How much of running a 10.5 100m dash is genetic?

The same, 9.5 or 10.5, its all heavily based on genetics and still fairly scarce, depends, if a newbie, barely trained guy is running 11.5 for his first races then he has a good chance to go 10.5 or better if he gets some training years on.

The amount of "trainabililty" varies from case to case but there's no miracles, if you start at 12.5 you most likely wont be running 10.5 later on (unless you are really young). Impo, I'd say training gives you an improvement of 0.5 to 1 second on most cases, specially if we are talking athletes over 15 years of age.

Not many are capable of running sub-11, much less 10.5. What are your PBs? Training Experience?

It's mostly hard work. Any dolt can run 100 miles in a week. Running sub 10, however, takes discipline and effort.

Oi wrote:

The same, 9.5 or 10.5, its all heavily based on genetics and still fairly scarce, depends, if a newbie, barely trained guy is running 11.5 for his first races then he has a good chance to go 10.5 or better if he gets some training years on.

The amount of "trainabililty" varies from case to case but there's no miracles, if you start at 12.5 you most likely wont be running 10.5 later on (unless you are really young). Impo, I'd say training gives you an improvement of 0.5 to 1 second on most cases, specially if we are talking athletes over 15 years of age.

Not many are capable of running sub-11, much less 10.5. What are your PBs? Training Experience?

Haven't timed myself yet, but will do so soon. Started training sprints a year ago.

semen wrote:

It's mostly hard work. Any dolt can run 100 miles in a week. Running sub 10, however, takes discipline and effort.

you're wrong?

fast twitch muscles convert (adapt, whatever) a lot less easily than slow twitch, which is why any "dolt" can run 100mpw and be good at running long distance. But not any "dolt" can do sprint training and get fast...

genetics make up for 50-60% of ability for V02 max, it's higher for power and force output and muscle fiber composition.

hljnlinjkn wrote:

semen wrote:

It's mostly hard work. Any dolt can run 100 miles in a week. Running sub 10, however, takes discipline and effort.

you're wrong?

fast twitch muscles convert (adapt, whatever) a lot less easily than slow twitch, which is why any "dolt" can run 100mpw and be good at running long distance. But not any "dolt" can do sprint training and get fast...

genetics make up for 50-60% of ability for V02 max, it's higher for power and force output and muscle fiber composition.

Excuses from people who are afraid to work hard, and would much rather slap on some earbuds, put on some fluorescent clothes and 'run' for more than 90 minutes at barely faster than power walking pace.

Excuses from people who are afraid to work hard, and would much rather slap on some earbuds, put on some fluorescent clothes and 'run' for more than 90 minutes at barely faster than power walking pace.[/quote]

Definitely an encouraging response and I'm currently training very hard and putting in a lot of time and effort. I know that without great genetics it would be hard for me to run as fast as 10.5 but how close do you think I could get even if I had terrible genetics for sprinting or at least average?

There's already a predictive test for whether you have 10.5 100m ability. It's about 99% accurate. It goes like this:

Question 1: Are you a black male?

If the answer is yes, then it's possible. If not, then stick to world of warcraft where you belong.

noexcuses wrote:

hljnlinjkn wrote:

you're wrong?

fast twitch muscles convert (adapt, whatever) a lot less easily than slow twitch, which is why any "dolt" can run 100mpw and be good at running long distance. But not any "dolt" can do sprint training and get fast...

genetics make up for 50-60% of ability for V02 max, it's higher for power and force output and muscle fiber composition.

Excuses from people who are afraid to work hard, and would much rather slap on some earbuds, put on some fluorescent clothes and 'run' for more than 90 minutes at barely faster than power walking pace.

Without a high percentage fast glycolic muscles and fast oxidative glycolic muscles it's just not going to happen.

A good sprinter has a shorter distance from their ankle to the back of their heal. All of the hard work in the world can not change that.

Take some time to learn before you spout your ignorance here.

testing for racing wrote:

There's already a predictive test for whether you have 10.5 100m ability. It's about 99% accurate. It goes like this:

Question 1: Are you a black male?

If the answer is yes, then it's possible. If not, then stick to world of warcraft where you belong.

Tell that to the Japanese. More excuses from lazy white guys who would rather jog around for hours.

Kermit095 wrote:

I'm sure no one in their right mind would think a sub 10 100 is trainable without 99% of the required genetics. But what about a sub 11 100 or something between 10.5 to 10.3? How much of that is trainable? How close could you get by lifting weights, doing plyometrics, and sprinting as fast as you can and staying on a good diet to maximize muscle while keeping body fat low?

99.99% or probably higher.

Speed is almost completely determined by genetics. 10.5 is as "genetic" as 13.5; however, an individual with the genetic potential to run 10.5 is much rarer (probably around 1 in 1000).

It has nothing to do with genetics. It's all how you grow up. By the time kids start training, they may lack the early development base to ever be sprinters, but it doesn't mean they were born like that.

African genes don't make you faster, or Nigerians wouldn't lose to mixed-heritage Americans. Mixed-heritage Van Niekerk wouldn't be the fastest South African.

African-Americans are demographically more likely to be poor, disadvantaged and inclined to risk pursuing a career in athletics. Many live in the southeast, where football is extremely popular. Football specifically trains explosive power and sprint speed. That's the short answer for why "black people are faster" - football.

Bad Wigins wrote:

That's the short answer for why "black people are faster" - football.

LOL!

under 11.0 is very difficult, probably genetic, and very small percentage of runners can run under 11.0s. Take a note that Ben Johnson in clean state never runs under, I think, 10.4-10.5s so it is unlikely that you can come to under 10.5. Bull-shitting that you can improve only 0.5 to 1s is just bull-shitting if you are not 40 years old or older in any other instance you can drastically increase your speed and cut 2, 3 or 4s in several years of SMART not HARD (beware of injuries) training.

A few days ago guy posted here what he achieved after only 1 year of speed training - find that post.

Regarding under 10s - probably 90-95% of guys achieved that were dopers leading by Bolt and ALL Jamaicans.

Just see how they shrunk in last 20 years and if you have even a little grey matter inside skull you will understand why.

Just check how WR improved in last 40 years, and how many guys were busted. Clean under 10s yes it looks like that in near future even high scholars will be able to do it. Of course those guys doesn't know what doping is since they are teens right? Well they know how to use machine guns and kill other students so MAYBE these days teens knows a little about doping as well. How I know that - well my good friend is a local diller for a local gym and most of his customers came from that age kids (even 15-16 years old) just wants to become bigger and stronger not even BB just to become bigger, so serious, dedicated high scholar for sure have enough information to knows exactly what he wants and how to achieve his goals - most likely without any knowledge of his coach other way around I just can't or want to believe even in today's no morality world.

so push yourself to your natural limits and then a little bit of rocket fuel and here we go - under 10.5s or if you are really gifted - under 10s - with GOOD coach and even better chemist / doctor.

Bad Wigins wrote:

It has nothing to do with genetics. It's all how you grow up. By the time kids start training, they may lack the early development base to ever be sprinters, but it doesn't mean they were born like that.

You've overturned all of the years of research in the field of Physiology. Congratulations!

Your next project is to proclaim the world is flat.

Distinctions should be made between various levels of sprinting ability. For instance, there is a world of difference between sub 10.8 and sub 10.5, not to mention sub 10.2. 'Talent' plays an increasing role at the faster end. Depending on how cynical (or perhaps, realistic) one is, as does doping. However, some times are held up to unreasonably high pedestals, such as sub-11. Usually, those who complain that sub-11 requires a rare genetic gift have not performed the proper combination of speedwork, plyometrics, and heavy weightlifting in an intelligently planned manner.

You obviously never been around elite sprinters or even decently fast ones, 3-4 seconds improvement from training, LOL, delusional, only if you are 7 years old or have a 17 second PB.

Realistically, 0.5 to 1s improvement from good training is what most people get. This idiot even talks about Ben Johnson which just proves my point, had good coaching,steroids and the genetics and his first time was around 11 flat in highschool, still a kid, how much did he improve? Yeah....

Now stfu, and let people who actually know about sprinting and speed training talk.

Asafa is probably the one from the elite-elite that improved the most and didnt ran has as fast younger. 11.4x (still a kid though) to 9.7 in five years. And he was busted too.

I haven't seen sprint technique mentioned here yet, but it matters big time in the 100. I've been coaching high school sprinters for a long time now. I've had multiple boys run in the low 11s to mid to high 10s that started out anywhere from 12 to 14 seconds as freshman (auto-timed). I've also coached multiple groups of siblings and even a few twins (girls and boys) where one twin or sibling was much faster than the other, and the constant that I've seen is the faster sibling always has better running form.

I am absolutely convinced that a human male cannot hit 10 meters per second or faster (about the speed it takes to run 11 seconds flat for the 100 assuming a good start) without a couple of key components to their running form:

1. Knees need to come up until the top of the thigh is nearly parallel to the ground, every, single, stride.

2. A powerful down and backward drive of the foot before the foot touches the ground, this is set up by having #1 in place.

These are the key components that you see in common in every single elite sprinter. There has been quite a bit of research on top speed running, I generally trust the information coming out of the SMU Locomotion lab:

http://www.smu.edu/Simmons/AreasOfStudy/APW/APHM/LPL/Publications_and_Articles

They have a great youtube channel with a lot of videos, I highly recommend watching them if you are interested in sprinting:

https://www.youtube.com/user/LocomotorLabSMU

In particular this video summarizes everything I said up above. Learn your sprint drills and learn to run like a sprinter. Film yourself sprinting and continue to work towards the ideal and you will get faster:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3exj1tlEjaQ