JayTBH wrote:
I am from the UK. The average 30 year old male I know probably did used to play recreational sport as a kid/teenagers but now, a decade later has done his fair share of boozing and kebab shop meals and now has a BMI of 27ish with a fair bit of both muscle and fat so nothing too terrible that couldn’t be fixed with 8-10 months or so of consistant cardio but definitely let themselves go a bit. People only start to get really really overweight in their 30s and 40s from my experience when the Dad life really kicks in.
So for a 30 year old, slightly overweight (22% body fat) but otherwise healthy male, I am going to go with 8 minutes for Mr. Average. Give or take 30 seconds.
So where would Mr Average UK male be after that 8 or 10 months of consistent cardio and the six pack?
sub 5? sub 6? How is it that the 5k parkruns are always dominated at the top by local club runners, running for years in most cases, with times in the 18-20 min range, the equivalent of around 5:00 to 5:45. And yet surely if the average guy off the couch could run 8 minutes, he should quite easily be able to get down to sub 6 after a year or so.
TBH, 'runners' (i.e. 90% of the people here) shouldn't even comment on threads like this. You haven't got a clue what the average capability of the average male who hasn't run since PE class in school 15 years before is. You've been clocking up miles since you were 9 and probably never weighed more than.
Most even non-obese people could not fully run a mile with absolutely no active lifestyle. And that is the average 30 year old male.
You're probably wrong too about British males only getting fat in their 30's and 40's. Actually, from my experience it seems a lot of guys start to take their health seriously in their 30s and 40s. Obesity in the UK is also getting worse among the young year by year. I have loads of slim 40 year old + men on my Facebook friends list who were absolute lazy porkers when in their twenties.