were you a better athlete at age 18 or 28?

No question it was 18 when I graduated from High School and quit playing organized competitive sports. In my case I'm a track fan but never really a runner in my own right.

But while I no longer try to achieve physical goals, I find I am more in tune with my body than I remember when I was in my twenties.

28

Get back training you are a long time old

28 without question.

Probably at 40+ I am at my best. Somehow I got more coordinated as I got older.

debeaumar - don't waste so much time. When you are older you will regret not using your body and your time wisely.

get your butt back out that before OFT kicks yer ass

28 for sure.

was faster than most others at 18.

running peak at 22.

wasn't running at all from 24 to 27 (started working).

running again just before 28 and after several months I got better than i was at 18.

29 now, 30 in a couple of months, and better than ever....establishing a new peak.

28 is far from being old. I figure the first half of a person's 30's doesn't have to be any different than your 20's. There's no reason why, at say 34, your body shouldn't look, feel, and function like it did at 22...unless of course you choose to get married and have kids and buy pets and all that stuff that takes up so much time. If you act young then you will be young - particularly for men in my opinion.

Better at 28, but only because I kept it up until then. By the time I was 32 though and had a 2-year-old in the house with a new level of responsibility, I'd say 18.

28! Get off your ass and go train!

Definitely better at 18.

Though, at 52 I am probably as good as when I was 28, if not better.

Better runner at 28, better all-around athlete at 18. At 18 I could only run a 5k in ~25 min, but could play two hours of bball, snowboard, bench ~230, and just had good well rounded fitness.

I'm only 23, but at 23 I'm a much better athlete than I was at 18. Something like 91 seconds faster in the 5k and 4:04 in the 10k (but the only 10ks I ran in hs were on the road). Still training and racing

The same points on a rise and fall of a bell curve for me! At 18, I ran 5k in a slow ~15:50. At 22, I ran 14:19. Then by the time I was 28, I had a seven-year-old daughter and my time had slid back to 15:50!

Although at 28 or 29, I could definitely kick some more ass since I had boxing experience.

Age 28... more muscle mass and confidence, but the decline was starting.

What worked against me at age 18 was laziness and lack of confidence-- and some attitude (more a geek than a jock). Didn't train or practice any more than I had to and partied moderately Junior and Senior years of HS. In my early 20s, playing intramural and rec league sports against former local teammates and opponents made me realize we weren't that far apart performance-wise.

Nowadays-- late 40s-- it seems I'm a mid-pack talent (lucky if WAVA scores ever exceed 70) who's worked hard to lessen the rate of decline. Lots of more talented, formerly better athletes who went to seed or got hurt.

At 18 I was drinking tons of beer, smoking weed, and dropping acid. I played basketball and soccer pretty regularly, but that was it.

By 28 I was going to the gym, still playing some basketball, and generally living a healthier lifestyle.

I didn't start running till my mid-30s.

BS on the 4:10 and dunking

28 is better if you have been running and training since 18.

I started running at age 23 and wasn't that fast at age 28. My best years were 30-39 but I don't believe I ran as fast as I might have had I raced in high school and college and continued into my 20's. I believe the peak years are ages 25-28 but with background.

Definitely 28. At 18, I had barely played any organized sports since rural TN didn't encourage any that favored my 5'11", 135lb frame. Navy boot camp put 15 pounds on me, in a good way, and I was pretty happy with running the semi-annual PFT 1.5 mile run in 9 minutes. Now, at 32, that's my marathon pace. I agree with Kicker that I probably would've run faster if I had started in HS, too bad we didn't have a track or a XC program.

I will be 28 in July, but I can say without question that I am better now than I was at 18.

At 18 years old my PR was in the 16's for 5k and I had barely broken 10 minutes for the 2 mile.

All in the past year and a half I have run PR's of 51 for 400m, 15:11 for 5k, 31:57 for 10k, and 1:09:34 for the Half.

I have definitely improved since finishing highschool and college

I'm 38 and can blow the doors off when I was 18 or 28.