Lance Brauman: Speed and Power Drills for Sprints and Hurdles (DVD)

Last Updated on March 10, 2013 by Jimson Lee

Lance Brauman: 16 Speed and Power Drills for Sprints (DVD)
Lance Brauman: 30 Speed and Power Drills for the Hurdles (DVD)

Warning: This post is controversial

Along with Trevor Graham, Lance Brauman’s reputation for making bad decisions are questionable.

The sad part is you spend a lifetime following your passion with countless (unpaid) hours on the track, but it takes one stupid move and you end up being scarred for life.  Just ask Lashawn Merritt or Masters sprinter Val Barnwell.

Lance Brauman, along with Jon Drummond, is famous for being Tyson Gay’s coach.  He is the former University of Arkansas Sprint and Hurdles Coach.

Lance Brauman’s resume includes Olympic 4×400 Gold Medalist Derek Brew, Olympic 200-meter Silver Medalist Bernard Williams and Olympic 100-meter Bronze Medalist Veronica Campbell (now simply known as VCB).  While at Arkansas, Brauman coached NCAA champions Wallace Spearmon (200m) and Tyson Gay (100m)

There’s no doubt in my mind he is a good coach with his knowledge in the sport and he has the credentials and resume to prove it.  His technical coaching skills and administrative duties are two separate issues at stake.

In December 2005, a federal grand jury in Kansas indicted Lance Brauman for his alleged role in a scheme at Barton Community College to pay athletes for work they didn’t do. The indictment claimed that, from December 2000 to August 2003, nearly $17,000 from a federal work-study program and nearly $110,000 from the campus employment program was paid for work that was never performed.  Six counts of mail fraud were later added.

I am sure there are a lot of illegal shenanigans going on in this world, especially NCAA Div 1 schools; only a handful will get caught.  Some people claim, “it’s only illegal if you get caught”.

Thus Brauman was forced to resign at Arkansas, and sent to prison.  The defense claimed that Brauman was simply going along with a long-standing common practice at Barton.  That doesn’t make it less wrong or more right.

So, does this make Lance Brauman a bad coach?  Technically, he’s not guilty of distributing steroids or PEDS; he’s just guilty of bad administrative decisions.

Lance Brauman’s Coaching Videos

Now that we have his background out of the way…

Prior to all of this mess, he produced a produced two videos, 16 Speed and Power Drills for Sprints (DVD) and 30 Speed and Power Drills for the Hurdles (DVD). 

I wrote about speed and power exercises in Vertical Jump and Sprinting- Training the Posterior Chain as well as Jim Hiserman’s take on his 3 part series on 400 Meter Training- Greater Strength = Faster Times (Part 1).  I firmly believe speed, power and strength training are the edge needed by sprinters at all levels.

Now, I don’t have a 9.69 sprinter on my roster, so if you want to see what Lance Brauman’s training philosophy is all about, he covers some of the aspects in developing speed and power for sprinters on his DVD.

In the first DVD, Lance Brauman shares his thoughts on developing speed and power for sprinters:

1. The first phase focuses on Olympic Lifts for sprinters. Lifts include the High Pull, Hang Clean, Full Clean, Hang Snatch, and Snatch from the Floor.
2. The second phase stays in the weight room, where Brauman demonstrates the exercises that make up "Explosive Training."
3. The third phase requires moving to the indoor track, where he uses athletes to illustrate his speed and power drills. Here, Brauman covers a number of bounding drills:  a key element to training sprinters.
4. The fourth phase in Brauman’s training program is hurdle mobilities.

Both videos are just under 30 minutes long.

Lance Brauman: 16 Speed and Power Drills for Sprints (DVD)
Lance Brauman: 30 Speed and Power Drills for the Hurdles (DVD)