How fast could the average American run 400m on the track?

colorado outliers wrote:

Dude, you live in Colorado, the fittest and one of the most educated states...of course people

will be thinner there! I used to live in Durango, everyone there was 'fit' by American standards.

The word here is 'selection bias'

What does the CDC have to do with big Pharma?

Try going to Mississippi or Louisiana...obesity rate is more like 50% in many areas...being fat is the new normal

in the deep south.

What's the gym business like in the South? Are there a zillion gyms down there like there is here in Denver? If you say the obesity rate is that high down there, then I'm sure a club like Planet Fitness could be big business. And don't try to tell me those people don't have the dough for a gym, a joint like PF only costs 10 lousy bucks a month! ?

Males 90 sec

Females 115 sec

I'm 37, 6'2", 225 - in good shape. Don't run but used to. Did an easy 4x400 the other day with 3' recovery all in 65. I raced a 52 a couple years ago well trained. All about if you run. Most in shape guys would struggle to hit 90"

Old and heavy wrote:

I'm 37, 6'2", 225 - in good shape. Don't run but used to. Did an easy 4x400 the other day with 3' recovery all in 65. I raced a 52 a couple years ago well trained. All about if you run. Most in shape guys would struggle to hit 90"

Wow!...that's impressive! You're about the size of some of the LBs I played with in college ball decades ago. But the little, scrawny, diminutive guys aren't going to like to see such a big, non-runner physique type run 400s so fast with a short recovery. ? Here come the cat calls.

Are they really in shape if they struggle to hit 90 though?

Wide range of 2-2:45 min for the avg

Rez wrote:

Are they really in shape if they struggle to hit 90 though?

That isn't the original question and too many people think what runners can do is something to do with the answer, it isn't.

Dnf

Just to tweak the original question a bit, how fast could the average American white male let's say at random age 71, 6'3" (on tiptoe) , 239 pounds run 400 metres on the track?

I'm not convinced the average american cab get 90. I'm in pretty good shape and run a lot and I struggle to go sub 90 but can drop a sub 20 5k.

The average American probably couldn't even make it 1 lap without walking.

I've recently been thinking about this question a lot. Age is obviously crucial.

OP specifies a person aged 20-30, but there'd obvoiusly be a huge variation between the average 20 yr old [who will often still have plenty of legacy fitness from teenaged sports] & 30 year old.

For men I reckon you're looking at median times of something like the following, by age:

At 20: say around 70s;

At 30: comfortably the wrong side of 90s;

At 40: something scarily slow, i should think comfortably the wrong side of 120s.

As a GA during grad school, I ended up teaching some general fitness classes. One day I had my class run a 400 as part of a fitness test. the TOP guys were 72 seconds.

These were the top males from a self selected population that was CHOOSING to be fitter than their peers. This was in 1995. There is nothing to indicate that the average american male has gotten fitter since then.

The average is going to be closer to 2 minutes

Ha, not impressive.

Here in the UK, at age 20 I'd guess that around say half the male population will have played at least a few 80/90 minute games of soccer or rugby within the last year or so, & will be in some kind of half-decent shape commensurate with that... I'm sure that the most of of those guys, if push came to shove, on a treadmill maintain a constant speed of 20kph [12.4mph] for 72 seconds, hence travelling for 400m... though I suppose on a track, with bends, probably a bit of unevenness, & difficulties pacing onseself... and then the guys who were inactive would be much slower.

I don't know. 'Average' is quite hard to get a grip on.

This is based on the UK.

400m times for healthy non-disabled men aged 20-40:

~60sec: athletic (in better shape than 90% of age/sex group)

60-75sec: good (decent/optimal cardiovascular health - in better shape than 70% of age/sex group)

75-90sec: average (30-70th percentiles)

90+sec: sub par (health would greatly benefit from improvement)

400m times for healthy non-disabled women aged 20-40:

~75sec: athletic (in better shape than 90% of age/sex group)

75-90sec: good (decent/optimal cardiovascular health - in better shape than 70% of age/sex group)

90-120sec: average (30-70th percentiles)

120+sec: sub par (health would greatly benefit from improvement)

So amongst healthy non-obese young men an average would be about 80sec and for healthy non-obese young women about 100sec. Add 20 seconds to these guidelines for the 40-60 age group bracket. As for over 60, anybody doing a 400m under 2 minutes I would consider pretty healthy and considerably above average in their age group considering some people at that age are losing their ability to even walk.

I have 5 years of running experience and about a year of track experience and from what I’ve seen I think this shuts it down pretty well.

The thing with averaging times is that if a single DNF gets mixed in, you end up with an average of infinity. Out of 100 random Americans, I guarantee that at least one will DNF (i.e. record a time of infinity). Thus, the average time will be infinity.

infinity wrote:

The thing with averaging times is that if a single DNF gets mixed in, you end up with an average of infinity. Out of 100 random Americans, I guarantee that at least one will DNF (i.e. record a time of infinity). Thus, the average time will be infinity.

Bkt of a ridiculous answer really, I think the fact we are ignoring DNFs is pretty obvious. Most people would actually finish, we are talking about the median times of those who finish.

95-115 secs.

My brother-in-law is pretty much the quintessential average American male 20-30. 26. BMI in the 27 range. Not terribly athletic but was a good high school swimmer and played some lacrosse in college. Sedentary day job. Gets to the gym, maybe, 2 hours a month. He just had me pace him to a 30 minute 5k and he just BARELY survived. I'd wager he could run a lap in a little south of 2 minutes if he was properly paced...but he wouldn't be properly paced. That's another thing people are forgetting. Lots of folks here saying, "400m is basically a sprint" and that's just...not right. Almost no one who isn't incredibly specifically trained can run very close to their top end speed for 400m. I run a fair number of marathons and have a PR of 3:00:xx. I don't do much speed work but within the last 2 years I've raced both the 200 and the 400 in the same day once. I managed essentially 29 flat and 67 flat. That is not a very good conversion. If my top end speed is really a little over than 15mph (I'm sure specifically trained I could do a bit better, but let's just say) I should be capable of a sub 65 400m. But even though I was running two marathons a year at that point, and had a fine aerobic base, and even had a little bit of sprinting memory from my sole year of middle school track when I ran 100, 200 and 400, I wasn't able to get the 400 right pacingwise. Because it's not just a Sprint. The vast majority of average Joes would treat it like one if they were really trying and they would fall to pieces. Now 60m is a different question. I'd wager the average Joe could run 60m in 13-14 seconds.

The average american male could not run 400 meters. This thread is complete insanity. Arguably the most insane in the history of this website.

Obilisk18 wrote:

I'd wager the average Joe could run 100m in 13-14 seconds.

Fixed.