40 time question

[bobbie brewskie]

hand times are "technically" .24 seconds off of the real time, so people will add .24 seconds to a 40 when it is done hand time.

now they have 2 pairs of tripods that have a laser and they are 40 yards apart and when motion is detected in the first 1 the timer goes off and once it hits the second set of tripods the timer will stop, that is the most modern clocking ive seen. we use those in track practice in high school, so you can imagine what the NFL teams have, with that kind of $.

 

[AdamJT13]

Here's an interesting read: http://www.usoc.org/11611_32384.htm

It's interesting, but it's wrong. The author of that article ignores the basic difference in timing methods that I just mentioned. Ben Johnson ran the first 40 yards in a fully electronic 4.24 seconds, not 4.38. And that's not the fastest first 40 yards ever run, either. Maurice Greene ran a fully electronic 4.18 40 yards in 1999. And keep in mind, he hadn't even reached peak speed yet.

 

[bobbie brewskie]

sprinters will be the first to tell you that "40 times" are generally way off, in real track there is no 40 yard dash

the record for 100 yards is somewhere around 9 seconds.

half that would be 4.5 seconds so shave a touch off of that and you get what like 4.2 ish?

point being nfl 40 times are greatly exagerated compared to real life.

the record for the 100 meter is 9.78 seconds and 100 yards is a little under 9 like you said.

in the 100 most athletes reach 100% speed at about 35 meter and can maintain it for about 30 meters until their "sprinters endurance" starts to breakdown and they slow up again. youd think that most players are inbetween the 90th and 100th percentile of their max speed after 10 meters and it rises until 35. so a 40 time cant be estimated by splitting a 100 and subtracting 3 tenths . . . its more like you take max speed/5 and whatever 95% of their max speed is/35

 

[AdamJT13]

in the 100 most athletes reach 100% speed at about 35 meter

Elite track sprinters reach peak speed between 50 and 60 meters. From 60 to 80 meters, they're still faster than they were from 30 to 50. Since 40 yards is 36.576 meters, eilte track sprinters never reach top speed within the first 40 yards. I'd guess they could accelerate faster if they had to run only 36.576 meters instead of 100, but the difference probably wouldn't be huge.

 

[bobbie brewskie]

Elite track sprinters reach peak speed between 50 and 60 meters. From 60 to 80 meters, they're still faster than they were from 30 to 50. Since 40 yards is 36.576 meters, eilte track sprinters never reach top speed within the first 40 yards. I'd guess they could accelerate faster if they had to run only 36.576 meters instead of 100, but the difference probably wouldn't be huge.

yea i mixed it up, i meant to say 35 from the finish line, not 35 into the race :/. oops, but yea 65 meters is about where most sprinters peak in speed. and lose it at about 95, so 100 meters is just about out of range.

 

[burmafrd]

No way is a hand time off .24 seconds unless the guy is 90 or drunk.
I can see it being off some, but not a quarter of a second.

 

[Bob Sacamano]

The time difference can be something as simple as the surface you’re running on. Some tracks produce faster times than others. All in all I don't put too much into 40 times I tend to pay more attention on how quickly a guy can accelerate. Allot of what I see in football is quick burst of speed more so than how fast a guy can run a 40.

I agree, just wondering why there is a differential on Hatcher's 40 time at the Combine, where Indy is a notoriously slow track, and his 40 time at rookie camp, guess it's just the surface since INdy is a slow track