What would the average man's 100m time be after a year of sprint training?

That's a 2015 sample...

Either most high school coaches suck, or most HS sprinters lack motivation. Or perhaps both are true.

In any case, the OP PR'd again yesterday with a time of 12.26. Pretty impressive for a guy who doesn't have a coach or regular access to the weight room and starting blocks. He's now faster than most of the sprinters on my high school track team.

He also shed a light on these threads:

Thank you unckear. I needed the ego boost :) i live in florida, so those times don't mean squat in the sprint world, even in middle school, since I'd have to actually train whatever energy systems that allow you to hold those paces for longer to translate those to even 100m potential.

BTW 400m in 67 and 8min. Later 200m in 31 PERSONAK BEST WOOP WOOP NO SHAME

https://www.strava.com/activities/936141482

https://www.strava.com/activities/936141483

Since i ran that 200 pooped out, its safe to say i'd probably run 30sec. Fresh. I ran 200m in 30sec, ask me anything XD

i ran 13 seconds,and 26.9 as a 21 year old,with no training,whatsoever.and i thought i was pretty hopeless at the time.im sure with training i could have run a lot faster,although i was a bit better at long distances.

0bi wrote:

Buddy of mine, an ex-army guy, 30 years old that does crossfit now, active in sports all his life and above average definitely in physical ability asked for my help to run sub-12.

He joined me and my training group speed sessions and other specific sprint work for half an year while doing other stuff like weightlifting and such on his own, so semi serious dedication.

You know what time he ended up with? 13.6x. Hand timed. No RT. So closer to 14 FAT.

I'd say the average male perform much worse then him even with an year of dedicated training.

I forgot to add that he ran it in flats, not spikes so maybe a bit faster then 14 FAT.

I was able to pull up the 50m and mile times for a sample of several thousand Australian kids. It said that Australian kids were slightly faster than "international norms" for the 50m.

For 15 year old boys in the 50m:

10th percentile: 8.6

50th percentile: 7.7

90th percentile: 7.1

95th percentile: 7.0

For 15 year old boys in the mile:

10th percentile: 8:51

50th percentile: 7:12

90th percentile: 6:13

95th percentile: 6:00

I doubt that you could pick a group of random 20-30 year olds and get 90% of them to run an 8:51 mile on the spot, so those times are probably a bit optimistic. As far as the 100m goes, you can subtract a second from those 50m times to get the next 50m since you don't need to accelerate. So an 8 second 50m would be a 15 second 100m (8 seconds first 100m, 7 seconds next 100m). Likely results:

For 15 year old boys in the 100m:

10th percentile: 16.2

50th percentile: 14.4

90th percentile: 13.2

95th percentile: 13.0

Keep in mind that the 95th percentile includes a lot of people already playing sports on a regular basis for at least a year. The effects of FAT timing and no spikes probably cancel each other out (a hand timed short sprint with no spikes would probably be close to an FAT time with spikes).

The OP's uncoached 12.26 is waaayyyy above average. He'd probably be in the mid 11's or better with years of training, a coach to watch his technique and form, and access to the weight room. Doubt more than 10% of the population could do that.

Reference:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51736727_Normative_health-related_fitness_values_for_children_Analysis_of_85347_test_results_on_9-17-year-old_Australians_since_1985

OP.

I love your story and determination.

You make me want to get back into it!

Thanks.

OP.

I love your story and determination.

You make me want to get back into it!

Thanks.

Nice story op.

I find a lot of people really can't understand sprinting speeds. Everyone thinks running 12 is easy but almost no one actually tried to do it. I don't race sprints, only long distance, but I had a friend time me once (no blocks) and got around 14, so I guess that's alright for someone like me.

Man, I coached some kids last summer that needed 7.2 in the 50m for Police Academy and 3:45 for 1000m. It was like I was training Gumby. Arms were spaghetty, no explosiveness, no nothing. They boys did alright and most of them got pretty close. Girls were damn cringey though. It was like slow motion

hobby sprinter wrote:

I also looked into doing deadlifts and squats, but decided that the risk of injury was too high since I would have to learn them from scratch and didn't have anyone to watch my form.

...

I don't know whether I'll keep doing this, try other events, or quit, but it's certainly been an interesting experience, and I'll keep everyone posted if I run any notable times.

TL; DR: I'm in my late 20s and consider myself to be an average person. A year's worth of decent, but not optimal, sprint training got me to a 12.38 100 (FAT, wind legal).

hobby sprinter wrote:

In case anyone's following this thread, I practiced my crouch starts and PR'd in the 100 today with a time of 12.26 (FAT, +0.3 m/s wind).

I broke 12 for the first time a few hours ago with a time of 11.98 (FAT, +2.4 m/s wind). It would have been just over 12 (12.01, according to various online calculators) if I got the maximum allowed 2.0 m/s tailwind for it to be wind legal.

Everything felt perfect. The weather was nice, and my warmup and 11.98 run felt incredibly smooth, relaxed, and fast. About 12-15 minutes before my run, I did a ~50m practice sprint on the opposite side of the track. It was done at 90-95% effort, and sheer momentum carried me another 50m to the 100m mark with no additional effort.

I added weight training to get my times down even further. I was new to it and didn't have a coach or spotter, so I didn't do the heavier and riskier exercises such as back squats, power cleans, and deadlifts. I just worked with dumbbells (weighted lunges, Bulgarian split squats, and stepups), machines (cable leg raises, glute kickbacks), and bodyweight exercises (glute ham raises, single leg glute bridges).

I also had someone videotape my practice runs and used it to fix my form. It's nowhere near perfect yet, but some of my worst mistakes (overstriding, uncoordinated arm movements, and no dorsiflexion) are almost completely fixed.

I finished last, but it was really cool to watch the guys in the fastest heat run in the low 10s. The winning time was 10.04(!), which would have been fast enough for a bronze medal in the 2000 Olympics.

College track season is over, so this will be my last update of the year. Next year's goal is to get a 23.xx 200 and a wind-legal sub 12 FAT time. Based on what I did, I truly believe the average guy can run in the high 11s given a year or two of training.

Thanks for reading, everyone!

Great job hobby sprinter!!!

This was a great read. Thanks for the posts, and good luck with your future sprinting endeavors.

This is a great thread.

Hobby Sprinter, Don't hang up your spikes yet for this year. Even though college track season may be over where you are, why not run in some summer all comer meets? Unless you live somewhere extremely rural, there's bound to be a series within 60 miles of you.

When it comes to sprinting you can't put in what God left out.

Even with training the average guy in 20's is not breaking 13

That 11.98 the OP just ran is better than the times of most sprinters in their senior year of high school. Shows you how bad most coaches are.

Great job, OP.

Attack of the drones wrote:

That 11.98 the OP just ran is better than the times of most sprinters in their senior year of high school. Shows you how bad most coaches are.

Great job, OP.

I'd really hope this is not the case around the country. It's definitely not the case in Southern California. Every sprinter on my track team was sub 10.8-10.9 with the best in the 10.6 range. Our team also had had a state champion who ran 10.26 a couple years before I got there (Pat Johnson, who played in the NFL). I doubt anyone sprinting JV was running that slowly.

And we were not considered a powerhouse program regionally or even in our conference, not close.

Attack of the drones wrote:

That 11.98 the OP just ran is better than the times of most sprinters in their senior year of high school. Shows you how bad most coaches are.

Great job, OP.

Amereeka wrote:

I'd really hope this is not the case around the country. It's definitely not the case in Southern California. Every sprinter on my track team was sub 10.8-10.9 with the best in the 10.6 range. Our team also had had a state champion who ran 10.26 a couple years before I got there (Pat Johnson, who played in the NFL). I doubt anyone sprinting JV was running that slowly.

Either you guys ran the 100 yards, or whoever was timing those meets did it based on "football timing" (start on runners' first movement to eliminate the reaction time and anticipate the finish a few yards early).

"Attack of the drones" is correct. Using a national sample from Athletic.net 2015 of seniors only, I got the following median times:

1600m: 5:04.4 sd = 32 (n =12352)

400m: 56.07 sd = 4.7 (n = 14780)

100m: 12.1 sd = 0.8 (n=15709)

I pulled the results from a random league meet in Southern California, and half of the varsity guys (4 out 8) didn't break 12. And this was the finals, which excludes all the other guys who ran in the prelims but failed to make the finals.

Results for reference:

curiosity made the cat faster wrote:

Even though college track season may be over where you are, why not run in some summer all comer meets? Unless you live somewhere extremely rural, there's bound to be a series within 60 miles of you.

It's not easy for most people to find an all-comers meet with FAT timing. Finding one with FAT timing and a wind-gauge is nearly impossible.