Olympic gold medalist Dalilah Muhammad won the 400-meter hurdles at Rio 2016 and set the event’s world record twice in 2019, first at the USA national meet and again with a time of 52.16 seconds at that year’s world championship.

Muhammad later set a personal best of 51.58 seconds in the Tokyo Olympics, running what would have been another world record, if not for Sydney McLaughlin running even faster in the same race. In addition to that silver medal, Muhammad claimed a second career gold as part of the USA’s 4x400 relay team. At last month’s world championships in Eugene, Ore., Muhammad returned from a hamstring injury to finish third.

A 2007 IAAF World Youth title winner, Muhammad, now 32, is a native of Queens, New York who graduated with a business degree while compiling an All-American career running at the University of Southern California. She starred in Nike’s 2017 ad campaign on equality alongside Serena Williams, Megan Rapinoe and LeBron James and, more recently, joined Cheribundi’s Pit Crew—its brand ambassadors of athletes and wellness experts promoting the company’s natural health products.

On why there’s been so many world records in the 400 hurdles . . .

I get this question a lot. And I think a couple of things come into play. The event is just run differently. It's actually a newer event in track and field’s history—we didn't start running the 400 hurdles until [the 1970s] when women actually started running the 400-meter hurdles. And I think at the time, it was thought of as a race for people that weren’t fast enough to run the open quarter [mile]. Originally, it was thought of that way, kind of like the steeplechase. You weren’t fast enough to run a flat distance, so your coach threw you in the steeplechase.

You had those standout athletes early on, but I think more and more people are falling in love with the 400 hurdles and it's becoming that premier event. And it's become a race that you have to be just as good in the 400, a good 800 runner and even a fast 200 runner to be able to run the 400-meter hurdles—as well as hurdle. It’s just a combination of finding that type of athlete that's good and that has that type of broad talent.

And finding new ways to coach it. I think their approach in coaching has always been strength-based, and we're turning it more into a sprint. And we're seeing that now. When I first started doing the 400 hurdles, my coach would tell me and taught me to go out really slow and hold on and wait for that last 200. And now we're all going from the gun because we know we can handle it. I think just having that faster increase in pace that first 200 is really making a difference.

On training tools for the hurdles . . .

I definitely look at video and look at myself and how I'm hurdling and how I can improve and what I'm seeing when I hurdle. I have a guy named Ralph Mann that comes to the track as well and analyzes our hurdle form. He created this model that can show you exactly, based on your weight and height, just how fast you're getting over the hurdle, where you're stepping over and the world record pace. Actually, he can put the model to a world record pace and see how close you are to it.

So we have those types of tools that we use, but of course it's my coach's eye, more than anything. He has the formula as to what hurdling should look like, and we're adjusting it every year, honestly, trying to get better and better at it. So it’s just repetition and going over and over and reviewing just what I personally look like.

On how she improves her running technique . . .

I've become a better sprinter in the last couple years even just because of focusing on the form and looking at the greats to do it. I was just looking at [Usain] Bolt, looking at FloJo, just how she actually sprinted and what that looked like and just incorporating it into my own training. So that's something that my coach and I really pay attention to—exactly what the form looks like. And that's been a key component of my race. I never actually was that good of a sprinter—or at least I was told I wasn’t—so focusing really on the form has helped me to get faster.

As a 400 hurdler, we really do it all. I do interval work. I do speed endurance. I do distance. I'll go up to like even 1K’s. I’ll run repeat 1000s. I'll run repeat 200s. I'll do short 30s at practice. And of course I hurdle as well. And there's some days that I'll just do straight 100-meter hurdle type training that you would see a typical 100 meter hurdler do. So there's a huge balance. We really do a mix of every single thing, every single week.

On track shoe technology . . .

There's a lot of controversy going around our spikes. Is it the spikes? Is it the athlete? And I feel like I'm not supposed to say this, but I’m going to say it anyway: Honestly, I think it's both. I do think the advancement of our spikes has played a huge role in just how fast athletes have gotten.

To me, that's not a bad thing. Those types of advancement have been made through history so many times, from just the type of ground that we compete on going from dirt to the Mondo we have now. Those advancements have been made, and you see the huge difference. And our timing system—there has been advancements in our timing system, and how much faster the world has gotten. And I think the spikes are definitely a part of that.

The important bit is it being an even-playing field. And I think they've done that amongst the companies. They put criteria that allows not one company to have an advancement when the other company cannot. If that didn't exist, then maybe we'd be talking about something else, but the fact that it's even amongst companies, yeah, I think we're going in the right direction.

On feeling the immediate difference in her own spikes . . .

I remember the first time I put on the Nike spikes, and I said to the Nike guy, ‘Wow, I can break the world record in these.’ And that's literally how it played out. That was in 2020. They were coming out with new shoes, testing them and having different models. And I broke it in 2021. So I think it's great. I think technology should advance, and I'm happy that it has.

On her introduction to Cheribundi . . .

I've used their products for years now, but we just met recently. I told them my story back when I was in college, I started drinking tart cherry juice. It was introduced to us on campus as a snack that we can use to help recover and things like that. So I always loved it.

Nutrition was really focused on, especially when I went to the University of Southern California. And you notice, as an elite athlete, you start to realize how much the body needs to recover. There are different tools that we can use, and Cheribundi that we've been one of those tools that I've been using.

On the products she uses . . .

[I mostly] use their tart cherry juice for recovery, and I've recently just started using their one that has the melatonin in it as well. It helps you to sleep better, and especially when you're traveling so much in our sport—we change time zones very frequently—and we have to adjust to that time period very quickly. Sometimes we are at a track meet, and we literally get there 48 hours before we compete—and we can be competing in China. So imagine the difference in time zones from China to Fort Worth, Texas. So that's just something that helps me adjust really quickly, so I'm able to compete.

On whether she tracks her biometrics . . .

No, not really. Nothing for monitoring sleep and recovery. I definitely just pay close attention to how many hours I'm sleeping, and just making sure that I'm getting that eight hours of uninterrupted sleep as best as I can.

Article by Joe Lemire for Sport Techie.