How much is too much weight for a 400m runner? I know this kid who ran 49.6 last year as a junior and weighed 171 lbs. He won his state weight class as a wrestler. This year he moved up to the 189 lb weight class and also won state.
What will 18lbs of muscle do for a 400m runner? Will he have that much more strength to power through the last 70 or so meters? Or will be just be too heavy and not able to carry his weight around the track as fast.
189 is a bit heavy for a 400m guy unless he's tall and if he's a wrestler I'd be he isn't. At some point you have muscle that's not doing you any good but it's kinda hard to get rid of it in a short period so I don't know what he could do.
Perhaps you should simply look at the physique of most world class 400m runners. They tend to be around the 6' mark and weigh around 175 - 180 or so. That seems to be the best approximate frame for a 400m runner. Fairly tall with a good bit of muscle mass without being too bulky. Runners like Wariner are the exception. But I doubt your friend is a freak of nature like Jeremy.
In your friend's case, that much more weight might be good for the 100m. But I would think that gaining 18 extra pounds in a year might slow him down if he has to carry it a quarter mile. How tall is this friend of yours?
He is 5'11" and very athletic. Very low body fat as you'd expect for a wrestler. He's got big goals in track, but I think he is too heavy. He's quick and flexible, not bulky. He's a solid 200m runner: 22.5. Not a great 100m guy, but does his job on the 4x100m.
5'11'' 190 with a lot of weight gained in the last year seems like a bad deal to me.
If he is wrestling at 189, that means that he walks around at at least 195.
Also, wrestling practices are typically longer than 400m practices, so he might continue to grow. If he is really serious about making it to the next level in 400m running, I would recommend that he slim down a little.
Kerron Clement is listed at 6'2"/184
Any more questions?
You are talking 400 meters, not marathons. Upper body strength on a 400 sprinter can help hold form together in the last 100 (many people have their arms get tired, which reduces the turnover). Also, for him to get faster in the 400, he will need to get faster in the 200, which means more top speed, which in turn means more acceleration power, and THAT requires strength.
He's probably ok as long as body fat remains low.
If his 200 time is 22.5 he is already a better 200 guy than 400. The extra weight will not help him in either event however. You need to convince him to put the weights down and focus more on just working with his own body weight for resistance through exercises like pullups, pushups,etc. But it will probably take a couple of bad races for him to realize this extra bulk isn't helping him.
MJ was 6-1 185 when he ran 43.18 of course that was MJ
johnsonrod wrote:
If his 200 time is 22.5 he is already a better 200 guy than 400.
That's wrong. The normal relationship from 200 to 400 is to double the 200 time and add 4 seconds, so his 200 and 400 times are roughly equivalent, and high school sprinters are normally weak on stamina. For him to get under 49, his 200 time has to go down, and that requires more strength. If he cannot do this, he needs to think about moving to middle distances.
What do you think Clyde Hart has said Wariner is going to be working on?
22.5 is a good 200m time, but it's not a great 200m time if he has "big" goals for track. He definetley needs more speed in the deuce if he wants to run really good 400m times. If he was a freshman I'd say he had plenty of time to improve, but if he's about to graduate he's probably not getting much faster before college. But then again, I don't know how much running this guy did before his junior year. If he just started last year then he might make alot more improvements. He sounds too big to be a middle distance runner, and not quite fast enough to be a competitive collegiate sprinter. He might want to stick to wrestling, unless he just started running, in which case he might end up being pretty good.
depends on the type of athlete or runner you are. We have a guy on the team who is about 5'11" of 6' and weighs around 200 lbs, he should run in the mid to low 47's this outdoor season. We have football players who have put on 15-25lbs in the past year from lifting and have dropped their 400 time by 2-3 seconds in the same amount of time. It all depends if it is usefull muscle or just weight.
22.5x2=45+4=49
49 is superior not equal to 49.6. .6 is a big difference in a race as short as a 400. Enough so to say that it is superior not equal to. But the idea to work on the 200 time to improve the 400 is always a good idea. However that is always a good idea no matter what the distance. If you can improve in the event below the one you are training for you will improve the others.