NFL. There's a give and take to everything, and Renaldo harbors no regrets about his decision to make the leap to professional football, even if his time in the league wasn't a major success.

On Sunday April 11, I conducted a Zoom interview with hurdling legend Renaldo Nehemiah. Also on the call were his high school coach Jean Poquette and high school teammate Joe Guty. The call was the first in a series that we will do to draw attention to the book about Renaldo's life that he and I are collaborating on, which I'm hoping to get done by August of this year. For this Zoom session, we focused on the training methods that Poquette used in helping Renaldo to become the first (and only) high school hurdler to run under 13.0 (hand-timed). I had set up the Zoom call to last 90 minutes, but we ended up going for almost a full two hours. I had originally planned to also review some of Renaldo's collegiate and professional races and break down his technique and rhythm in those, but we didn't quite make it that far. We'll cover that stuff on the next one! I plan to upload the Zoom call to my YouTube channel, but I'll need to do some editing first. In this article, I'll identify and elaborate upon my key takeaways from my Q&A session with Renaldo and Coach Poquette.

HURDLING IS A RHYTHM EVENT

This is something that Renaldo said on more than one occasion in describing his technique and in talking about hurdling as an art form. The overall point he was making with this remark is that hurdling cannot be approached as a power event, as you can't overpower the obstacles. Instead, he said, hurdling requires more "finesse" — a word that often comes with some negative connotations because many falsely assume that "finessing" the hurdles means taking a more tentative, less aggressive approach. But what Renaldo was talking about was the need to be able to make micro-adjustments during the course of a race, being flexible enough to put your body into the necessary positions, being efficient with the movements, and distributing energy throughout the entire race instead of just focusing solely on being fast over the first part of a race. Coach Poquette, meanwhile, used the word "cadence" in the same way that Renaldo used the word "rhythm." Both of them were making the same point — that getting faster for an elite-level hurdler is always a matter of quickening the tempo between the hurdles, which is something that excellent technique helps to maximize.

STRENGTH TRAINING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN SPEED TRAINING

This point is one that Renaldo and Poquette agree on 100%, as it is the philosophy and approach that enabled Renaldo to become the greatest high school hurdler ever, and arguably the greatest hurdler ever period. The argument they both made on the Zoom call is that speed training is overemphasized by most collegiate and professional coaches in the modern era, which leads to hurdlers not being able to finish races as strongly as they should. Often, Renaldo said, hurdlers' indoor times indicate that they're capable of running times outdoors that they have yet to run. The reason, he argued, is because their second half of the race isn't as strong because of the overemphasis on speed in their training. I would add here that I think part of the reason for that is the increased emphasis on the indoor season as a whole. Back in the day, the indoor season was preparation for outdoor season, whereas now the indoor season is a part of the year that athletes train for specifically. Training specifically for a 5-hurdle race means it's not going to be able to build solid hurdle-endurance in the spring and summer, as base work is reserved for the fall and winter.

For Poquette, the "strength" in strength training is not weight room strength, but muscle endurance, flexibility, and the type of speed-endurance that develops from high-volume workouts involving at least two miles worth of running. Some workouts involve sets of 200's, or 400's, or 600's. In high school, Renaldo often trained with the quarter-milers and half-milers. Three sets of 3×600. Four sets of 4×200. These types of workouts were the norm. Poquette's philosophy was that once an athlete was strong, he would be free to unleash his speed without worrying about fatigue. This proved to be the case with many of his athletes across the event spectrum throughout his career, and it especially proved to be the case with Renaldo. As he mentioned on the Zoom call, Renaldo ran his first two outdoor world records as a collegian at the University of Maryland based off of zero speed work. He ran 13.16 and 13.00 in back-to-back races early in the outdoor 1979 season because of his strength and his will to win.

THE BACK & FORTH WORKOUT WAS FOR TECHNIQUE DEVELOPMENT, NOT JUST FOR HURDLE ENDURANCE

The workout that Poquette is probably most well-known for in regards to his training of Renaldo is the back & forth workout, where he'd set up five hurdles one way, and five hurdles next to them facing the other way, spaced 12 yards apart for an easy five-step rhythm. The athlete would clear the first flight of five, turn around, and then complete the second flight of five. As Renaldo pointed out, back and forth one time added up to about 120 yards worth of running. So, not only did the amount of hurdles add up quickly, so did the amount of running.

The first two steps off each hurdle were "recovery" strides, and were followed with three quick strides, mimicking the race rhythm. Renaldo built up to a point where he was able to do 300 hurdles worth of back & forths in three sets of 10 reps. It was an extremely demanding workout. As I've mentioned before, it's a workout that I stopped using with my athletes because I just wasn't getting the quality from it that I wanted, which is why I switched to the quickstep drill as my go-to endurance hurdling workout. Maybe I gave up on it too quickly because, as Poquette mentioned, Renaldo didn't start at 300 hurdles; he built up to it. Volume for volume's sake was a no-no. If his technique started to deteriorate, Poquette would stop the workout right there. Of all the things that I've learned from Coach Poquette that I've incorporated into my own coaching style, this might be the most important of them all. Never allow an athlete to ingrain bad habits; never value quantity over quality.

GETTING BETTER CREATES BUY-IN

One of the more amusing things that came out of the Zoom call was that Renaldo said more than once that he hated Coach Poquette's workouts because they were so painful and because he was often grouped with the middle-distance runners. "But the workouts made me better," he said, and that was why he kept doing them, and that was why he placed his faith in his coach. He would go to meets and see other hurdlers' sloppy technique and see how they had trouble finishing races strongly, and he knew that he could go into any race at any meet feeling certain that he was the best-conditioned athlete in the field.

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So those were my main takeaways from the call. It was informative and fun, and as my friend, colleague, and former athlete Hector Cotto said, when you get a chance to talk with the G.O.A.T., you want to make sure you don't miss it. The full Zoom call is below. Carve out some time to watch it.