Colin Jackson - Advice to 110m Hurdlers [16-21 years]

Graham Knight

In the autumn of 1985, Graham Knight, then National Event Coach in GB for 110m/100mH, interviewed Colin Jackson for the Puma Sprint Hurdle Review. Colin had just won his first medal in a GB vest in finishing 2nd in the European Junior Champs of that year in Cottbus.

18 years later on the eve of Colin’s preparations for the World Indoor Champs, a second interview took place with the emphasis on Colin’s advice to the next generation, - based on a cumulative total of 25 medals gained at the highest level in 60m, 60mH, 110mH and 4 x 100m.

The advice is honest and in places controversial, but in this country we often do not fully use the vast amount of knowledge athletes and coaches acquire in the sport. I know of no other person who has asked more questions about the 110mH event, and who has consequently acquired more knowledge about it than Colin. He has given of his time generously to pass on some of this knowledge to many gatherings of athletes and coaches in Britain, and it is with the same questioning approach that athletes and coaches should consider the advice in this interview.


COACHING?
The move up from 100mH to the 110mH is a crucial one, and your coach has to be patient and definitely forceful. I remember myself what it was like hitting those hurdles and bruising my ankle so that I did not want to do it, but my coach, Malcolm Arnold, always told me to ‘Get out there and do it again and again if you want to be a High Hurdler.’ I can remember him showing little sympathy when I made a mistake and telling me to take that pad out of my sock!

Your coach needs to be observant and able to pick up the points of the individual hurdler because each hurdler has different strengths and weaknesses. They have to understand the hurdler’s posture because technique changes completely from 3’0” to 3’6”, and the coach has to work with that and not necessarily change it because each athlete has natural movements. I can recall swinging my lead leg right around to get over a 3 ‘6” hurdle because the floor was no longer at 3’0”, and in this phase of development every progression must be done in stages.

When I was 16 I faced the dilemma of staying with my first coach or moving on, but at the end of the day it is an athlete’s career, and you have got to make a decision that affects your career in a positive way. Mike Jones, my first coach, was upset at the time when I moved to Malcolm, but he is still in touch and always congratulates me on what Malcolm and I have achieved.

I advise all athletes to think carefully about their progression and their future, and when you start to question your coach all the time, you know that it is time to move on. At 16 I felt that nothing new was being brought into training and the same things were being repeated. 16 year olds are hungry to learn, and they need fresh ideas to stimulate their minds and bodies to move on and progress.

TRAINING?
My training group is a No.1 priority because the people you train with are going to be the people you spend most of your time with. Each one has got to bring a quality to the group. In all the groups I have worked with, no one athlete has been totally dominant in all aspects of training.
Each one had individual strengths, e.g. Nigel Walker on the hills, Mark McKoy doing sprints, I was the best hurdler, and the girls were best in the gym pound for pound. When you are a bit tired, there are always people around to pick you up. It is important for the group to bond particularly well. From 16-21 I was working with some of the top people in the country, and we were all good at something without any ego problems. There was a day when I was the champion, and a day when I was a loser.

(GK…a loser at what consistently?) Circuits, 300s and long runs! Now I am much more in control of my preparations. I know what I have to do before I see Malcolm, and if I have not done it, he will know.

FACILITIES?
From 16-21 there was no indoor track at UWIC, and the Swansea indoor area had just opened where we could run over 5 hurdles and a hit a crash mat. We trained on a cinder track with an occasional visit to the only synthetic track at Cwmbran. I always wonder or worry when athletes and coaches use the lack of facilities as an excuse because we had to warm-up outside in wet-suits when it was raining before doing 300s, 200s and 100s on the track.

I personally don’t think it is a big issue, and if you have a track, just go on and get on with it. Don’t worry about having nice indoor facilities, in fact I never even went WWT from 16 to 21.

(GK…is there not a risk factor in this?) A huge risk factor, and, as you get older you become more fragile, and then you definitely need to go somewhere warmer and safer. I remember clearing ice off the track in one lane in this phase, which was an obvious risk. It was -12° outside, and we did a blocks session where I pulled my hamstring!

TRAINING?
i) Conditioning
In early preparation phase, long runs blended with other bits of conditioning are vital. I have to be in great shape in order to hurdle well, and so this combination of running and conditioning is critical. An element of speed is included all the year round, so tomorrow (Nov 15th) I am doing 1 x 300m in about 36 seconds, followed by 10 x 90m with the emphasis on acceleration and tempo in the latter. Before I even consider training over the 3’6” hurdles, I have got to get my body into great shape to clear the high hurdles, and I will not go over a hurdle until the end of November.

The athletes in the 16-21 age-group need the conditioning far more than I do because they are far more vulnerable as I have years of conditioning behind me. They need to be conditioned very well before they even think about clearing hurdles. Their season usually finishes much earlier than ours, and so they have more time to rest. In the first four weeks, do more general stuff, - circuits, long runs, flexibility-, and this combination will allow you to progress to the specific preparations of the 110mH event.

ii) Hurdling
Forget 3’3” and go straight to 3’6” because otherwise you’re going to have to learn again. There is a huge, huge difference in balance and ground strike, and you don’t want to learn twice in less than five years. Get used to learning how to handle the 3’6” barriers as soon as possible. You need to be accurate in your drills, and the coach’s powers of observation are important in this, and you must have good core strength and balance.

As you know I’m always positive about an active trailing leg, and this is the more important thing for me to be successful. This must be in concert with great rhythm, and I go back a lot to 3’0” barriers to get my rhythm accurate. I do a session of 4 x 10H out of blocks, -full spacings over 3’0” barriers, and this is just to instil rhythm

.
(GK…this is an old Calvesi/Drut session, but who persuaded you of the need to do this?) Roger Kingdom after Seoul said this session gave him the timing and rhythm in the second half of the race, which is what he needed at that time to beat me. It was important at this time for me to have the right people around me to consider me as an individual because I was never going to be built like Roger Kingdom. I had to take my skills and my strengths and work on them to make them even better, and hurdling has always been one of my greatest skills. The hurdle session which Roger suggested proved to be perfect for me.

iii) Strength
I did not lift weights between the ages of 16 and 21, and I would not change today. I advise everyone to finish their growing spurts first and to get their natural strength going because you need a sense of progression. I spent a large proportion of my time doing circuits and plyometrics in this phase. I did not use machines either, but I did do a lot of strength stuff with a bar to get a good, stable core.
I did no cleans, bench or squats until I was 21 after Seoul. In my opinion we do not have enough good coaches in GB who can teach 16/17 year olds the proper skills of lifting, and like everything else you have got to get your body ready to do this specific work.

(CJ’s current p.b.s 240kg squat to a bench, 145kg clean, 140kg bench 97.5kg snatch)
At 16/17 everything was very dynamic, -press-ups, back arches, sit-ups, lots of ab work, bench jumps, single- and double-leg tiggers, skis etc. This type of conditioning work is interesting, dynamic and tiring. Dance exercises were included for abductors and adductors.

We developed the circuits ourselves (hence some of the individual names for exercises) because Malcolm could only see us three times a week. This is another good reason for having a creative training group around you, and this type of work became very applied and specific and we were always ready to pick up a good idea from someone else. I remember an abdominal exercise, which we used and called “Tom’s”, because I got the original idea from Tom McKean, and the group decided it would be beneficial. I advise all athletes to experiment, but like everything else it is important to do the exercises well and correctly. It is useful to remember that if they hurt, you are doing them well, but if they don’t –trust me- you are almost certainly not doing them well.

My least favourite exercise in circuits is ‘Dance’, where the body movement not only caused exhaustion but also brought in a lot of muscle groups, which I was not used to using. I have asked Malcolm to show the guys at Bath what the girls were capable of in this training because it would help. Many athletes would not consider experimenting with this because if you are clumsy and non-rhythmical, you would not want to embarrass yourself.

iv) Rest
The most important part of all-round conditioning is REST. I now rest completely on Sunday, and this when I wind down totally. When I was 16/17/18, I did not rest properly because Thursday and Friday were the nights to be out, but I soon learned. My advice would be to have a complete day’s rest in the winter and two days in the summer.

THERAPY?
I would urge athletes to try to get a massage at least once a week, -the day before the rest day-, and to look after their bodies the rest of the time. Physio should only be visited if necessary.
Things have certainly changed, and I can congratulate everyone in the Federation because athletes can now get tested regularly and looked at properly, and for us that would have been great.
(GK…Screening?) Twice a year, I think, in October and at the end of March.

LIFESTYLE?
Lifestyle is very individual, and what turns you on, turns you on. But if you want to be a really, really good athlete, then there is no lifestyle, just athletics. (GK…at 16/17?) Yes, if you GENUINELY want to be good.

My parents gave me support to be a full-time athlete until I was 21, and if it had not gone well, they told me I would have to go and get a job. I would definitely have been ready to relocate from my Cardiff home to a Performance Centre if this meant getting the best input for me, i.e. specific expertise in areas to help me to achieve my goals. It is interesting to see that, just as industry loses specific expertise without replacing it, so does our sport.

My Mum asked me about moving to Millfield at 14, but it would not have been a good move at that time, but at 16 most of the friends that I used to socialise with left Cardiff, so it would not have been a problem for me then. My parents both worked, so I was used to providing for myself and entertaining myself until they got home from work.

At 16 I used to eat too much, burgers, but no chips, and I was probably overweight. I started to eat healthily at 19, and, although I can remember being far more aware of what I was eating, I can’t recall what changed my attitude. I was never a beer or lager drinker, and I just did not like alcohol. I would advise anyone to be sensible about this, but the truth is “don’t drink alcohol”.

Excess is possible at a young age because the repair mechanism of the human body is incredible, and you do get over things much more quickly from 16-18 than 26-28. A bit of freedom can be important as long as you make it the exception rather than the norm. The best time to let go is during your rest period at the end of the season, but even here the first part of this is the best because at the end you should be building up and getting ready for training again.

FUNDING?
Just be grateful that I’m not on the Lottery Board! I would be very forceful because in industry no company in the world gives out money without knowing exactly what it is being spent on. Unless I knew people with a reputable coach and a reliable situation, then they would not be receiving any funding. It is not free money, it is for athletics, and it is to help you to represent your country well, -not just for you to do sport.

I think that 100 on the Potential Plan is about right, but I have always wondered about the numbers on the Performance Plan (GK…247 when Malcolm Arnold conceived the Plan in May 1997 to 78 today).

I am not sure what “performance” is judged on because I have always worked towards a single target in each season, which is the crowning glory of the season. I cannot think of 25 athletes in GB, never mind 78, who match my standards of performance, and these standards are obviously much higher than those of the Federation. I have situations where support for a few rather many has worked more times than it has failed.

I would support funding for WWT and massage, but I wonder how many athletes get sound massage rather than social massage because you only need massage if you are working hard. Without doubt I would look carefully at each athlete and their individual circumstances before approving any funding.

I know my views are hard, but we are in a Performance sport, and when we talk about funding in this way, we are talking about funding the shop window of the sport. Therefore the shop window has to be absolutely awesome if you are talking about anything coming through from the grass roots. It’s no good having crap in the shop window because no one’s going to come in, and I’ll stand by that.

GK…What would you have changed in your situation from 16 to 21?
My intensity, I don’t think I would have been as intense as I was in those years. However, I needed to know everything about my event and my rivals because at that time it gave me fuel and energy.

GK…Do athletes work as hard now?
No, people don’t work as hard, but every generation comes out with this statement.

GK…Why have you run 60m in competition more than 100m?
There has never been more time for more 100ms. We do enough specific work for more 100m races, but in a full season of 110mH there is not time to do it properly. You need a succession of races to develop the skills to perform well, and for me it is all about running well. If I did have the time, I would certainly love to run more.

GK…When you broke the world record in 1993 for 110mH, what do you think 12.91 would have been worth for 100m?
A bit quicker than your suggestion of 10.10! I am the only person who has run 6.49 for the 60m indoors who has not run quicker than 10.10 for the 100m. If you look at it that way, I would say 10.07 because I have to be quicker than McKoy who has run 10.08!

GK…What do you think it will take to win the medals in Athens in 2004, and to make the final in 2004?

Gold 13.00
Silver 13.12
Bronze 13.23

Final 13.35

GK…Final question, what do you think the world record for 110mH will be in 2010?
12.91