Lance Brauman: 16 Speed and Power Drills for Sprints (DVD)
Lance Brauman: 30 Speed and Power Drills for the Hurdles (DVD)
One of the main reasons why I post workouts from various top coaches is not to copy and paste them, but to incorporate the ideas into your training program. You should tailor the number of reps, sets, distances and recovery to each of your athletes.
If you are not familiar with the name Lance Baumann, you can read a quick bio on Lance Brauman: Speed and Power Drills for Sprints and Hurdles and hear his podcast interview with UKA.
The 30 meter “Fly in” drill (2 x 3 x 75 meters)
This is 2 or 3 sets of 3 x 75m where it’s broken down with cones at 15m, 30m, 30m. 3 minute recovery between reps and 5 minute recovery between sets.
The first 15m is the “head-down” acceleration phase, followed by 30m of transition to get into a full upright position with increasing acceleration. The last 30m is all out, hence the term “fly in”, keeping an eye on good dorsiflexion and landing your foot directly under your hips. No over-reaching or over-extending.
My thoughts: 3 minutes is barely enough time to slow down from top speed, stop, turn around, and walk back to your blocks. With limited recovery, you are turning a high intensity workout into an upper end medium intensity workout. The price you pay might be in degrading technique, which would be bad. Highly conditioned athletes may find this sufficient, but if you notice their form dropping, you may want to either add more recovery or shorten the distances.
In-and-out Drills (2 x 3 x 55 meters)
This is 2 sets of 3 x 55m where it’s broken down with cones at 15m, 10m, 20m, and 10m. 3 minute recovery between reps and 5 minute recovery between sets. A 3rd set can be added for elite or advanced sprinters later in the season.
The name implies moving “in and out” of top speed sprinting. Like a car, you are constantly shifting gears as follows:
- 15 meters of acceleration
- 10 meters of an aggressive turnover phase
- 20 meters of “floating and relaxed running” but don’t slow down nor accelerate
- 10 meters of an aggressive sprint
My thoughts: This is a good workout for a 400 meter sprinter to teach them to accelerate into the curve at 200 meter mark. Even 200 meter sprinters should learn to accelerate when they reach the straightaway at the end of the curve at the 100m mark. The thought of “picking up speed” when you are already running full speed may sound confusing.
This drill or workout is also good for the 4x100m relay when used in a desperation attempt to catch the outgoing runner!
Like the above 30 meter “Fly in” drill, 3 minute recovery may be too short. So you will want to modify it to make sure technique is not compromised. When it does get shoddy, stop the drill.
Conclusion: the overall concept of these 2 workouts or drills will definitely help your athlete. Just add seasoning to taste.
Jimson Lee
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I never understood these short recoveries in speed work. It seems so obvious that it can only have a negative effect (unless you want to work on endurance, not speed). Why the rush? Even if you double the recoveries, probably suffient for beginners, it would still be a short workout.
@Mike, you should see some of Pietro Mennea’s workouts! Short recoveries in speed work!
I am not a fan of the in-and -out for 100 – 400 meter sprinters. For the top-level 100 athlete, the concept of floating, in my opinion, is vastly inferior to the concept of managed deceleration. After attainment of maximum velocity in the 100, physiology dictates that the human body enters gardual deceleration, which for top level athletes equates to ~30 to 32 meters. The 200 and 400 are different animals, but my philosophy is that both 200 and 400 runners are better served with fly-ins and other maximum velocity work; I prefer to integrate the concept of floating on non-maximum velocity training days with 200/400 athletes, as the physiological actuality of floating is more relevant with these distances.