I'm in my mid 20's and want to run 100m in under 11 seconds.

I’m not a distance runner either (at least naturally) and have run times around what the OP is talking about. Yes 30 pounds is a lot but it is not a lot within the context of dropping 2+ seconds off of a 100m time. 13 low FAT is a time that a talented middle school girl can run. We are talking about that girl becoming Carmelita Jeter in a few short years while already fully physically developed and likely already beginning to slow due to age.

The people I know that ended up as sub 11 sprinters were very natural athletes that could roll out of bed and run mid 11. Those .5-.9 seconds are a looooong time at that distance/speed.

I definitely understand where you’re coming from. It’s definitely a big task, but I can tell you when I was doing acrobats at around 22, I could jump really high, for example at 5’7 I could dunk a basketball no problem and I didn’t train plyo or go to the gym.

Personally for me this type of activity is something I’m confident about that there is plenty more improvement to come and I chose sprinting to focus on because of my confidence with my previous explosive power I had a few years ago. I also still feel really chunky, slow and overweight.

Regarding body fat %, I once was sitting at 4.5% body fat when I was a full-time dancer, so realistically, I can definitely go from my current approx. 25% body fat to somewhere below 10%. Lastly, it was electronically timed! You can see the electronic timing machine off to the right of the video once I cross the 100m mark :)

I guess at the end of the day we’ll just have to wait and see, your doubting gives me more motivation so it helps the cause!

Thanks for the message.

I think you will see plenty of improvement. Probably well over a second and you will get fit along the way which is frankly the most important part. I would just encourage you to make some more reasonable intermediate goals. If you could get under 12 second FAT by this time next year that would be fantastic at which point you can look at 11.7 and then 11.5, 11.3... you get the picture.

paris2024hawk wrote:Bolt definitely is not running 10.5 with 20 percent extra body fat.

Yes, he is.

And OP you are starting to lose me as a follower. Sub-11 is a huge goal and I was willing to be encouraging, but the suggestion that you could easily dunk at 5-7 is going too far. If you had that neurology you would be at slowest 12-flat right now, and probably 11.7-11.8

And if that 12.9 is hand...more questionabiliy.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

paris2024hawk wrote:Bolt definitely is not running 10.5 with 20 percent extra body fat.

Yes, he is.

And OP you are starting to lose me as a follower. Sub-11 is a huge goal and I was willing to be encouraging, but the suggestion that you could easily dunk at 5-7 is going too far. If you had that neurology you would be at slowest 12-flat right now, and probably 11.7-11.8

And if that 12.9 is hand...more questionabiliy.

I think you guys are all being overly negative and way too hard on the guy. I was the first to chime in that sub-11 was a longshot at best, but the guy has a positive attitude, has responded well to advice, and isn’t being overly cocky.

And Sprintgeezer, you had a sub-20 or bust thread where you were constantly fighting back on advice and making wild claims, so let the guy have his fun. No need to tear him down.

He’s heard that it’s going to be a tough journey but wants to pursue it. So I’m interested to watch and encourage him to see what he can do, whether that is 11.9 or 10.9.

Good luck, OP! Letsrun can give good advice, but you’ll have to wade through the BS to get it.

I think this is worth a shot and would be inspirational

Sprintgeezer wrote:

paris2024hawk wrote:Bolt definitely is not running 10.5 with 20 percent extra body fat.

Yes, he is.

And OP you are starting to lose me as a follower. Sub-11 is a huge goal and I was willing to be encouraging, but the suggestion that you could easily dunk at 5-7 is going too far. If you had that neurology you would be at slowest 12-flat right now, and probably 11.7-11.8

And if that 12.9 is hand...more questionabiliy.

Hold up a near 250 pound overweight bolt is running a 10.5(this is less than 5lbs away from obesity), as I said fat is dead weight he's not gaining any extra muscle this is like putting on a heavy weight 40lb vest on, maybe worse as men store alot of fat in their legs which affects sprinters more than gaining weight on their torso.

I personally don't believe a 250 lb fat bolt runs sub 11, and even that's and underestimate of the effect of gaining that much weight.

Op is a little suspicious with this information dunking easy at 5'7 = probably an over 40inch vertical , elite athleticism and 4.5 % as a dancer human don't function normally at 4.5 % and that's not at all healthy.

I have seen fatter guys sprint incredibly fast, and described one in particular on this board, years ago.

I am not tearing the guy down, I am just less enthusiastic. If he could dunk at 5-7, he has a good shot, that says a lot about his potential accel. Beyond that he will need to learn to sprint relaxed.

I still wish him all the best.

But hey wait, what outrageous claim did I make on the sub-20 thread? Nothing like easily dunking at 5-7...certainly nothing that had direct bearing on my 5k ability. Hmmmm...maybe my erg exploits? I have no idea how good my erg was or if it maps to 5k, but if it does and it’s on the same level as easily dunking at 5-7, then I take all this back.

If he’s for real and the 12.9 is FAT, it will still be a long haul. I don’t think my 20:00 age-grades to as good as a sub-11 100m, but honestly IDK. I can see my untrained 28:xx 5k time being as bad as, or worse than, his 12.9.

But you’re right, I should look in the mirror. Maybe he is an idiot-savant in vert, like I was in deadlift.

Point taken!💥

Disagree on the Bolt thing. As a 6'2" guy who was formerly a decent high jumper and sprinter and also gained a lot of weight as an adult (ballooning up to 250) I was still able to dunk a basketball well up into the 230s and almost certainly could have broken 12 seconds in the 240ish range. I think Bolt could obliterate 11 seconds at 250. You also make a very bad analogy with the weight vest. That isn't even close to how weight gets distributed.

I am saying that a 40lb of weight and fat are both dead weight, I meant to add it is similar too not the same.I even further explained why having a normal body fat distribution could be worse a men tend to store alot of fat in their legs, that would interfere with the leg cycle. People don't use leg weights in resisted sprinters they load the upper body for a reason.

What did you originally weigh by the way.

I mean all of this constructively after reading the above post and your replies (and watching the video). I encourage you to go on the journey. But please, trust me on this:

OP, you absolutely need a coach and perhaps a training group if you're serious about this. I can't stress this enough. It's not just about porting over raw athleticism and power, it's about learning how to apply that to the track. Moreover, you can't train yourself or teach yourself a skill that you don't know anything about, and you're barely scratching the surface of things you need to be doing and people you need to be surrounding yourself with to make this possible. I don't care how many books, videos, whatever you dig into, this isn't something you can do on your own and certainly isn't one of those self-made "fitness goal" type deals.

Find a track club, athletic club, coach, whatever. Find training partners. You need to immerse yourself in it to give yourself a chance. Think about it -- you'll have kids coming out of middle school into high school who are really talented athletes, but still need four years under a set of coaches to become class. And yet you're here wondering about workouts, rest intervals, etc.

If you don't want a coach, I can say with 100% certainty that you won't make it to sub-11. Unwaveringly. Even with a coach and a training environment the shot is somewhat slim, but not impossible. This is about putting yourself in the best position possible to achieve your goals, and flying solo is not the path to success.

Hope you don't see my comment as harsh. I promise it's not coming from that sort of place, but you have to recognize the gravity of the goal and what it truly takes to get there. Once you figure that out and gather all of the pieces, it's simply about assembling them. Which, you might find, can be reliant on genetics, injury, life and such. Good luck!

185 at my best (for sprinting) and 185 currently as a re-incarnated distance runner.

All I meant was that in that thread you’d get a lot of heat about your training being wrong and you’d go at it with people and sometimes ignore good advice. You were also treated unfairly at times.

But I don’t mean to instigate and probably shouldn’t have called you out. Just didn’t like that people were piling on a guy who just joined Letsrun a few days ago (there were several others doing this before you). It’s one thing when LRP or some of the others who ask for advice and are too hard headed to listen and just keep saying the same thing after years of asking for help, but let’s see what this guy does.

I’m sorry to hear I put you off the encouragement. I will say that dunking was when I was 65kgs, I’m currently 82kgs, so of course 17kgs of fat makes the task a lot harder these days!

I guess all I can do is bust my butt off in the gym/track and see how far I can get. At the end of the day becoming healthy and happy is my ultimate goal, but I really love the idea of being functional with my body too!

Cheers.

Maybe a dumb question, or maybe addressed in the video, but what kind of dance/acrobatics were you involved in? I know some dancers have insane leaping ability so the dunking doesn’t seem too surprising

Any, good luck and keep us updated on your training!

For dance I did Breakdancing, Hip Hop, Ballet and Funk Tap mostly.

In Acrobatics I mostly did Tricking & practised flips/combinations on a gymnastics floor.

I’d absolutely love to lose a bit more weight to be confident enough to do high-levelled flips again, I really miss it!

I also taught myself all of these skills via YouTube to reach a professional level. I grew up in a pretty poor family out of a bus so YouTube pretty much gave me all my incredible opportunities in my early adult life.

do not listen to this advice. its great that you are lifting and excersizing to lose weight but if you are serious about breaking 11.00 you need to train for the 100m. The 100m is a max velocity event. increasing max velocity will have by far the biggest impact on your 100m times. max velocity is a skill. it gets better by practice. if u want to break 11 your training needs to be centered around running at max velocity. you will get the endurance necesary for a 100 (which is minimal) by sprinting. running at mile pace or slower will not increase your 100m time. i think you will achive your goal or even fatser. you have to be sprinting all out in your training tho cause thats what your trianing for. lifting and enduranec will do almost nothing considering you already ran sub 13. top speed is most imporatnt and second is acceleration.

A couple things to consider:

1. You're not going to go sub 11 in a year. To go sub 11, it'll require a solid mix of talent, time, and fitness.

2. I don't know what measurements you used but you're not in the obese category. Using height and weight is usually a poor measurement. It's better to take measurements around the waist and neck to help calculate your bodyfat.

3. Initially you'll improve a lot as doing some training will be better than no training and toning down will help as well. Getting better shoes, learning blocks, and working on your run form will all add up to decreases in time. But as you near your potential improvements won't always be as evident.

4. Don't just guess what you should do. If you're serious about doing it, work on finding a local team that you can train with or a coach who can set you up with workouts. It's good to have a plan for when to peak as well, developing a base over an off season is a sure way to get faster.

5. At best, you have 3 year to try to hit it, at 26, you're in or near your prime, your full potential will start declining after that. Gatlin and a couple others are the few exceptions.

6. Have fun doing it, this isn't your job it's a personal fitness goal. Shoot high but be realistic and enjoy the process.

Hi Cheetah thanks heaps for the points you have put across, I'll do my best to give you some info on some of them!

First up I'd like to quickly say I have a 60m then 100m race tomorrow! Since my 12.90 run I have done 3 sprint sessions and maybe 5 heavy leg sessions while being careful of a minor foot injury, so I'm interested to see if I make any improvements. I will post a quick/short update on here tomorrow after the run. Ps: I also got my first track shoes in the mail today! Nike Zoom Rival S 9's. Excited to see if they make any difference.

My goals for tomorrow: 60m - 7.99 seconds. 100m - 12.49 seconds. I'll consider hitting either 1 of these a win for the day.

So to answer some of your points!:

I'm hoping to do this progression over a 3-year timeframe as you mentioned in your 5th point. My first years' focus is to lose all this body fat. I am currently at 28% body fat (23.1kgs of body fat on my 82kg body) so once I drop that down to about 15% (losing 11kgs/25lbs of fat), I think I will have a much clearer idea of where I stand in the 100m.

To give insight into your second point, I paid for an in-depth body scan which analysed everything about my body down to which leg/arm was stronger than the other, visceral body fat, etc, etc. It was extremely helpful and gave me a boost in motivation to keep losing weight. It revealed that my body fat percentage was 28%. For men, I believe obese is defined as 25% body fat percentage or higher, borderline obesity is defined at 21-25%, therefore I sadly still sit (pun intended) in this range, however I have definitely dropped my percentage over the last 90-odd days (81 gym sessions, 11 long-slow cycling sessions, 7 swimming sessions and now in April, a few sprint sessions, coupled with a healthy diet, resulting in losing approx. 7kgs/15lbs of fat).

In response to coaching, sadly I live in a small town of 80k people. In Australia and in my country region, track and field is extremely small. The club I just joined doesn't even have weekly training sessions, people just come on Saturdays and do their events. The club looks like it sometimes has people up from the city running clinics but that is it! I will be making the most of YouTube to grasp some sprinting knowledge and see where I end up in 12 months :)

One thing I am really hopeful about, and I would love peoples thoughts on this, is that my initial 100m at 87.5kgs was 13.68 (hand timed). When I hit 82kgs I ran 12.90 (electronically timed, about .80 better time). Of course, things aren't straight forward but I'd love to think that another 5kgs of fat loss will result in perhaps .50 off this time, and another 5kgs perhaps another .40, getting me to around 12 seconds flat just from not carrying all this fat around (one can hope!). I have heard spiked track shoes can get around .25 off a 100m time as well (compared to the 11oz runners I used) and perhaps technique/added flexibility might shave another .25 off. Then I feel it will come down to my pure hard work and specific sprint training program to see if I can shave the next 0.5 second off! This is simply me overthinking everything because nowadays when I'm not training all I do is watch videos after videos of sprinting! I'm addicted right now.

Lastly, YES I am having so much fun doing the sprint training, it makes me feel alive and fit again even though I'm not quite there yet.

Thank you for the in-depth message, I will continue to keep working hard and making improvements happen in my body and on the track. Keen to see how I go tomorrow on the Track.