How To Sprint

Dear Friend,

100 years before Maurice Greene, Justin Gatlin and Shawn Crawford , a man named Archie Hahn was the first American sprinter to dominate the Olympic Games.

At the 1904 Olympics, Wisconsin native, Charles Archibald Hahn won the gold medal in both the 100 and 200 meters... something that was not done again for 84 years and hasn't been done since. He added a gold in the 60 meters in 1904 and another gold in the 100 meters in 1906. Do you think Archie knew the secrets of how to run fast?

In 1923, The Milwaukee Meteor (as Archie was called), one of the fastest men who ever lived, wrote on the subject of sprinting and revealed the secrets to his four total gold Olympic sprinting medals.

"I Couldn't Believe That This Much Info On How To Sprint Was Written In 1923..."

In the summer of 2004, I heard about Archie's records during the Olympic games in Athens and wondered what his secrets were. During an NBC story, Archie's book How To Sprint was featured. I flew to find a yellow legal pad and wrote down the title and author - then began to look for a copy. Little did I know how difficult it would be to find this book. Many people have heard of the book but few people have it. People that do have it, keep it well guarded - not even sharing it with their friends.

Finally, on a dusty corner shelf in a Nevada bookstore I found a yellowed, dog-eared copy of How To Sprint. This rare 1923 book, containing 23 power-packed chapters, is a literal gold mine of information on sprint training including starts, race models, sprinting technique and finishing. Before I even finished reading Hahn's book, I said to myself, "Coaches and athletes would kill for some of this information... I've got to make it available again. People will be floored by what's inside..."

"Just who was Archie Hahn..."

Charles Archibald Hahn, who was only 5 foot 5 and 130 pounds, was the first man to ever win back to back 100 meter Olympic gold medals. Nobody besides Carl Lewis in 1988 has ever accomplished this - and Lewis was only able to do it because of Ben Johnson's steroid disqualification. Hahn is legendary for his sprinting dominance and for his coaching. His instructions on proper starts, body balance, arm swing, breathing and race preparation alone are worth more than the price of the entire book. Most modern day sprinters are not taught the proper way to use these methods.

Believe me, even if you already think you know how to run fast, get this book because you may find important details that you have been missing. And a warning to your competition... tell them to eat your dust - they'll only be seeing you from behind. This ain't your average speed training.

But What Could Hahn Have Possibly Known About Sprinting?

In today's world of high tech sprint training, we may think that we know more than the old time speedsters. But the truth is that crouch starts, proper arm swing, high knees and periodized training have been around longer than you think.

You only need to read a few pages of Archie Hahn's 1923 book, How To Sprint, to realize that we can still learn a ton from these old-timers. Not just that, you will see just how fast a human being is capable of running. When Archie couldn't find any person to race, he would race horses... and usually beat them in a 50 yard sprint.

"At the crack of the gun, Hahn was off his mark like a 12-inch shell out of a coast gun, leaving his competitors as if they were anchored on their marks."

-Charles J.P. Lucas account of the 1904 Olympics

• "(The sprinter) must approach the tasks to be solved with the will to succeed. Many things in athletics come to us instinctively, and it is in order to get the best results from our efforts toward efficiency that we endeavor to get the practical side of matters athletic - in this case sprinting - down as though by rote, so that little or no mental effort need be expended."


• "A very simple illustration, which might help to inform the reader how such a crouch can insure such exactness, is in observing the cat, the tiger, or any member of the feline family. How noticeable it is that when any of these animals are about to spring for their prey, they assume a crouching attitude, which enables them to leap more quickly. So it is in sprint running, the athlete crouches - pulls himself together so to speak - and calmly awaits the spring."


• "How often have sprinters been seen "fighting" themselves with arm swings which "got them nowhere" but really acted in curtailing the length of their stride because of incorrect body carriage coupled with a pumphandle arm action?"