Running under 50 for 400m

A sensible 400 programme should see your 200 drop anyway.

The question is more likely what aren't you including in your 400 work at the moment?

sprinter follower wrote:

I'm a college freshman and can run 52 in the 400. I want to run under 50 seconds. My fastest 200 is 23.9. I read that the minimum speed to break 50 is 22.9. Should I focus all of my training to improve my speed to get under 23?

It's really about body weight than anything else. The better your power to weight ratio the higher likelyhood that you will run faster.

I would focus in on reducing bodyweight and at the same time increasing power in the gym and lifting more.

Do that first. Then test the 200. And yeah you would need around 22.74 to break 50 in the 400. That's a FAT 22.74 too.

Focus in on getting the fat off your lower abs, lower back, butt, and that should increase your power to weight ratio.

You need to work on both your optimum sprint speed and your optimum sprint stamina. That will maybe take you sub 50 .And did you know in later years physicians found that the demand for aerob capacity at 400 is a little bit higher than thought the years before. Besides a lot can happen when you still grow…..Good luck!

-The Magic Wizard -

matt_london_413 wrote:

sprinter follower wrote:

I'm a college freshman and can run 52 in the 400. I want to run under 50 seconds. My fastest 200 is 23.9. I read that the minimum speed to break 50 is 22.9. Should I focus all of my training to improve my speed to get under 23?

It's really about body weight than anything else. The better your power to weight ratio the higher likelyhood that you will run faster.

I would focus in on reducing bodyweight and at the same time increasing power in the gym and lifting more.

Do that first. Then test the 200. And yeah you would need around 22.74 to break 50 in the 400. That's a FAT 22.74 too.

Focus in on getting the fat off your lower abs, lower back, butt, and that should increase your power to weight ratio.

How can you possibly know that from what the poster has said. He could be a world class weightlifter for all we know. This is really poor advice.

Interesting discussion.

I'm currently involved with a team that has an all-American long jumper. Last year the asst. coach for sprints trained her primarily as a 400 runner.

That coach left and the head coach took over her running training. Reasoning that it should focus on developing top speed (to enhance her primary event, the LJ), he switched her over to more of a short-sprint routine. She's registered PRs at 60m and 200--and also brought her 400 down significantly, even with no real long-sprint emphasis. This supports the notion of improving pure speed in order to drop time in the 400.

That said: Speed endurance--the ability to *sustain* a high percentage of one's top speed--can also be enhanced. Many things help with this but research has shown that the best kind of workout for developing speed endurance is repetitions that have several changes of speed within each. Whistle drills, cone drills, even indian file runs, etc., all do this.

sprinter follower wrote:

I'm a college freshman and can run 52 in the 400. I want to run under 50 seconds. My fastest 200 is 23.9. I read that the minimum speed to break 50 is 22.9. Should I focus all of my training to improve my speed to get under 23?

Maturity and running will take care of the time for. Don;t sweat it.

Love to see this research!

AJ2000 wrote:

Love to see this research!

Umm. It was summarized (decades ago, now) in one of T&FN's compendia, which had a title on the order of "Sprints and relays: Contemporary theory, training, and technique" or some such.

It *may* also have appeared in Yessis's "Soviet Sports Review" but I'd have no idea of when. In any case I gave away all my training books years ago and would be very hard pressed to source this info again.

I was able to find out a little bit about the study's design and it seemed legit. Anyway BITD I used this--and other stuff, of course--to coach four walk-ons (i.e. unrecruited guys) to something like a 3:17 4x4, which at the time was considered fairly good for D3.

I've found that some of the very best coaches are reluctant to use change-of-speed reps because you can't get times to enter in your workout records. Or if you *do* time them, then the athletes start running to get a better time on the reps, which means they tend to make them almost the same speed throughout--defeating the whole point of using a variety of speeds.

One very effective drill we did: 200 like the first half of a 400m race; short rest (60sec or less?); then 40m sprint-40m float-40spr-40fl-40spr. (The "floats" mean taking your foot off the gas, but not touching the brakes--just letting the momentum from the preceding sprint carry you.) Walk for a few minutes and then repeat. We didn't need more than about three of those in a session.

sprinter follower wrote:

I'm a college freshman and can run 52 in the 400. I want to run under 50 seconds. My fastest 200 is 23.9. I read that the minimum speed to break 50 is 22.9. Should I focus all of my training to improve my speed to get under 23?

I guess we can assume that you don't have a coach and train by yourself.

Because otherwise the answer is simply to follow the program and train hard in practice.

Yes, you need to improve your 200m speed, but you don't have to train like a 200m runner.

College 400m training will lead to a better 200.

You will have to have days with workouts like 150m accelerations or pure cone to cone 30m sprints with a running start.

But there will also be a lot of 200m repeats for strength.

HILLS. Run all the hills.

Specifically, find some pretty steep hills of about 150-200m in length and run them hard like a sprinter, so that you're definitely anaerobic over the final 50m or more at the end of each. Six or eight reps of that, with a strict rest interval of no more than 4 minutes between each hill (this time includes the walk down) will kick your butt and will transform your power and anaerobic capacity... all of which will save your bacon over the final 150m of your 400m races to come. Repeat weekly during the off-season when there are no meets to be fresh for (and about every 10 days or so during the season), and of course as other posters have mentioned attend to your 200m pure speed as well.

To run sub-50 you'll need to become strong enough and efficient enough to hit the halfway point of the 400m race at your current PR of 23.9 so have any chance of coming through the second half in 26 (which added together gets you to 49.9). Good luck! Enjoy the burn.

There are so many variables in play here:

1) your current training program

2) body weight/composition

3) training background

4) sprint mechanics

Probably more.

My advice would be to take a speed-oriented approach to training. You're young, and will probably be able to hold on to some speed endurance as you build the raw force/turnover required to increase your max speed.

I was a quarter-miler for many years, and dabbled in the shorter sprints from time to time.

(100m: 10.79; 200m: 21.35; 400m: 46.75)

One season I started to get a little beat up/weary, and in preparation for the spring, my coach and I decided to focus on improving my max speed, and PRs in the 100 and 200. Sort of a building year I suppose. We did VERY little speed endurance work... one day/week of special endurance (250m, full recovery, 150m), and the rest was blocks, 120s from standing, stuff like that.

Anyway, I'd had almost no speed endurance training leading into the season, and after a few reasonably good races over 100 and 200, nearly posted a PR in the 400 (46.90 if I recall correctly).

The moral of the story is, everyBODY is different. It might take some trial and error and some further analysis from you and your coach, but I'm sure you guys will figure it out.

Hope that helps.

DR

sprinter follower wrote:

I'm a college freshman and can run 52 in the 400. I want to run under 50 seconds. My fastest 200 is 23.9. I read that the minimum speed to break 50 is 22.9. Should I focus all of my training to improve my speed to get under 23?

23 low for 200m should do it, for 50 sec 400m

the right program will get you there easy.

if you find yourself not improving, back off for a week and come back,

up to 1 week per month.

it will be hard to not progress this way...

longjack wrote:

sprinter follower wrote:

I'm a college freshman and can run 52 in the 400. I want to run under 50 seconds. My fastest 200 is 23.9. I read that the minimum speed to break 50 is 22.9. Should I focus all of my training to improve my speed to get under 23?

23 low for 200m should do it, for 50 sec 400m

the right program will get you there easy.

if you find yourself not improving, back off for a week and come back,

up to 1 week per month.

it will be hard to not progress this way...

absolutely not. 23 low is not fast enough.

I have always heard that 400m potential is ((200m time + 1) * 2) + 1). So for example if you ran 25.0 FAT 200m, you are capable of running 25 + 1 = 26 * 2 = 52 + 1= 53.

24 would be 51, etc.

Although this may be more for distance runners.

I myself ran 22.94 FAT and 49.3 FAT.

I was a miler for what its worth.

That’s actually the same as (200m time * 2) + 3.

And yes, I’ve heard the same equation. Though I believe it can vary between +3 and +5, depending on various factors.