Can most people run a sub 60 400?

I read this post, and I had to laugh. Some people on here patting themselves on the back, some with very odd viewpoints of the world.

Lets be honest and look at facts. Center of disease control states just under 40 percent of all people over 20 in the United States is considered Obese, with 71 percent being overweight.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm

We just eliminated 71 percent of the population. 400 meters is a speed endurance race. Just to finish it with minimal deaccelleration, you need to be in peak physical condition. Now, carry around an extra 15-30 lbs of ANYTHING, and you are not going to break sub 60.

I will do some gloating for a second. Ran track at a rural, hillbilly high school in the middle of nowhere, Ontario Canada (where no one cares about track). Ran on a gravel track at a new high school. I was a constant 52 Second 400 meter runner, 57 second 400 meter hurdler. At 17 years old. 6 feet tall, 168 lbs.

Lets fast forward. 37 years old now, 230 lbs. Ran a half marathon in 2011, and did some track work. I have (wait a second, had) sub 60 400 meter speed. I had a hard time breaking 1:30 for the 400 while running. All. The. Time. I wonder if I could ever get back there..... maybe an idea for a new thread. Who knows.

Also remember back in 1999, 2000, when I went to provincials..... there may have been 50-60 people at the meet who could break 60. Two of them are now National Champions and one is an Olympian.

This is an accomplishment that does not happen every day. To everyone. Training+genetics+catching yourself in the prime physical spot in your life= a chance at breaking 60

My two cents on this. With training. and in their prime, 5-10 percent of the population could break 60 seconds in the 400.

One more thing. Work in law enforcement now. A lot of the guys take care of themselves. Lift weights, run, etc. I work with around 430 police officers. If we went out tomorrow, and there was 100, 000 dollars offered for the person who could run sub 60, I can think of maybe two (one genetic freak/hockey player, one former tri-athelete) , who may break 60/400. I only say that because I know these two could run 24/200 when they were training for SWAT. Both of them are freaks though.

I'm going to say no. I'm a 16 year old boy with decent long distance PRs and a lot more training than the average 16 year old (60-70mpw), and I've been hacking at sub 60 for a while. I've been stuck around 61 for a year now. I've got 29sec 200m speed, so unless something changes, I'll probably never go sub 60. Maybe I'm just way below average in terms of speed because of how slow twitch I am. But beside that fact, I'm really not that slow. Sure, compared to track kids I'm slow speed side, but I know for a fact that many of my classmates would never be able to hold speed that long, even if they trained hard for it. It's pretty unrealistic for the relatively talented, compared to the general populous, to not achieve a difficult standard, then call that average for everyone.

Sixty to seventy miles per week is kind of high mileage for a sixteen year old. How did you lead your life when you were very young? Did you play T-Ball/baseball, soccer/futbol or Am. football ages five to fifteen? Did you sprint often as a very young person? I am sure if you were a lower mileage and high intensity athlete from ages twelve to sixteen your 200/400 personal bests would be much faster than 29 & 61.

In general, no. Too many people are overweight or otherwise lacking the necessary fitness. If you took only healthy men from 18-30 and gave them specific 400m training for 6 months, the majority would break 60.

smrty wrote:

the curves slow everyone down who isnt used to running them, particurally those with a long stride. Look at how much slower indoor times are. Reading this, I realised this is why soccer players adapt so well to track. 'slow' guys running 52 what is happening here? The curve is easy for them, theyre used to cutting steeper angles on the feild. Run around a rotary run around some cones work on various drills soccer players do, ladder drills for instance. This is the neglected part of 400 meter training, for people with decent straight line speed anyways.

Try this simple experiment: mark off a straight 400m, with a wheel or the milermeter or something, on a road or bike path, and see how much faster you can go (if at all) than your track 400 pr.

smrty wrote:

the curves slow everyone down who isnt used to running them, particurally those with a long stride. Look at how much slower indoor times are. Reading this, I realised this is why soccer players adapt so well to track. 'slow' guys running 52 what is happening here? The curve is easy for them, theyre used to cutting steeper angles on the feild. Run around a rotary run around some cones work on various drills soccer players do, ladder drills for instance. This is the neglected part of 400 meter training, for people with decent straight line speed anyways.

In US high schools and colleges through the 1950's track & field athletes competed on 440 yard tracks. Have you ever wondered why the straightaways are so long on 440 yard tracks? Through 1950's US college and US high school athletes competed in both 220 yard dash on straightaway and 220 yard dash on curve. You can look up old performances. You will see 0.1 second to 0.3 second person best differential usually in 220 yard dash.

if you're taking men in their prime, at any age, then I'd say maybe 10% could do it.

im a 18.42 5k runner, my 400m speed on track is exactly 70 seconds.

can i live with that???

I run 75 seconds in the 400m and a dismal 24 high in the 5k...

I am obese by the way and far removed from running. Long distance runners are not a good example of what most people are capable of. Most longer distance runners have little explosive sprinting ability hence why they took up XC instead of rugby or football.

I’d say mr average in his 20s (probably about 18% body fat but strong-ish muscle due to raging hormones and young age) who grew up not even necessarily training, but more playing sports on the park at weekends with friends is going to be more explosive that you think. They could probbaly run 13:xx for 100M which translates to about a 59-60 second 400M if trained but it’s the stamina that will let them down and it will all boil down to mental toughness so I predict 75 seconds for these types of average joes. Most men who aren’t way fat have been in shape for a good portion of their development (but let themselves go since age 18-19). This could be brought down to about 55 - 63 sec with a few years of training.

So all in all, some will, some won’t but with high protein and a high fibre diet along with all round great fitness the majority of men can (about 60% of men). For most women at an equivelent level of health/fitness I’d say would top out around 65-75 seconds. I’d say about 2-5% of women could break 60. Breaking 60 for a woman is like breaking 53 for a male and that is much more rare and requires very very good genetics.

75 seconds is a marker of good health for most people and I’d say almost all non-disabled people could get that if they kept in great shape and at a good weight for a few years. Sub 60 is hard for the 99%.

No way, a 1:00 quarter mile takes about as much talent as a 5:00 mile. 20% TOPS of the male population would be able to do this if fully fit. Less than 5% would go sub 55. The majority couldn’t do this because they lack the hormones, muscle fibres, top end speed or natural coordination. I would say fully fit, most young males could run a legit 1:05 - 1:10 400m, give or take a couple of seconds. Most males aren’t going to get their top end speed much better than 13 high for a 100m dash with all the training in the world, they would need to develop their fast twitch muscles to even get that fast.

A while back I read an article based on a survey taken at a crossfit open competition, so notwithstanding the usefulness of crossfit as a training methodology, we are talking about active and training people, so probably better than your average joe...

These were self reported times, and not subject to checking, so (given I'm yet to meet a crossfitter who I'd describe as modest) I can only see these times being better than they actually were...

The average male time was 69 seconds...

The average female time was over 80 seconds...

People massively underestimate the speed of even relatively low level track athletes in comparison to the general population.

From England wrote:

A while back I read an article based on a survey taken at a crossfit open competition, so notwithstanding the usefulness of crossfit as a training methodology, we are talking about active and training people, so probably better than your average joe...

These were self reported times, and not subject to checking, so (given I'm yet to meet a crossfitter who I'd describe as modest) I can only see these times being better than they actually were...

The average male time was 69 seconds...

The average female time was over 80 seconds...

People massively underestimate the speed of even relatively low level track athletes in comparison to the general population.

Okay this is quite detailed response, I will share my view as a female who has been training for speed for a few years.

I going sub 1:10 with a fair bit of training would be more realistic for a lot of people, you may have to change that standard to 1:30 for some people though. I do believe that getting under 1:00 is the sort of time that seperates the athletic outliers from the rest of society, if you are able to get that quick I am not disputing you haven’t tried hard but it isn’t training alone tha has got you there. A lot of people here think because they can fart out fast mile after fast mile at X pace that the average person should be able to run that pace for a measily minute or two but it isn’t that simple. I am not fast by any standard on this website and according to a lot of threads here - 8 year old boys could probably run all over me with little training, I ran a 20:40 5k last week and I am 100% positive that I know very few women (out of my female friends in their 20s) who would be able to hold my 5k pace for 400m without a considerable level difficulty - and I am talking about the ones who are at healthy weights here.

For reference, I am a female who started running 6 years ago to battle my declining physical health and bad habits, I have a family history of cardiovascular disease and I really did not want to follow in the same footsteps as some of my family members who are now crippled. I was already at a borderline obese BMI and experiencing abnormal results on my thyroid labs when I went to the doctor complaining of fatigue so I decided to dedicate myself to running. My first ever 400m was well over 2 minutes and my mile was just over 10 minutes and even at that point in my fitness journey, I was probably still a better runner than most of my female friends. And as I stated that my first ever 400m was over 2:00 and probably closer to 2:30, it has taken me 6 years of consistant running, being on a managed and nutritious diet, cutting out bad habits such as partying and overeating to actually run a ~1:10 400m. And I am in my prime, not only that - I have some natural athleticism and speed (I know this because I always used to kick butt on sports day as a kid without much effort) and a body aerodynamically suited for running fast due to narrow hips, I have a classic runner’s build... but yet, I am still quite a long way from hitting a ~1:00 lap even with all of the physical advantages I seem to have.

I can’t speak for males too well because I am female and I race against other females, so I’m not quite sure how difficult a ~1:00 lap would be for a male, from what I hear it is “not that hard” but I know guys have a reputation of hammering away at a task and then even if they worked their guts off would try and pass it off as “no big deal” or “just another day’s work” in attempt to make themselves come across as more skilled and laid-back. I don’t think it’s truly as easy as this board makes out, even for young males. Not one female in my sprints group can break a minute for a lap and when I look at our body types I do believe that us as a group are much more skilled at sprints than average, the group consists of a couple of lifelong ball players and honestly, you can tell just by looking at the faces of some of these women that they have much higher testosterone levels tham an average woman, clearly we have some level of advantage to even be part of such a group in the first place. The fastest is 1:04 and the slowest is 1:23, we are all in outstanding shape by societal standards.

silly sub 60s 400m thread wrote:

Most young and healthy men (unlike women) can run 15s/100m or 30s/200m. But 60s/400m, no way!

-15/30 speed equals about a 70 second quarter.

-You would need 13/27 speed at least to be capable of a 60 second quarter.

Less than 1% of all males right now could break 60. With training at a reasonable age, that figure would go towards 20%. Just because you see people break 60 all of the time doesn’t mean it’s average, high school track I see far from average.

That’s not terrible for a female.

Yezzy wrote:

I can’t speak for males too well because I am female and I race against other females, so I’m not quite sure how difficult a ~1:00 lap would be for a male

The "conversion" typically used is to multiply women's 200 times to get men's 400 times. This works well at all levels.

A sub 22 200 for a female and a sub 44 400 for a male means you'll have a chance at winning an Olympic medal.

A sub 25 200 for a female and a sub 50 400 for a male is a back of the pack D1 time, a slightly above average D2 time, a good D3 time, and a very good HS time.

A sub 28 200 for a female and a sub 56 400 for a male is a mid pack HS varsity time, a good frosh soph time, and a very good middle school time.

So a sub 30 200 for a female is about equivalent to a sub 60 400 for a male. As another guideline, women are 12-14% slower than men in the 400, so a sub 60 400 for a guy is probably a sub 68 400 for a girl.

Assistant coach wrote:

Yezzy wrote:

I can’t speak for males too well because I am female and I race against other females, so I’m not quite sure how difficult a ~1:00 lap would be for a male

The "conversion" typically used is to multiply women's 200 times by 2 to get men's 400 times. This works well at all levels.

Fixed.

You could almost certainly have run the equivalent of a male sub 60 400 if you started young and devoted your life to it.

Little talent required wrote:

In general, no. Too many people are overweight or otherwise lacking the necessary fitness. If you took only healthy men from 18-30 and gave them specific 400m training for 6 months, the majority would break 60.

No they wouldn’t.

The answer is still NO!!