What percentage of the world can you beat in the 100m with a 11 second flat time?

ThatAverageRunner wrote:

fiodajgfoiadj wrote:

Some people don't seem like they were made for it because they weren't active when they were young or didn't do sports that trained their fast twitch muscles. I mean, I'm just spitballing, but I haven't seen any evidence that human genetic differences could account for such HUGE variation in potential.

I've known plenty of people who were active and played multiple sports when they were younger who couldn't run sub 14

Were they wearing sprint spikes? Were they trained on how to use blocks? Did they spend much time in the weight room?

If not, they didn't maximize their sprint potential.

Bacon with cheese wrote:

14-15 is average joe territory, I find it very hard to believe that less than 1 out of 20 people can ahieve that. Just think of the amount of not even necessarily active teenagers and 20 odd folks who could do that effortlessly just off playing sport as a kid.

High school XC team, both varsity and JV, the average 100m FAT PB would be 14 to 15 seconds. From all sports, maybe 50 to 75 kids in a high school of 1500 kids are able to sprint sub-15 FAT 100m. Once people get age twenty-five, unless one sprints often, one has lost the ability to sprint.

14 to 15 100m is average 100m speed for high school XC runners wrote:

High school XC team, both varsity and JV, the average 100m FAT PB would be 14 to 15 seconds. Once people get age twenty-five, unless one sprints often, one has lost the ability to sprint.

High school XC runners can't sprint because most of the guys who join that sport are mainly slow-twitch folks. Their high mileage training then reduces their sprint ability even further.

14 to 15 100m is average 100m speed for high school XC runners wrote:

Once people get age twenty-five, unless one sprints often, one has lost the ability to sprint.

Doubt it. I'm in my late 20s and was a slightly better than average 800/1600 guy in HS (2:12, 5:03). Didn't do track in college since I was obviously too slow to walk-on. I sprinted semi-regularly to stay in shape, but I didn't have a coach, didn't have blocks to practice with, and never lifted more than once a week.

I hopped in a few random all-comers meets and ran unattached in a few low-key college meets just because I was curious to see what my FAT time would be. I didn't run in the 14-15 range. My PR is 12.22, and that's with clearly sub-optimal training.

A few co-workers in their late 20s and early 30s have challenged me before. None of them have any track experience. Their weekend activities include basketball, ultimate frisbee, and touch football, and their weekday training (if any) is minimal. I actually lost to one of them, and the ones that I did beat were within 2-3 feet of me in a ~50 yard race.

Average Joe is probably in the 12.6-12.7 second range if he isn't morbidly obese and does at least some kind of recreational sport semi-regularly.

I stated my observation of groups, ie. high school xc boys and overall students in high school. You stated your PRs. When you state, "average Joe," are you guessing the US median 100m PB? If so, you are wrong. Are you assuming any random kid is most likely able to run sub-12.8 FAT 100m? No. Your 12.xx 100m as you stated is not great; it is an above average time. It is better than the median time.

The cast of Gaki no Tsukai, none of whom are trained, had an episode where they all ran 100m out of blocks. The slowest were around 15 seconds, and one of them went sub 14.

Only one of them is fat so it's not just because Japanese are fitter.

I actually thought about this last week. You have to sum up all those who have lived in a certain population over the last hundred years and how many have run 11.0s or better. My guess was that in most western countries, it is probably about one per 15,000 or as low as 10,000. That includes people that are now 50 and did 10.9 in high school. But those who right now could run sub 11s it more like one per 200,000.

Bacon with cheese wrote:

14-15 is average joe territory, ..

Evidence? I don't believe it. It might be average for young men, but there's no way it's average for the population as a whole.

I'm early 40's and last year did an all-comers meet w/ FAT timing. Physically, I was 6'1.25 and 183lbs at the time (was in a 'bulk' lifting phase), high teens body fat, average length achilles, and I got in a hair under 14s. There were two other age comparable (40++) people in my heat and both beat me: an AA guy who looked like a former fullback by 1/2 a second and a nordic looking dude who happens to go to my gym who is jacked + does plyo/sprint focused weight training beat me ~1s, high 12s.

I'm now~166lbs and sub 15% BF but have held on to my 1RMs from my bulk; if I run low 13's this year I'll be thrilled, high 12's would be incredible for me but highly unlikely. Personally, I feel dog slow, but maybe that's because I'm competing to a peer group that's not representative of most of the population.

Bad Wigins wrote:

The cast of Gaki no Tsukai, none of whom are trained, had an episode where they all ran 100m out of blocks. The slowest were around 15 seconds, and one of them went sub 14.

So pretty much everyone ran 14.xx? That's quite a cluster. I was expecting a bell curve with more spread, something like:

12.xx - 1

13.xx - 2

14.xx - 4

15.xx - 3

16.xx - 2

17.xx - 1