40 Yard Dash Times

Training Powerlifting & Strength Sports
21

[quote]hazarddude334 wrote:
4.15 is the fastest in the nfl that ever happened and he wasnt much of a player.

and i think a lot of people are lieing about how fast they run 4.6 in high school and still not in 10th grade yeah ok if your doing that then your probally one of the best athelets in your state and a future friggin star.

most full back run a 4.8 to a 4.9 in the nfl
i run a 5.0 im a fullback and i dont ever train for the 40 yard dash hardly applies to football its about stop and go speed of the ball speed and thats were my skill is
at least there is two times that are correct that are up here lol[/quote]

Very accurate post. Been around combines for the last few years now and you rarely see the legitimate low 40’s like people talk about so casually on the internet. On the internet everybody benches 350 and runs a 4.4. In real life, legit timed, it’s not like that. Ask Hoosierdaddy on this site, he plays college football too and has been around this stuff and knows his shit…

22

When I was playing football and going to combines prior to college, I remember guys bustin out 4.5’s being considered blazing. A 4.8 is pretty damn fast for the “average” guy. #1 high school running back in the country ran a 4.52 last year. Jonathan Stewart is his name. So this 4.4-4.6 hand timed is really like 4.7-4.9 I would bet. I ran an electronic 4.78 when I was a senior in high school. For the original poster, don’t be disappointed in your 4.88. That time ain’t half bad.

23

Improving your 40 time has to be taken serious. Like a lot of the other guys have already mentioned, it does not always translate into a great ball player. Unfortunatley, Coaches and scouts have put a tremendous amount of weight on those times…regarding draft status and scholarship offers. So for all those who say the 40 are not a big deal, well you are f.o.s. Because it is for HS and College athletes.

Get stronger and you will be faster…work on your 10 and start phase. There are about 12-15 parts about the 40 yard dash. The acceleration phase should last longer then 10 yards…that’s for sure. Think 10 in 5-6 strides and then you are moving. The top speed/max velocity starts from 15-35yds depending on who the athlete is. I have had the chance to train the two fastest NFL 40’s the past two years, and their acceleration phase did not END until around 32-35 yards.

As far as all of the sub 4.4’s…well that is a load of crap. In working with ELITE athletes for the past 5 years, i have seen a handful of sub 4.4’s. If you are running 4.6-4.7-4.8 as a young HS runningback, you are doing just fine. Get yourself ready for Combines, camps and workouts in the winter and spring…once summer hits, get yourself ready for football.

Most training principles can overlap for your season, but if you really want to drop your 40, you must train for it. Train for it consistently…not sporadically.

Get ready for ball…it’s July 31st,
SP

24

[quote]WRCortese5 wrote:
4.56 handtimed… the 40 is tough to master… I’ve been stuck at the 4.61-4.56 range forever… frustrating… I will bust a 4.4 soon when I get my start down and improve my numbers on OL’s/Squats… Parrallel squat ~400, Hang Clean ~225… I also noticed that alot of guys can run good 40’s but after that can’t run for shit… others might not have good 40’s but their field speed might be way better than a guy that runs a 4.2 or 4.3… Interesting stuff… I am more of a 400m runner type anyways, never was a blazing 100m sprinter, but have decent enough speed and stamina to maintain over 400m. (50.3 4x4 split)[/quote]

…yeah there are only a few people who can catch me on the field… its weird… i guess i’m a distance runner???

25

As the former FB posted (forgot your name), 40 times are useless in football. You want to develop your first step, change of direction, short-range acceleration and reaction time. Those are THE most important “speed/quickness” skills in football. That’s why some guys with sick 40 times are worthless football players. The difference between a good FB player with speed and a “track” guy is their ability to change direction in a dynamic environment where a LB is trying to take your head off or where you’re trying to make an open field tackle.

26

[quote]ZEB wrote:
My son is just 12 years old and ran a 5.3 40yd. dash.

I was impressed, but know little about how other 12 year olds rank.

Is 5.3 good, average or below average for a 12 year old kid?

(He can also nail 24 consecutive dead hang chins ;)[/quote]

Get your kid off the Juice

(i mean the orange juice lol)

For 12, you got a little athlete on your hands.

27

[quote]Panther1015 wrote:
As the former FB posted (forgot your name), 40 times are useless in football. You want to develop your first step, change of direction, short-range acceleration and reaction time. Those are THE most important “speed/quickness” skills in football. That’s why some guys with sick 40 times are worthless football players. The difference between a good FB player with speed and a “track” guy is their ability to change direction in a dynamic environment where a LB is trying to take your head off or where you’re trying to make an open field tackle.[/quote]

True but if you don’t have a good 40x you don’t get scouted. So oh well.

28

I disagree Xen. Recruiters scout games, not numbers. No one mails in a tape of their workout hoping to get a scholarship. They mail game tape.

Look at most NFL running backs. Ricky Williams slower than a good number of high school receivers. Jerome Bettis, now I know I can outrun his ass. Though the only prayer I have of tackling him is hoping he trips on my face mask after he runs my ass over.

If you can play football, your numbers mean nothing. Only if you can’t play, then do numbers matter. If Matt Jones had 3500 yards and 30 touchdowns, no one would care what his numbers were. But since he can’t play QB, but happens to be a great athlete, someone is going to make him a project.

29

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
I was wondering what kind of split an olympic sprinter would hit for 40 yards? I mean, at 9.8 for 100 meters, and maybe a peak speed of 11 meters/second, they’d have to be covering the first 40 METERS in about 4 seconds flat which would be about 3.6-3.7 for 40 yards? Just a curiosity.

I have read a lot about sprinting, but I’m not fast.

I do know that an extensive study showed that for every 1 percent decrease in bodyfat % athletes (football players) 40 times dropped 0.05 seconds, and that it was cause and effect-if a player lost fat, he got faster, down to some critical level (6-7 percent) where it stopped helping.

I also know that there are 2 clearly different types of sprinters in the world. (sometimes called flyers and swingers). Flyers, like Owens and Lewis have very ordinary stride lengths (2 meters max) but stride frequencies that are at the limit of ability (around 5 strides/second). Swingers like Green have very ordinary stride frequencies (just under 4/second) but amazing stride lengths out to around 2.7 meters (almost 9 feet!)

[/quote]

Eh, your first line of thought is a little faulty mert.

  1. I remember hearing from Rob Rose (CSCS and a foremost expert on first step quickness and reaction timing) that roughly 0.7 seconds is lost on the start of a 40 yard sprint. By this he means that a runner would be .7 seconds faster if he were running at about 80% acceleration thru the start vs. starting from a standstill (no blocks either).

  2. You have to take into account the drive phase will be longer then the phase of maximum speed, therefore you can’t take the time, divide by distance, and find what would be the time for every 10 m segment.

  3. The 100 m and 40 yd dash are two different badboys all together. People good at the 40 tend to have explosive acceleration and a good top speed. Those running the hundred tend to have good top speed but also great sprint endurance. The person who wins the 100 isn’t always the fastest in terms of top speed, but instead the sprinter who is able to maintain a higher speed for a longer period of time.

  4. If you look at the Rome '87 race between Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis, it’s interesting to see how their 10m splits break down:

Johnson 0-10 meters: 1.86 seconds
Lewis: 1.94

Johnson 10-20: 2.87 (1.01 split)
Lewis: 2.97 (1.03 split)

Johnson 20-30: 3.8 (0.93 split)
Lewis: 3.92 (0.93 split)

Johnson 30-40: 4.66 (0.89 split)
Lewis: 4.77 (0.9) split

Johnson ended up winning that race and setting the world record with a time of 9.83.

What’s interesting about this race is the following: Johnson had an average stride length of 2.16 m per second, Lewis was 2.29 m. Johnson’s average frequency of steps was 4.7 (steps per second) and Lewis’s was 4.4. This race actually dissproves common theory that the person with the best sprint endurance usually wins because Lewis ended up having a better 2nd half to the race, Johnson just happened to have a great start that particular race (Some say johnson pulled up). I think this worried Johnson and was the eventual reason to why he felt neccessary to use roids in the upcoming 88 games, but we’ll never know.

It’s commonly estimated that the best 100m sprinters in the world would run somewhere in the neighboorhood of 4.4 speed in the 40 yd dash. Mike Bennett, Vikings running back and owner of a legit 4.3 40 yard time, runs the 100m in 10.1 - 10 flat time.

30

[quote]speed wrote:
hazarddude334 wrote:
4.15 is the fastest in the nfl that ever happened and he wasnt much of a player.

and i think a lot of people are lieing about how fast they run 4.6 in high school and still not in 10th grade yeah ok if your doing that then your probally one of the best athelets in your state and a future friggin star.

most full back run a 4.8 to a 4.9 in the nfl
i run a 5.0 im a fullback and i dont ever train for the 40 yard dash hardly applies to football its about stop and go speed of the ball speed and thats were my skill is
at least there is two times that are correct that are up here lol

Very accurate post. Been around combines for the last few years now and you rarely see the legitimate low 40’s like people talk about so casually on the internet. On the internet everybody benches 350 and runs a 4.4. In real life, legit timed, it’s not like that. Ask Hoosierdaddy on this site, he plays college football too and has been around this stuff and knows his shit…

[/quote]

This is so true. I can’t even count how many websites I’ve been to where I’ve told people that I ran ONLY a 4.67 as a wide receiver, only to hear about a 1000 highschool sophmores tell me they run legit sub 4.5s and that I was too slow to play reciever. I had to work thru all of highschool to get my 40 to where it is, so thanks alot guys (rolls eyes).

Like FB, I too have trained elite athletes and been around them, and I’ve only seen a handfull of legit sub 4.4 boys. If an athelte over the internet were to tell me he benched 350 i’d be alot more likely to beleive him then if he told me he ran 4.5.

And Speed, thank you for the kind words.

31

They might run actually run 4.5 by a generous coach and a timer. You can’t fault them for not knowing any better. Put them on lasers and touchpads and we’ll see what really happens.

32

[quote]Panther1015 wrote:
That’s why some guys with sick 40 times are worthless football players.[/quote]

who?

33

[quote]hoosierdaddy wrote:
Johnson 0-10 meters: 1.86 seconds
Lewis: 1.94

Johnson 10-20: 2.87 (1.01 split)
Lewis: 2.97 (1.03 split)

Johnson 20-30: 3.8 (0.93 split)
Lewis: 3.92 (0.93 split)

Johnson 30-40: 4.66 (0.89 split)
Lewis: 4.77 (0.9) split

Johnson ended up winning that race and setting the world record with a time of 9.83.

What’s interesting about this race is the following: Johnson had an average stride length of 2.16 m per second, Lewis was 2.29 m. Johnson’s average frequency of steps was 4.7 (steps per second) and Lewis’s was 4.4. This race actually dissproves common theory that the person with the best sprint endurance usually wins because Lewis ended up having a better 2nd half to the race, Johnson just happened to have a great start that particular race (Some say johnson pulled up). I think this worried Johnson and was the eventual reason to why he felt neccessary to use roids in the upcoming 88 games, but we’ll never know.

It’s commonly estimated that the best 100m sprinters in the world would run somewhere in the neighboorhood of 4.4 speed in the 40 yd dash. Mike Bennett, Vikings running back and owner of a legit 4.3 40 yard time, runs the 100m in 10.1 - 10 flat time.
[/quote]

Thanks, and very interesting. What I did was way underestimate these guys top speed. Based on this, both of them covered the last 60 meters at about 11.5 METERS! per second (12.6 yards/second). Peak speed is truly a rare thing. We had a 280 pound lineman electronically timed and broken down on video and he ran the first 10 yards in 1.59, 20 in 2.87, 30 in 4.02 and 40 in 5.17. For a ten yard burst he was amazing, but notice that he peaked out at less than 9 yards/second.

34

[quote]hoosierdaddy wrote:
speed wrote:
hazarddude334 wrote:
4.15 is the fastest in the nfl that ever happened and he wasnt much of a player.

and i think a lot of people are lieing about how fast they run 4.6 in high school and still not in 10th grade yeah ok if your doing that then your probally one of the best athelets in your state and a future friggin star.

most full back run a 4.8 to a 4.9 in the nfl
i run a 5.0 im a fullback and i dont ever train for the 40 yard dash hardly applies to football its about stop and go speed of the ball speed and thats were my skill is
at least there is two times that are correct that are up here lol

Very accurate post. Been around combines for the last few years now and you rarely see the legitimate low 40’s like people talk about so casually on the internet. On the internet everybody benches 350 and runs a 4.4. In real life, legit timed, it’s not like that. Ask Hoosierdaddy on this site, he plays college football too and has been around this stuff and knows his shit…

This is so true. I can’t even count how many websites I’ve been to where I’ve told people that I ran ONLY a 4.67 as a wide receiver, only to hear about a 1000 highschool sophmores tell me they run legit sub 4.5s and that I was too slow to play reciever. I had to work thru all of highschool to get my 40 to where it is, so thanks alot guys (rolls eyes).

Like FB, I too have trained elite athletes and been around them, and I’ve only seen a handfull of legit sub 4.4 boys. If an athelte over the internet were to tell me he benched 350 i’d be alot more likely to beleive him then if he told me he ran 4.5.

And Speed, thank you for the kind words.

[/quote]

Since you are talking about a HS Sophomore and i posted my 40 time at 4.69 i think it is safe to assume you are talking about me? Well i’ll have you know that this is a real number to the extent of my knowledge. Our coach handtimes us yes, but he also adds on a number (i dont remember what exactly) to get a more accurate time that takes into account human error. I also have the 4th fastest time out of our WHOLE team of about 110 high school students. I have also been doing track alot longer than football.

35

i think shit like 3 cone drill should be more important. change of direction is gonna be a lot more helpful then being able to run 40s.

36

4.7 electric weighing in @ 217 lbs and not running for MONTHS before hand . than ran a 4.6.

37

I say… When running… think of breaking the speed of sound. I like to think of that when doing the 40.(the wind increases as you get faster in your ears and your legs feel like they are pistons)

My head hurts… All these splits and everything and combines and Hs, College, nfl, track stars. Just be good at all the skills and everything will be fine. If you can’t get off the press you won’t find much of a use running a fade at 4.4 speed anyway. And if your a running back better have some fast acceleration speed AFTER getting hit. Besides, if you fall down you are not going to use any 4.4 speed anyway. Besides you if you are on offense you will probably have to block sometimes and speed probably won’t help much there. If you’re running a comeback or a cross and you don’t control your speed running through the pack you may get killed.(happens plenty enough) So running a 4.4 all the time may not be very convincing of the corners.

Hey, and sometimes you just want to crack the linebacker and then generating that much speed will be fun but you still will need to get your hands out and drop him.

I can think of 3 good things about a fast 40 time.

(1) “what’s your 40 time?” nearly always comes up and it’s nice to *say "I run a 4.4 and I’m the fastest on the team. In other words, people like to ask and hear what it is.

(2) It feels cool to just open up

(3) It’s good if you’re running a fade(W/R) or if a corner is on your hip. You will usually pull away slighty and then you get the ball.( you could always bypass that and just blast him to startle him and then your open) You could also “break his ankles” but that is quickness so you got some options or other things to work on.) But it can come in handy if you are a W/R.

So what have we learned? People love to talk about the 40. So if you got it… Entertain them. It feels good to run I think and I just like the feeling of the speed.(besides it’s not like you get that many opportunities to run like that in football anyway. So it’s fun and LIBERATING. It can be handy if you are a W/R. Doesn’t mean it will, but it can be on certain things. It’s variable. Be well rounded and play the game. ( Be good at the 40 and be quick and be strong and be big and be explosive and endure and get your hands under the side of their shoulder pad and fold them in half and don’t forget to change speeds and wait till the corner stops and then burst into him and knock him on his back and sit in that hole. That kinda stuff. Running backs keep you legs firing and don’t foget to exlode into their hip when cutting. Accelerate fast when daylight occurs and for god sake don’t fumble the ball. Go through the mesh or the mess of defensive lineman with both hands on both tips of the ball and get low. Anytime you are about to be in contact two hands on the ball.(you would think this does not need to be said…lol) If there is a fumble close your eyes cause some sick people spit and it’s horrible. Not to mention nasty and you don’t like it when you get that mad. LOL.

The only technical thing I could say is think about being a jet and breaking the speed of sound. Whatever fancies the imagination.

Oh yeah, just wanted to add something… Most of the time you won’t be running a 4.4 anyway even if it is a deep route. Because, lets not forget you are running all the freakin time and you get winded and technique then probably becomes more important. AND… What? you plan on just gliding past the finish line? If you can’t slow down in a hurry how are you going to get out of your breaks quick?

Brace yourself, because you may be getting shoved, pushed, grabbed, and sometimes you are just fighting to get a step. At that point, it’s not about the 40 anymore it’s about survival. If you are in the ball park? (that doesn’t sound right) of 4.2-4.8 cool tools. Always wor k on getting faster with everything anyway… AND yes, some people lie about their 40 times. One of the HB said he ran a 4.2 with this safety a day before the timings(why?) and I was like damn that’s great bro. But when the 2 coaches timing everyone waited for him to go he ended up running a 4.6 and 4.7. I just don’t like it when people ask what you run and then dog you when you tell them 4.4, done by two coaches and they say… “Well it’s not accu track” CRY. I just say "tack on another tenth of a second or two if it makes you feel better. Besides, we are talking about like one or two steps anyway. Fast is fast… unless of course you are in the olympics and then those steps could of course be that of getting a gold and getting 5th.

under 4.7 is balls enjoy a pancake and a cigar or perhaps a crepe and a pipe. No?
ohh that’s a keeper… quick take it away. Let the shoe-sting begin.

-Get Lifted

38

I’ve never tested my 40. I think it would be alright. I have no electronic device or anything though. What if I stopped the stopwatch to record my time and not someone else. Being honest with myself also. Would that be better than letting someone else do it for me?

dl-

39

[quote]dl- wrote:
I’ve never tested my 40. I think it would be alright. I have no electronic device or anything though. What if I stopped the stopwatch to record my time and not someone else. Being honest with myself also. Would that be better than letting someone else do it for me?

dl-[/quote]

Other people doing it is alright. I would say to make sure it’s with the same person so you can have the best accuracy possible. Stopwatch is fine. You can work off a stopwatch time. Unless you want to put a number on your hip and get into blocks. Recording yourself would be interesting… ( probably not the best thing man :slight_smile:

-Get Lifted

40

[quote]ZEB wrote:
(He can also nail 24 consecutive dead hang chins ;)[/quote]

Oh shut up. :slight_smile: