You must be a high school kid. Most 25 year olds could train forever and not run a 6 minute mile.
I'm 29 yrs old and 6'1 185lbs so no not a skinny high schooler. I do believe being able to run 80s or faster for a single lap should be a requirement to be considered fit as a man in your physical prime. Obviously I think the standard is a bit different if you are over 40 y/o or a woman.
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Your standards are quite sensible, it just riles the sloggers to see themselves in the lowest bracket.
The 400 is an awesome test. I convinced two soccer players to try it. They were quite fit, could run a decent 5k, but didn't know about extreme lactate. They both started carrying a piano at 300-320, hilarious.
Yep I think it's safe to say the majority of letsrun posters need to do a bit of speed work. And yes, anyone who's made a random buddy run a 400m knows it takes fitness to not absolutely bomb around 250m.
Dumb. 400 is not fitness. I can run 16:00 for 5k at 42 but only about 70 seconds for 400. There are random out of shape 15 year olds at my son's school who can run sub 60.
Hate to break it to you, but those “out of shape” 15 year olds are fitter than you. You seem to be conflating distance running with fitness.
Fitness refers to the state of being physically strong and healthy.
It is likely that those 60s 400m kids are stronger than you at most complex lifts, with better sprint speed too.
When we think of “fitness” in the true sense, we should really be thinking of biological fitness, and whether or not the competitor would win in fight to the death, in a struggle for survival, or in a battle for mates.
One could argue that, given the requirement for anaerobic fitness, aerobic fitness, power, and speed, the 400 is in fact one of the BEST markers of overall fitness.
Anyway, good post OP; your categories are spot on.
400 meter time is primarily related to genetics. A fit person may only be able to run 80 seconds while a gifted unfit person may run sub 60.
No, it isn’t. 400m runners train very very hard. It is no more or less up to genetics than a two hour marathon. Distance runners do not have a monopoly on hard work.
Ryan Crouser would tear Quincy Wilson into 2 pieces. Wilson run 45 while Crouser can barely finish 400.
A "fight to the death" is only one component of what Conflating is describing. Fitness is how biologically capable an individual is under a variety of circumstances that might impact survival and reproduction. The basic point is this includes a whole lot of circumstance outside of running 5 kilometers as fast as possible. Other examples might include tests of absolute strength, jumping over a high barrier, and running 400m as fast as possible.
Dumb. 400 is not fitness. I can run 16:00 for 5k at 42 but only about 70 seconds for 400. There are random out of shape 15 year olds at my son's school who can run sub 60.
I don't believe this at all.
I'm not a speed guy at all and ran ~65 second 400m while in low/mid 17 min 5k shape. I think people grossly underestimate their 400 speed. I was doing ~72-75 seconds repeats trying to break 5 min mile and I'm 30 seconds per mile behind you in a 5k. I doubt I'm somehow 20 sec per mile faster than you in a 400.
(Almost 10 years older than you and never particularly fast in a 400)
I remember early on in my senior track season my coach made me run in the 4x4 in a duel meet to develop speed. I ran my leg in 70 seconds. My PR for the 1600 that season was 4:39. Some people are just slow...
So you can average faster in a 1600 than your 400 leg? Obviously you could’ve gone a lot faster in the 400. No chance you redline for a full 1600m.
What do people gain from lying or misrepresenting?
Dumb. 400 is not fitness. I can run 16:00 for 5k at 42 but only about 70 seconds for 400. There are random out of shape 15 year olds at my son's school who can run sub 60.
Hate to break it to you, but those “out of shape” 15 year olds are fitter than you. You seem to be conflating distance running with fitness.
Fitness refers to the state of being physically strong and healthy.
It is likely that those 60s 400m kids are stronger than you at most complex lifts, with better sprint speed too.
When we think of “fitness” in the true sense, we should really be thinking of biological fitness, and whether or not the competitor would win in fight to the death, in a struggle for survival, or in a battle for mates.
One could argue that, given the requirement for anaerobic fitness, aerobic fitness, power, and speed, the 400 is in fact one of the BEST markers of overall fitness.
Anyway, good post OP; your categories are spot on.
Fitness, or maybe athleticism is a better term, is not what many on this site think. You can argue all day what constitute athleticism but it's some combination of speed, agility, strength, power, technique, endurance, etc. Obviously there's overlap and interplay between some of those concepts.
Great distance runners have incredible endurance, they have great technique for distance running, and that's about it. Whether you like it or not, distance running is overall a pretty unathletic endeavor.
Power lifters have immense strength and technique, and absolutely nothing else. You can argue that's pretty unathletic too.
(Olympic) Weightlifters have immense strength, power, technique, and if you've seen those guys train, you know they're freaks. They're insanely athletic but couldn't do a 6 min mile without a lot of practice.
Anyway, if a random 35 year old at my office with no track background proved to me he could run a 65s 400m, I'd be way more impressed than him running a 17:00 5k.
I raced a track mile in 4:54 last year. Your times make no sense.
~17:30/5:03/65 makes way more sense than 16:00/4:54/70
Yep I refuse to believe that time spread he posted. Essentially anyone who can crack 5 minutes in a mile has 70s speed if they made a serious attempt at a 400m time trial. I haven't broken the 5 min barrier yet and have run 56.22, but I grant I'm more speed-oriented than some folks.
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To the people saying 400 is all genetic. It's genetic after a certain point but is a great test of fitness up until then. Sub 60 and how far sub you can get is dependent on genetics, but still requires fitness. No reason even the slowest distance guys can't get sub 65. The argument of some high school couch potato running sub 60 isn't what you think it is. Most high school kids, even the couch potatoes, are far more fit than the average adult. Some of you don't know what testosterone and youth can do.
I was a 48 guy back in college. I'm late 30s today. I'm still very fit. I barely run. Do a 5k about once a week in around 20 minutes. I'm sure if I raced one I could manage around 18-19 minutes. Most of my focus is on lifting and I do that daily about an hour in the gym (bench 275 squat 345 to give you perspective). If you asked me to do an all out 400 right now I could maybe hit 65. If you gave me 3 months of training to focus on a 5k I think I could get into the 17s. If you gave me 3 months at the 400 I think I might get to 59. Running a fast 400 requires an incredible amount of fitness. The distance runners on this board underestimate the conditioning required to handle the lactic acid buildup of the event. To put it in a way some of you might understand, if you surveyed the cute women at the office on their opinion of who looks more fit and you showed them a guy who runs 17:30 5k and a 70 second 400 against a guy who runs 55 second 400 and a 24:50 5k, the women would vote in favor of the 55 second 400 guy
I feel like the 400m is underutilized as a general fitness test, so I drafted up a wide range of performance standards for the general population (male 18-40 y/o). What do you think of these standards? What do think is the equivalent of the sub-20 5k?
75-85s: Baseline health/general fitness 65-75s: Fit non-track speed 60-65s: Proficient non-track speed 56-60s: Novice track-specific speed 52-56s: Intermediate track-specific speed 50-52s: Advanced/Varsity track-specific speed 46.5-50.0s: Pro decathlon/pro mid-distance speed 45.0-46.5s: Pro event-specific speed 43.03-45.0s: Global elite event-specific speed
This entire post is completely pointless and an obvious cry for attention.
“Underutilized as a general fitness test”. Why do we need to give “general fitness tests” to adults? Should our 400m time be a metric doctors ask us about on our next visit?
Your “standards” are completely meaningless. Just pure nonsense strung together for no reason, other than to look for attention and appear thoughtful and creative. Baseline, fit, proficient, novice…you’re just assigning arbitrary words to arbitrary ranges of times.
A person’s height, weight, and natural speed are the most important determining factors in where they would fall in your dumb standards.
Is the squat underutilized as a “general fitness test”? Because there are plenty of fat slobs who can squat double what a lean small guy can squat, does that make them more “fit”?
I feel like the 400m is underutilized as a general fitness test, so I drafted up a wide range of performance standards for the general population (male 18-40 y/o). What do you think of these standards? What do think is the equivalent of the sub-20 5k?
75-85s: Baseline health/general fitness 65-75s: Fit non-track speed 60-65s: Proficient non-track speed 56-60s: Novice track-specific speed 52-56s: Intermediate track-specific speed 50-52s: Advanced/Varsity track-specific speed 46.5-50.0s: Pro decathlon/pro mid-distance speed 45.0-46.5s: Pro event-specific speed 43.03-45.0s: Global elite event-specific speed
This entire post is completely pointless and an obvious cry for attention.
“Underutilized as a general fitness test”. Why do we need to give “general fitness tests” to adults? Should our 400m time be a metric doctors ask us about on our next visit?
Your “standards” are completely meaningless. Just pure nonsense strung together for no reason, other than to look for attention and appear thoughtful and creative. Baseline, fit, proficient, novice…you’re just assigning arbitrary words to arbitrary ranges of times.
A person’s height, weight, and natural speed are the most important determining factors in where they would fall in your dumb standards.
Is the squat underutilized as a “general fitness test”? Because there are plenty of fat slobs who can squat double what a lean small guy can squat, does that make them more “fit”?
Given that this entire forum is designed for neurotic running-obsessed losers to have debates over fractions of a second, I figure it works on that level. If someone's curious about their fitness level, running a 400m time trial is not a terrible way to go. Yes, fat powerlifters lift heavy but can't run well. Vice versa for skinny distance runners. What is supposed to be revolutionary about that? No, I don't need general fitness tests to be given to folks at the doctor's office. But I do think they're interesting to talk about with other fitness hobby types. Excluding you, I guess.
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You might consider yourself a neurotic loser, and I’d probably agree based on your post, but I consider myself to be a normal guy who enjoys professional and recreational running on many levels.
You’ve literally chosen an arbitrary distance, and assigned arbitrary names to arbitrary time ranges. Then you called these “standards” for “general fitness in adults”.
Why not use the 200? Not aerobic enough for you? Why not use the 800? As the 8 is generally thought of as equally aerobic and anaerobic? Why not use the 150, 500, 700, k, or the mile, which has already been used for ages as a metric for kids in school? Your time for 400 meters tells you how fast you are over 400 meters, it doesn’t give profound insight into this “biological fitness and chance for reproduction” that you neurotic losers think it does. And according to pseudoscience bs that “scientists” tell us, long distance running would be much more applicable to biological fitness and survival, as we were supposedly long distance running hunter gatherers.
Of course anyone with a brain would agree that running ability at any distance gives some sort of indication of fitness. It goes without saying, and like I said initially, just makes you come off as attention seeking (and possibly a neurotic loser) and looking to circlejerk about any and everything running related.