[quote]tedro wrote:
FFBMikey wrote:
The 40 is all about the start. The track athletes you just mentioned may have good closing speed in the 100m, but they cannot use that speed in the 40.
That’s ridiculous, and you obviously have no knowledge of the 100m.
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Ok, I might not be a All-State sprinter, but I have run plenty of 40s and 100m. They are completely different. Like eic said the 100 is 2.73 longer than the 40. How could the start not be more important in the 40? Why would trainers like DeFranco publish books about the 40 yard start?
[quote]FFBMikey wrote:
Ok, I might not be a All-State sprinter, but I have run plenty of 40s and 100m. They are completely different. Like eic said the 100 is 2.73 longer than the 40. How could the start not be more important in the 40? Why would trainers like DeFranco publish books about the 40 yard start?
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I never said the start wasn’t important in the 40. It is probably the only thing that can be improved in the 40 without increasing speed. When you train for 2 months for the event, it is pointless to try and actually increase speed, it’s not going to happen in that sort of time frame. So guys like DeFranco focus on the part of the dash where they can get immediate improvement, and in turn get their clients more money.
100m sprinters also spend a ton of time on the start, because even for them it is usually an area where there is the most room for improvement, especially for the less experienced sprinters. The difference is that these guys are training for years to run faster, and as a result will focus on the entire race.
Just because he has world record doesn’t mean these guys can’t approach his speed in the 40. I’m sorry but if your american and you have a chance for a gold medal or high profile football career with your speed, I would say 90% of the people would choose football. These guys run more 10 yard dashes in a game then he probably did in a week.
Unless you have Ben Johnson’s 40 time directly compared to their 40 times you can’t go about comparing the two using different lengths. Thats like saying theres no way someone can run a 100 meter dash faster than the world record 800. Theres a reason people run different lengths.
Second many football players are great 100 meter sprinters and the ones that convert usually lose a little something off there 40 speed when they do, or during track season.
ben johnson had one of the best start EVER! however what is not being included here is not just the subtraction of the reaction time in his 9.79 race, but also subtract again the reaction time of the starter whos reaction time factors in on the 40 yard dash at the combine. that might make things a little more reasonable.
with that said, fast track guys like jamaal charles (who ran a 6.6x in the 60 meters, ran a 4.35, so these guys who are running faster than that are freaking fast, maybe 6.5-6.6 60 meter fast. i was thinking ben johnson went threw 60 in 6.33 (though it might be 6.37 or whatever) so that would be about right. if bens official best indoor 60 was 6.41 i beleive and jamaal charles is 6.6x though on a faster surface i dont think its too far fetched to say a tenth or two difference threw 40y (after this johnson would pull away even more so it could actually be closer) gotta respect ben johnson but honestly some of these football guys are fast (trindon holliday, C.J. spiller, Jacoby ford, etc)
[quote]duck_dodger23 wrote:
DeFranco/rooney/whoever guys are also working on strength, flexibility, body comp, etc. which will also help improve speed.
it’s a combination of everything[/quote]
Of course it is, but when you figure that college athletes training for the combine have at most 2 months, the vast majority of improvement is going to come in the start.
[quote]Airtruth wrote:
Just because he has world record doesn’t mean these guys can’t approach his speed in the 40.[/quote]
If it was 1 or 2 guys in the last 10-20 years, you may have a point, but we are talking dozens every year.
And I would say that’s irrelevant. The number of guys that have a chance to be a world class sprinter and play in the NFL is very small. Michael Bennet MAY have had a chance, Darrel Greene also may have, Deion possibly, but doubtful.
10 yards in a football game isn’t exactly a 10 yard dash is it?
They timed his 40 yard split during a 100m dash. Did you miss this?
You’re an idiot.
[quote]
Second many football players are great 100 meter sprinters and the ones that convert usually lose a little something off there 40 speed when they do, or during track season. [/quote]
First off, very few football players are great 100m guys. Second, you’re an idiot. Guys that go from football/track to only track only get faster. Specificity of training, perhaps?
Has anyone seen Trindon Holliday of LSU play? With a 10.02 100m, he makes every forty-yard hero in the SEC look like they’re standing still. There’s a few clips on youtube of him essentially jogging the length of the field on returns. It’s not even close to being fair.
[quote]Dirty_Bulk wrote:
Has anyone seen Trindon Holliday of LSU play? With a 10.02 100m, he makes every forty-yard hero in the SEC look like they’re standing still. There’s a few clips on youtube of him essentially jogging the length of the field on returns. It’s not even close to being fair.
Track speed > Football speed.
Not that that needed explaining.[/quote]
i think he has a legit shot at potentially taking down the 60 meter world record if he focuses purely on track. jacoby ford, injured wr on clemson has a 60 meter pr of 6.52, only .13 off the world record of maurice greene, so how close do you think they would be at 40 yards with greene surely pulling away as the race went on. lots of speed in football.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
You guys are having a pissing contest over 2 tenths of a second in the 40?
I’d give my left nut just to run the 40 anywhere close to 5 seconds.
Let’s just say that just about every RB, WR, DB and LB could outrun most everyone on this site with little problem.
I bet the verts are rigged, too. And the BP? They bounce the bar off their chest on every rep.
I love a good fight - but even I think this is pissing over nothing.
Carry on. [/quote]
It’s the same type of deal as people inflating their lifting numbers. It is insulting to the guys that are truly fast. They throw out these 40 yard times like half of the nfl has world class speed, and that is simply untrue.
I think the biggest problem here is a lot of people are not knowledgeable on track and field, and have never seen world class athletes run so they don’t know what to compare it to. They also don’t know the difference that shoes, surface, and wind make, not to mention things like altitude and barometric pressure.
Even BJ or current WR holder Asafa Powell probably wouldn’t be able to run a legit 4.3 40 on field turf and in football cleats, even after subtracting reaction time.
[quote]tedro wrote:
rainjack wrote:
You guys are having a pissing contest over 2 tenths of a second in the 40?
I’d give my left nut just to run the 40 anywhere close to 5 seconds.
Let’s just say that just about every RB, WR, DB and LB could outrun most everyone on this site with little problem.
I bet the verts are rigged, too. And the BP? They bounce the bar off their chest on every rep.
I love a good fight - but even I think this is pissing over nothing.
Carry on.
It’s the same type of deal as people inflating their lifting numbers. It is insulting to the guys that are truly fast. They throw out these 40 yard times like half of the nfl has world class speed, and that is simply untrue.
I think the biggest problem here is a lot of people are not knowledgeable on track and field, and have never seen world class athletes run so they don’t know what to compare it to. They also don’t know the difference that shoes, surface, and wind make, not to mention things like altitude and barometric pressure.
Even BJ or current WR holder Asafa Powell probably wouldn’t be able to run a legit 4.3 40 on field turf and in football cleats, even after subtracting reaction time.
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i agree with you tedro in that every team has a dozen guys who run 4.1 blah blah. which certainly is insulting to anybody that truly is fast. its like my buddy that bench pressed 500 lbs. right after he did it, some highschool kid said two of the kids in his school could do a little more. it takes away credit. but there are a few legit fast mo foes in college football. hell even walter dix converted from football to track. they’re not all fast, but there are a few that could make track careers and certainly contend with the best threw 40 yards.
[quote]SquatDr wrote:
i agree with you tedro in that every team has a dozen guys who run 4.1 blah blah. which certainly is insulting to anybody that truly is fast. its like my buddy that bench pressed 500 lbs. right after he did it, some highschool kid said two of the kids in his school could do a little more. it takes away credit. but there are a few legit fast mo foes in college football. hell even walter dix converted from football to track. they’re not all fast, but there are a few that could make track careers and certainly contend with the best threw 40 yards.
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I’ve read your posts before and I know you are one of the few in this thread that IS knowledgeable in t&f.
Still, the ones that could actually compete are few and far between. Holliday and Ford are examples, but it is unlikely that these guys will ever have lucrative nfl careers. Darrel Greene could probably be an example of a guy that may have been able to compete at an international level if he had not played football. Michael Bennet also had a couple good seasons and ran a 10.18 at Wisconsin. We are talking anomalies here, though. If you look at the combine numbers it looks like the average rb, wr, and cb could all compete with the top 100m runners. Relatively few of these guys would even be under 10.8 with FAT.
Even more, is that these times are claimed on field turf. While faster than grass, it just doesn’t compare to a good track, with track spikes, and coming out of blocks.
EDIT: I didn’t mean for that to come out like a 10.8 is slow, because that is blazing fast, but it does show you how amazing a sub 10 is.
I guess I just don’t understand the point you guys are trying to make. The athletes at the combine are not strutting around telling everyone how low their 40’s are. They are being timed by someone else. The times are legit for the purpose they serve, which is to compare speeds among those of a given position.
It’s a barometer of speed - not the true measure. Hell - they are damn football players. I am pretty sure they know not to walk out on the track bragging about their 40 times.
It’s not anywhere close to the same thing as self-inflating lift numbers in an attempt to be “cooler” than the next guy.
For pete’s sake - these guys are just trying to get into the NFL, not disrespect the sprinting world.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
I guess I just don’t understand the point you guys are trying to make. The athletes at the combine are not strutting around telling everyone how low their 40’s are. They are being timed by someone else. The times are legit for the purpose they serve, which is to compare speeds among those of a given position.
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And that is the extent of it. With hand timing, I would hesitate to compare numbers year to year, or even day to day.
They may not be directly disrespecting the sprinting world, but it is disrespecting nonetheless. When your average joe sees all of these 4.3’s and then finds out that Olympic caliber athletes are running similar times, they start to think football players are as fast (or faster) than professional sprinters, as you have seen in this post.
Let’s say you worked your butt off for years and finally benched 400 lbs. That’s impressive, and far less than 1% of all men can do it. But when people left and right start claiming those kind of numbers, and when others believe it, all of the sudden it’s not as impressive anymore, and that is a discredit to the years of training you had to put in to accomplish the feat.
[quote]tedro wrote:
They may not be directly disrespecting the sprinting world, but it is disrespecting nonetheless. When your average joe sees all of these 4.3’s and then finds out that Olympic caliber athletes are running similar times, they start to think football players are as fast (or faster) than professional sprinters, as you have seen in this post.
Let’s say you worked your butt off for years and finally benched 400 lbs. That’s impressive, and far less than 1% of all men can do it. But when people left and right start claiming those kind of numbers, and when others believe it, all of the sudden it’s not as impressive anymore, and that is a discredit to the years of training you had to put in to accomplish the feat.
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I don’t think the average joe really knows how fast elite sprinters are running their 40’s in either, especially since many sprinters have never ran them. People on message boards are always claiming different times for Michael Johnson, for example. But, I just saw an interview with him where he flat out said “I never ran one.”
Fact is, NFL’ers are some explosive dudes no matter who you compare them to. If they weren’t Justin Gatlin would be the NFL’s best KR/WR right now. Instead, he got two tryouts (Texans, Titans) and nothing more. The difference in his speed wasnt enough to warrant the investment that would be required in order to develop his skill sets to the level they’d need to be
Fact is, the NFL combine and Pro day times are the most precise you will find in the football biz. Don’t forget there were over 300 players there and most were 4.65 and up
I dont think anybody is trying to diss track guys. This isnt a case of somebody lying about numbers. Player X starts off the line, scout X starts the clock, player X crosses 40yd line, machine stops the clock. this happened to all 300+ guys at the combine and will happen for countless more at Pro days
[quote]tedro wrote:
SquatDr wrote:
i agree with you tedro in that every team has a dozen guys who run 4.1 blah blah. which certainly is insulting to anybody that truly is fast. its like my buddy that bench pressed 500 lbs. right after he did it, some highschool kid said two of the kids in his school could do a little more. it takes away credit. but there are a few legit fast mo foes in college football. hell even walter dix converted from football to track. they’re not all fast, but there are a few that could make track careers and certainly contend with the best threw 40 yards.
I’ve read your posts before and I know you are one of the few in this thread that IS knowledgeable in t&f.
Still, the ones that could actually compete are few and far between. Holliday and Ford are examples, but it is unlikely that these guys will ever have lucrative nfl careers. Darrel Greene could probably be an example of a guy that may have been able to compete at an international level if he had not played football. Michael Bennet also had a couple good seasons and ran a 10.18 at Wisconsin. We are talking anomalies here, though. If you look at the combine numbers it looks like the average rb, wr, and cb could all compete with the top 100m runners. Relatively few of these guys would even be under 10.8 with FAT.
Even more, is that these times are claimed on field turf. While faster than grass, it just doesn’t compare to a good track, with track spikes, and coming out of blocks.
EDIT: I didn’t mean for that to come out like a 10.8 is slow, because that is blazing fast, but it does show you how amazing a sub 10 is.[/quote]
yes i think that i am on board with you for the most part and even i have wonder just how fast some of these guys are at the combine, however it is the guys that did run track and ran in the 60 meters that allows me to compare fairly well. bennet ran the 40 at the combine, as did john capel, and countless other trackies and typically they never run the fastest there for whatever reason. which leads me to beleive several things, by this time the track guys are worn down and not at their peak despite trying to peak, the starter of the timer is messed up, or these other guys are just that fast. i have seen at even small schools where a random football comes out and runs track and after a few meets, is going to nationals. i was suprised as hell to charles not have the fastest 40 at the combine and not even the fastest by a RB. most of these random fast guys are fast in the 40 but i dont think so much in the 100, or at least not comparatively.
First, there’s no need to go around calling everyone in a thread an “idiot” who disagrees with you. That doesn’t help anything and I’d appreciate it if you kept your cool.
Earlier I commented on the 40 and verticals and you said there is not a very strong correlation. I respectfully disagree. I recall reading a study which showed that the VJ had an extremely strong correlation with 40 yard dash times.
You also say that the number of guys running these times each year makes you doubt their authenticity. But you fail to consider that football is FAR more popular in the US than track. If you have a mere 10,000 athletes going out for a sport, you might find 1 with such rare speed. But when you have 1,000,000 athletes, there will be 100!
My point is that perhaps the reason why the NFL combine shows so many super fast athletes is because these are the fastest most explosive athletes in the entire country.
These are the fastest guys of all the kids that go out for football each and every year in the United States. This is the cream that rose to the top. There are 300,000,000 people in the US; is it so surprising that we turn out 30-40 athletes with world-class 40 times each year? I, for one, don’t find that so hard to believe.
In addition, training knowledge is improved compared to 20 years ago. Training knowledge is better than it has ever been and is more widely accessible than it has ever been. This has undoubtedly made higher levels of performance attainable for greater numbers of people.
Now, I’ll agree that the NFL guys’ times are probably a tad inaccurate due to timing errors, etc. But in light of the sheer number of athletes we’re talking about and their access to better training methods, I am not at all surprised that these guys may be in the same neighborhood as Ben Johnson in the first 40 yards.
yes i think that i am on board with you for the most part and even i have wonder just how fast some of these guys are at the combine, however it is the guys that did run track and ran in the 60 meters that allows me to compare fairly well. bennet ran the 40 at the combine, as did john capel, and countless other trackies and typically they never run the fastest there for whatever reason. which leads me to beleive several things, by this time the track guys are worn down and not at their peak despite trying to peak, the starter of the timer is messed up, or these other guys are just that fast. i have seen at even small schools where a random football comes out and runs track and after a few meets, is going to nationals. i was suprised as hell to charles not have the fastest 40 at the combine and not even the fastest by a RB. most of these random fast guys are fast in the 40 but i dont think so much in the 100, or at least not comparatively.
AC
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I think this is an important point that speaks volumes. If a 100 meter specialist like Ben Johnson has such an untouchable 40 yard time, then why do guys like Charles get smoked at the 40 by guys who, to my knowledge, Charles would smoke in the 100 meters? Is it because while the 40 might favor a SLIGHTLY different athlete than the 100 meters? Again, SLIGHTLY?!?!? In fact, who was the last 100 meter guy who dominated in the 40? I cannot remember.
If I’m right, we would find that the disparity would grow the longer the track even we compare it to. I’d expect a fairly close, but not perfect, correlation between the 40 and 100 m, much less between the 40 and 200 m, even less between the 40 and 400 m, and so on. Of course, this is exactly what you’d find.