How hard is it to go sub 50 in the 400 meters?

Old guy34 wrote:

powerofreason wrote:

Any woman who can break 50 seconds is a legitimate Olympic medal contender. In other words, there are very few of them. Joe Median has nowhere near the running ability of the top women at any distance. Not even close.

Ok, not everyone can do it. But comparing to women isn't a great arguement. It's what good, not great, high school boys can do. If a reasonably athletic man in his prime got coached by Clyde Hart for years, they could break 50.

You suggested in an earlier post that perhaps 50% of 22-year-old men could run under 50 seconds for 400m if they were trained.

The comparison with women is completely valid because sub-50 is top-notch for a woman-- and a guy in the 50th percentile has nothing close to the running ability of an elite woman, I don't care how much he trains or who his coach is.

Ex Jock Strap wrote:

tricky todd wrote:

How hard would it be? Granted the individual is not overweight, fairly athletic and strong. Is it impossible for most people to go sub 50 in the quarter even if they train years for it?

For a sub 50 you have to be a big state final level sprinter. Not too many of those walking the streets. sub 1 minute it's decent conditioning with decent but not really sprinter speed(for a man). Sub 50 is high school sprinter speed with excellent conditioning.

Here were the results of my states final this year. Note everyone ran sub 50, even in the prelims. I didn’t even make it to states when I was running. It's not some world class time.

Event 14 Boys 400 Meter Dash

================================================================================

OHSAA Div. 1: % 45.59 6/2/1990 Chris Nelloms, Dayton Dunbar

State Meet 1: # 45.59 6/2/1990 Chris Nelloms, Dayton Dunbar

Owens Stad.: @ 46.61 6/4/2016 Tyler Johnson, Dayton Stivers

Name Year School Prelims Finals Points

================================================================================

Finals

1 871 Nicholas Pearson 12 Mason 48.06 47.82 10

2 724 Brendon Lucas 12 Boardman 48.74 48.21 8

3 209 Desmond Melson 12 Watkins Memo 47.41 48.33 6 48.323

4 917 Lonzell Feagin 11 Canal Winche 49.02 48.33 5 48.328

5 525 Zion Wynn 11 Loveland 48.95 48.52 4

6 23 Rico Stafford 12 Lima Senior 48.69 48.63 3

7 519 Jayvonta Tolliver 11 Pick. North 49.28 49.05 2

8 934 Dominique Long 11 Wester. Sout 48.12 49.25 1

9 900 Terry Spurney 12 Roosevelt 49.17 49.39

Old guy34 wrote:

Here were the results of my states final this year. Note everyone ran sub 50, even in the prelims. I didn’t even make it to states when I was running. It's not some world class time.

Event 14 Boys 400 Meter Dash

================================================================================

OHSAA Div. 1: % 45.59 6/2/1990 Chris Nelloms, Dayton Dunbar

State Meet 1: # 45.59 6/2/1990 Chris Nelloms, Dayton Dunbar

Owens Stad.: @ 46.61 6/4/2016 Tyler Johnson, Dayton Stivers

Name Year School Prelims Finals Points

================================================================================

Finals

1 871 Nicholas Pearson 12 Mason 48.06 47.82 10

2 724 Brendon Lucas 12 Boardman 48.74 48.21 8

3 209 Desmond Melson 12 Watkins Memo 47.41 48.33 6 48.323

4 917 Lonzell Feagin 11 Canal Winche 49.02 48.33 5 48.328

5 525 Zion Wynn 11 Loveland 48.95 48.52 4

6 23 Rico Stafford 12 Lima Senior 48.69 48.63 3

7 519 Jayvonta Tolliver 11 Pick. North 49.28 49.05 2

8 934 Dominique Long 11 Wester. Sout 48.12 49.25 1

9 900 Terry Spurney 12 Roosevelt 49.17 49.39

Jesus god, what the actual f*ck is wrong with you. Do you know what "average" means? Do you get that the times you posted are the top 10 out of at least hundreds of kids in that state who run the event?

The OP did not say average. He said athletic and strong. I think with hard training, an athletic, strong man in his prime could do what high school boys do. Another poster in hs even said it's fairly common.

OP asked if it was impossible for most people. Even if you only consider men, it is impossible for the vast majority. Taking a list of the top 10 runners in an entire state is not representative of most individuals

Old guy34 wrote:

The OP did not say average. He said athletic and strong. I think with hard training, an athletic, strong man in his prime could do what high school boys do. Another poster in hs even said it's fairly common.

Yes basic stats for the guy:

2x bw in squat (below parallel), able to do fairly heavy lunges/single leg work, 30 plus inch vertical jump. But not extremely gifted for running, no super long Achilles tendon and no classic runner built.

Old guy34 wrote:

The OP did not say average. He said athletic and strong. I think with hard training, an athletic, strong man in his prime could do what high school boys do. Another poster in hs even said it's fairly common.

The OP said "most people" which by definition means the average in the context of asking what percentage of the population can run sub-50. Every one of those boys in that state 400m final is in the top 0.01% of the population genetically and on their worst day can produce a time well beyond the reach of what most people could do with any amount of training.

Smooth Daddy wrote:

Old guy34 wrote:

The OP did not say average. He said athletic and strong. I think with hard training, an athletic, strong man in his prime could do what high school boys do. Another poster in hs even said it's fairly common.

The OP said "most people" which by definition means the average in the context of asking what percentage of the population can run sub-50. Every one of those boys in that state 400m final is in the top 0.01% of the population genetically and on their worst day can produce a time well beyond the reach of what most people could do with any amount of training.

Ok, most people can't. But most people aren't athletic and strong to begin with, so we're starting out with a bit of contradiction.

Most can't I suppose. But I think a lot more could than you think. But what kind of grown ass man is going to put the work in to do that? There's no reward for a good, but not elite time like that. Trust me, I know

Old guy34 wrote:

The OP did not say average. He said athletic and strong. I think with hard training, an athletic, strong man in his prime could do what high school boys do. Another poster in hs even said it's fairly common.

It's not common in HS though. Sub 50 in HS is excellent and a state final caliber time in around 40 states. It's not going to get you far anywhere big--hell, somewhere like California or Texas a 50.0 won't get you into a regional final let alone a state prelim--but it's still a very solid HS time.

Again, athletic.net lists 1510 HS guys sub 50 last season out of about 75000 performances. That's 2% of all high school quartermilers--an already self selecting participant base. And that's not even including the quartermilers too slow for coaches to ever put them in invites who thus never get times recorded on athletic.net.

Yeah but high school training isn't that rigorous. At least mine wasn't. If a man, not boy, trained his ass off, more could do it than 2%.

Like I said, I did it. I'm just a skinny white guy who could never even break 18 for a 5k.

Old guy34 wrote:

Yeah but high school training isn't that rigorous. At least mine wasn't. If a man, not boy, trained his ass off, more could do it than 2%.

Like I said, I did it. I'm just a skinny white guy who could never even break 18 for a 5k.

The key is that this is 2% of a self selecting participant base. These are kids who think they have the speed to be decent quartermilers. The speedy soccer/basketball players who come out for track. The football WRs and TEs who do track. The kids that have gone to their local track club and trained to sprint since they were grade schoolers. The kids who consider themselves pretty darn fit.

Also consider that many of the kids running sub 50 in HS are pretty physically developed--sure there are some skinny white guys in that 1500 kid sample (I was and it sounds like you were too!) but a very large number of them are the 6'4, 200 lb dudes that have been lifting since 7th grade and have more natural testosterone than most guys ever will.

You guys could be right, I just never saw myself as something special. I never won any big invitationals, there was a dude in my league that ran sub 48. But I guess that is a selective sample.

Fine, I'll take credit for having top 1% 400m speed haha. Still it's crazy to think that 50 seconds is still 60m or so behind van niekerk.

But we'll never really know until every man is required to do a 3 year intense 400m training

Smooth Daddy wrote:

I put the average male around 13.0 for 100m with little room for improvement.

No way, not even close to that fast. Not even flying. And blocks, that's 11.75 flying, light years further away.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Smooth Daddy wrote:

I put the average male around 13.0 for 100m with little room for improvement.

No way, not even close to that fast. Not even flying. And blocks, that's 11.75 flying, light years further away.

Ok, 13.0 is suck ass slow, I won't change that. I'll cede that "most" can't run sub 50. I guess it just seemed possible to me since I did it.

I guess whatever you can't do seems hard. A 16:00 5k seems way harder and more unattainable to me than a 50 sec 400m

Old guy34 wrote:

You guys could be right, I just never saw myself as something special. I never won any big invitationals, there was a dude in my league that ran sub 48. But I guess that is a selective sample.

I feel you there--I went to school in one of the big SoCal track leagues and at the end of my sophomore year where I went around 51 flat, my coach told me that if I ever wanted to be competitive and have a chance at placing in big meets I'd have to move up to the 8.

agreed.there were 6-7 guys on my team between 48.9 - 50.5, some were 100/200/400 guys, the rest of us were 400/800 guys.we basically ran 25 miles a week, everything on the track or on the grass inside the track. Clyde Hart kinds of stuff. Never did anything longer than 400m intervals. Ran 3:18 and 7:47 relays, 3 guys ran 1:55 in the opensome of us ran 16:20's in XCyou have to have natural speed to run under 50, but you also just need to develop it for a few years. squats, cleans, explosive stuff. it's a simple recipe, and if you are a H.S. coach, i recommend training that way. if you have 400m-800m studs, you can win state championships with all the events your guys can run (some can go up to 1600m, some can run 100/200m

Old guy34 wrote:

I don't know guys. If 1500 high schoolers are doing it, what about 22 year old with college coaching and strength training? I know most people don't get that kind of training, but surely a lot (50%?) Could break 50 with those resources.

I just don't see myself as a special runner, but did it as a senior in hs. Yeah it was hard, but our training was a joke compared to college programs

HurdleMVP wrote:

Old guy34 wrote:

You guys could be right, I just never saw myself as something special. I never won any big invitationals, there was a dude in my league that ran sub 48. But I guess that is a selective sample.

I feel you there--I went to school in one of the big SoCal track leagues and at the end of my sophomore year where I went around 51 flat, my coach told me that if I ever wanted to be competitive and have a chance at placing in big meets I'd have to move up to the 8.

I guess that's why USA always wins the 4x4. Too many good quarter milers. It seemed to be my sweet spot. I died in the 800 and didn't quite have the top end speed for 200

Old guy34 wrote:

I don't know guys. If 1500 high schoolers are doing it, what about 22 year old with college coaching and strength training? I know most people don't get that kind of training, but surely a lot (50%?) Could break 50 with those resources.

They are in that top few %

Bad Wigins wrote:

Smooth Daddy wrote:

I put the average male around 13.0 for 100m with little room for improvement.

No way, not even close to that fast. Not even flying. And blocks, that's 11.75 flying, light years further away.

Definitely some overrating of the average guy's running ability. And forgetting that many people are better at 800m and farther than at sprints. There are elite male marathoners who wouldn't break 13.0 from the blocks.

I found this link to the Cooper Test percentiles for 300-meter times.

For men aged 20-29, the 50th percentile at 300m is 56 seconds. That would translate to about 1:20 for 400m.