Kellie Wells Training and Hurdle Touchdown Times

This is Part 5 of a multi-part series. Part 1 was with Dennis Mitchell and Part 2 was with Brooks Johnson.

Part 3 was Hurdle Touchdown Times and Part 4 included Håkan Andersson.

Kellie Wells is the current USA hurdles champion for both indoor 60mH (7.79) and outdoor 100mH (12.50).

On this windy April day at the National Training Center in Clermont, Coach Dennis Mitchell set up 8 hurdles at the exact marks. No pulling in or out for adjustments, no missing hurdle(s) for zone training. Athletes will have to learn to adjust for the wind. After all, it’s the athletes who will be running with the wind!

The difference is the penultimate hurdle (in this case, the 7th hurdle) with a shorter scissor hurdle.

As you can see from the article on hurdle touchdown times, 1.0 seconds between hurdles is the goal for an elite female sprinter. But hand times are so passé and so inaccurate. 1.0 could mean 0.9 or 1.1 on any given stopwatch.

So in this workout, we placed a Freelap TX Junior Transmitter 6 shoe steps after each hurdle, for all 8 hurdles. No fancy tripods to setup. No need for 3 lanes for other timing systems. Just measure with your feet and put the transmitter on the ground.

Kellie lands about 4 shoe steps in front of the hurdle, and she wears the watch at her waist level with a strap. If we placed the transmitter at the hurdle, we could miss a reading being too high off the ground. If she wore the watch at her wrist, it’s a bit more predictable as compared to a true sprinter and arm swing and position.

The beauty today is the Freelap’s minimum time between intervals is now 0.78 seconds, and not 1.0 seconds.

Watch the workout below, and try to time it by hand. Then watch the second video below, hear her read off the electronic times, and note the last split with the short hurlde. Would you be happy with those splits? I would be, but maybe her coach Dennis Mitchell may have other thoughts!

You can use whatever timing system you desire, but the point is, you can’t improve what you don’t measure. Accurately.