Can most people run a sub 60 400?

My thoughts exactly wrote:

I'm surprised at the naysayers. I was a non-athletic high school kid who went out for track so I could have a sport on my transcript. I ran 55 point a few times.

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You don't have a good idea of what "non-athletic" is? 55 is an above average athletic feat.

No chance, I'm a senior in college right now (running track at a D3 school, 400H) and I hang out with a bunch of athletes, like football and basketball guys. Those guys are pretty athletic and I bet only 40-50% MAX could run a sub 60 quarter, it's further than a lot of people think. Take into account the general, but not overweight, college dude; no chance most (>50%) break 60. Out of a 100, I'd say 20 max.

To the OP:

Given all of your prescribed conditions, yes. I am a fairly slow-twitch kinda guy (2:09/4:27/4:48/9:45/16:44) and I split 58.xx in the 4x4 a few times this past track season.

No. Not if you include females.

If you are talking about males:

(1) Are you assuming the fat individuals lose their weight?

(2) Are you assuming we heavily train said individuals to perform well at 400m?

If so, then yes, most would probably be capable of. Give any human being a strict diet, thorough training regiment, and most would be capable of running a sub 60 400m, although lots of humans may require a bit of time and a lot more effort.

I say about 20 out of the 1000 break 60 seconds

No way.. you guys are delusional.

Does the age-graded equivalent count?

If age-grading counts, I can an AG equivalent of 59 secs (1:09) on a 17:20 5K (20:09).

I usually finish in the top 15% of my AG.

I'm far from optimally trained, only running 25-35 mpw during track season, with no running background prior to 8 years ago.

Based on this, I'm guessing around 15% of hobby joggers and above could run sub 60.

Does that make sense?

"You are INCREDIBLY uncalibrated with the real world."

I don't think I am. My estimate that >50% may have been a bit generous, but I think I'm in the ballpark. The perspective of the majority of visitors on this site is skewed due to the fact that many here are long-distance runners. Most (not all) individuals who gravitate towards long-distance running have below-average sprint speed and struggle mightily to break 60 in the quarter, so they believe erroneously that the average person must lack the ability to break 60. Furthermore, how many people actually do 6 months worth of 400m-specific training? Very few! So how can you say most people couldn't do it with proper training? What evidence do you base this on? Do you host a 400m training camp we don't know about? Have you tried and failed to coach a multitude of young men to sub-60 quarters?

Will I concede that the majority of young males lack sub-60 ability in their CURRENT state of fitness. Absolutely! I used to be a sub-50 guy in college, but even sub-60 would be out of my reach at this point (I'm 32 years old). I'm quite out of shape, like most American males. But give me a month or two to prep, and I got it. Give the average young adult male another 4-5 months of prep and they're knockin' on 60 as well.

I think back to my high school track team. We were not a very good track team (usually ranked 4th or 5th in our 8-team conference). We didn't have try outs. Any one who wanted to join the team was on the team. And we had a pretty large team (about 40 guys). Of those ~40 dudes, about 12 so so ran the 400m, either regularly or occasionally. In the open 400 or as part of a relay. I don't recall a single one of those dozen guys failing to break 60, at least once or twice. Again, I emphasize the fact that this was not a team comprised of cream of the crop sprinters who passed some kind of try out to join the varsity team. This was just some random guys who wanted to do the sprint events. A couple of us had exceptional speed and ran down in the realm of 50-52. A few were in the 54-56 range. And a few were in the 57-59 range. I do recall there were a couple of long-distance guys who insisted they could not break 60, but again, these are guys who did not do sprint-specific training and didn't do much lifting either. I repeat, of all the guys on my high school team who trained with the sprinters and attempted the 400m, all of them broke 60.

I see now that I accidentally bolded all of that text, and I wrote more than I intended. Sorry about that. But I stand by my points.

Xfit_guy_the_real_one_1 wrote:

Most sprinters: yes

Most CrossFit athletes: yes

Most long distance runners: no

I thought xfit was just limited to wheelbarrow races and piggybacking your boyfriend around the block. Do they sprint to?

Some cf'ers sprint. Some cf'ers know the proper usage of to and too as well.

Most young and healthy men (unlike women) can run 15s/100m or 30s/200m. But 60s/400m, no way!

59.9 for a young male is not fast.

Couple months of focus on pure speed, sprint drills some time in the weight room 50% could do it easily. Others may take longer but imo 99% of healthy men are capable with training

A 60 second 100m isn't even a sprint its a run.

*400m

Update: had a workout near a track so decided to go over there after and time a few things. Should have just run the damn 400 but chickened out. I was kidding myself...the pain isn't what I fear in running a 400 time trial, it's the result I fear. Did a 200 in what felt like all out. About 27 seconds, although it was hand timed with my watch so terribly inaccurate. Also did a full speed 100, just a standing start with regular NB minimus shoes and again hand timed. About 13.

The 200 made me tie up enpugh that I'm skeptical of 60 right now. Although I'm sure a 30s 200 would feel a lot better. Will get after that 400 soon.

Aarong89 wrote:

59.9 for a young male is not fast.

Couple months of focus on pure speed, sprint drills some time in the weight room 50% could do it easily. Others may take longer but imo 99% of healthy men are capable with training...

Thereby establishing that you have zero grip on reality.

Easy answer is NO.

I have about 250 students every year. Not one of them have gone under a minute in the last 2 years. A couple were really close but .. no dice. They are 12-14. I'd say about 3-5% of the adult population might be able to do it with as fat as this country is..

rokurunner wrote:

Easy answer is NO.

I have about 250 students every year. Not one of them have gone under a minute in the last 2 years. A couple were really close but .. no dice. They are 12-14. I'd say about 3-5% of the adult population might be able to do it with as fat as this country is..

Again, I feel like we're having two separate debates on this thread. Some, like the poster quoted above, are discussing the potential of untrained young adults to run sub-60 in the 400. Some, like myself, are debating the potential of properly trained young adults to run sub-60.

In the case of "rokurunner"'s 250 students in the 12-14 age range, we're almost certainly talking about a group of students who are not properly trained for the 400m. Not to mention the fact that we're talking about 12-14 year olds who have barely begun to experience puberty and adult-like muscle development.

Most post-high school males don't ever do any kind of prolonged sprint-specific training. They have no reason to. They aren't in competitive sports anymore. So of course they can't break 60. I referenced my high school track team because I believe it's a more realistic sampling of what can happen when you take a group of average young males and actually have them participate in a full season of sprint training. Again, my track team was not very good. We didn't have try outs, and our 4x400 team was never even top 3 in our own conference, to my recollection. And even on our very mediocre track team, running a 57-59 second quarter wasn't good enough to be on the 4x400 team. We had about half a dozen guys with 57-59 second speed who were considered emergency alternates, or perhaps participants on the rare "B" squad at dual meets or something.