PODCAST – Interview with Lance Brauman

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

If you liked the previous article or DVD on Lance Brauman, you’ll like this one.

This recording took place at the USATF Conference in Dec 2009 in Orlando.

I like his overall principles – instead of focusing on the dogma of Long to Short or Short to Long, it’s all about Intensity and what I call the Charlie Francis system of Vertical Integration doing all the training components throughout the year. (Charles Staley presented a similar version of "diagonal summation" which has been yanked off the web when he was accused of plagiarizing Charlie’s theories)

Here is a good summary of Lance Brauman’s training program for a typical week in December:

Monday: grass 400-300-200-100, 400-300-200-100, 3 min rest between runs, 6 min rest between sets, 15 sec per 100m pace for 400/300, 13 sec per 100m pace for 200/100. It’s all based on a percentage of max.
Tuesday: acceleration development with sleds and acceleration ladders 4 to 10m, 4 to 20m, 4 to 30m, followed by 80m, 120m, 80m
Wednesday: at the beach, med ball throws , sand runs, plyometrics in sand. This is considered a recovery day!
Thursday: 40/20 (run 40 sec, rest 60 sec, 20 sec), 5 sets
Friday: same as Tuesday

Weights, lower body Mon/Thurs, upper body Tues/Friday after the workout. Some groups like John Smith or Clyde Hart has the weight session in the morning. I prefer weights after the running sessions.

The total training session is 5 hours long from 9:30am to 2:30pm. This is life as a professional athlete.

In March, he focuses on what he calls ”doubles & triples” with a Monday and Thursday workout like this: (Tues & Fri are still acceleration development as in December)

2×250 8-10 min rest,
3×150 or 3×120, 4-6 min rest,
finish 4×60, focusing on technique and relaxing during high lactate conditions.

Wow… that’s a lot of volume of med-high intensity work. Similar to Pietro Mennea’s workouts!

He also talks about Tyson Gay and Wallace Spearmon at the 2005 WC and how he got caught up in the opening heats and ran 19-point which took something off his legs. In the finals, Tyson wanted to go for the win in the 200 meters. He could have conservatively run for a medal, but he went for broke instead and ended up 4th.

Another good point is VCB (Veronica Campbell-Brown) leaving him to join another group. Sometimes, it’s just time for a change.

You can listen to the podcast courtesy of UK Athletics coaching site, or use the handy player below.

PODCAST Info: Lance Brauman

Interview Date: December 2009

Duration: 31 mins

File Size: 14 MB

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