Is The 400m the HARDEST EVENT in Track and Field? 

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Nah i have selections tmr, ia m dead scared now....

@@Monstr_Banana you should hahahaah

@@dTristras Ok ita raining, I may not have it

I have always heard the 800 meter was the hardest.

Real

This is actually so true, only 400m runners would know

ikr.

@@patrickschott265I mean I don’t run 400 and I get it, the last 100 slows down and you don’t know if you gave in or your body simply can’t take it

I heared 300 are worse

But you became a resl man after that race 😂

It’s such a perfectly difficult distance

Sounds like you ran it right.

thank you for this comment. i found it illustrative.

I ran 400/1600 in HS and always thought the Mile was the harder race. I guess it depends on where you start your running development at. I started long distance and then came down, when I’m sure a lot of 400M runners came up in distance from 100m sprinting. I always thought I’d much rather take one lap of pain than 4 laps of it. If you’re competing in a high caliber 1600 meter race, it feels like you’re being water boarded and slowly drowned for 5 minutes. At least in the 400m, you know your struggle will only be less than a minute, and you can physically see your finish line the whole time as well. I think people watch the 1600 on TV and think it’s just a fast jog for 3 laps and then one final kick, but if you really knew how fast those guys are doing those 3 first laps in, you’d understand how uncomfortable it is to run that hard for that long. It’s extremely hard to breath. Track is largely mental and your brain trying to tell you that you can and can’t do things, and I always just thought you’d have less demons to think about for 50 seconds compared to 4-5 minutes of intrusive thoughts. Even those marathon world champions are running like 13 MPH for 26 miles, and hitting 4:40 mile times consecutively. Try 13 MPH on treadmill and it’ll feel like a dead sprint. Now try holding that for 5 minutes let alone 2 hours. In my opinion, more NATURAL God-given talent and genetics is involved in the 400m, and a battle of who has the most twitchy and powerful muscles. Simply being a workout hero won’t help you at all in the 1600m. And I’m not just favoring all long distance events, once you get to the 3200m, 5K, 10K and Marathon, it’s just a little man’s competition where only someone built like a jockey can win. The start lines of 1600m races you have a much more vast grouping of body types, with both big and little guys having a shot to compete and win. 1600 just feels like the perfect hybrid race for sprinters and distance runners, where everyone is punching from the same weight class. At one point in our history, becoming the first human recorded to break the 4 minute mile was arguably the most challenged and coveted record in running history. The only reason I say the 1600 is “harder” than the 400m is because I think there’s a far more advanced psychological challenge from the cardiovascular torture of 4 laps, when outright brawn can win a sprint for 1 lap.

I always found the 400m hurdles to be less painful then 400m flat. For me the struggle with 400m hurdles is to muster the strength to geht over the last few hurdles but the pain from the lactate acid is not as strong as in the 400m flat.

As someone who did the 400m in junior high but was never really a runner (I used to swim), that was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. That last 100m when your heart is pounding, it hurts to breathe, your legs feel like jelly and you feel like you will fall over any second. It was horrible. Every time i ran it, when I finished I went and laid on the ground for at least 10 minutes in pure pain.

Imagine running 5k all out. Then you have this „different“ feeling for the whole last k. This sucks

@@tommardus1439 I think you would die if you did that. Probably in the first kilometer.

100% agree

Sydney Mclaughlin is an inspiration to young girls. And Karsten Warholm of Norway goes Beserker mode whenever he runs that brutal event

That’s true but you also don’t have to sprint as fast so I think this might be harder

@@noah_256. I did both, although far from being really good at it. I find the 'straight' 400m harder just because the first hurdle kinda prevents you from really going 100% and you settle in kindof a constant speed which is really the case for a 400m I feel

This 👆. Want to make it even worse? Add ten hurdles you have to jump over plus all that other stuff they talk about

@@noah_256.The 400m hurdles uses the same pacing as the 400m. The slight deceleration that hurdling causes requires you to expend extra energy afterwards to keep your speed up. Which in turn results in the race being very demanding even through the time will be slightly slower than the 400m.

facts

Judging by the athletes's physiques, 800m feels more like a marathon, full of marathon runners-like physiques, while 400m runners are still bulky, built like sprinters, so less focus on stamina and more on power/explosiveness. They're still expected to be rapid I guess. Ofc they're all tough as hell, but I can see why this video is talking about the 400m and not 800m.

@@raul5081 as an 800 runner you have to be good at the 400, if you're a 400 runner you don't have to be good in the 800. For the 800, you need both good sprint speed and endurance.

I would say that their point about why the 400 is so hard, too fast to pace and too long to just end, applies to the 400, 400 hurdles and the 800. They sit in what I like to call the uncanny valley of pain. I'm a 200/400 runner but I had to do the 8 for the 2-2-4-8 relay one season and I would concur that a properly run 800 is nearly as intensely painful as the home stretch of the 400 for the last 250 to 300 meters. I've never tried the 400 hurdles because I'm a coward, but I know just from looking there's no way I could jump over anything in that last stretch.

ATP at the top level almost lasts the entire 400m, 800m is harder, this dude is wrong

same, I realized that I didn't have the sprinting speed after elementary school, so I moved up to the 400 in 7th grade up to 800 and mile and also 5k and 10k. Longer races your body reaches an equilibrium and it becomes meditative... you get your "second wind", sprints are over before the pain kick in, but middle distances from 400-mile are the worst

running olympic times in 800 definitely taking some years off your life😂😂

Sameee, mind you my speed isn’t amazing (12.9 100m pr with heavy tail wind) and the first 500 m of an 800 feels the same as an all out 400 for me, meaning that all out brawl of pure mental toughness in the 100 m of a 400 is literally just the second lap of an 800 lol

Bro never tried the steeple

@@cooperneeble2712 that event is actually way up on my bucket list lol, should be doing it this spring if my coaches promises hold true

🙂

my hands started sweating watching this and i havent ran the 400m dash since high school which was 13 years ago 😅

​@@MCilo2I swear 😂😂

Me too. I used to run 400m and 4x400m and it was just pain. Seeing these types of videos makes my heart race and makes my hands sweat, like I’m about to run all over again 😅

If I want a shot of adrenaline, all I need to do is imagine getting the baton for the last leg of the 4x400 relay. And I haven't run a 400 all out for 25 years!

haha

When word got out that they were looking for a last leg to run it, EVERYBODY on our team hid..

Lolol

Well said, lol!

hahah you know how it is 🤣🤣🤣@@Guappenheimer

And the adrenaline rush that you get and knowing it's your body's natural response to allow you to physically exert yourself longer. Then you know that you're gonna wanna die around the 300m mark anyway no matter how skilled you are.

Ufff yes!!! That feeling in the your stomach. The body knows that he is going to feel the pain!!

haha, great story

​@@OutperformOfficialbro clearly probably never swam the 200m Butterfly

@@realalbertanwhat are you on about

Always train harder than the event itself.

@@hipfire1920 depends on what event your doing if your training harder than youd race a 400 or 800 thats just not even optimal

Well said!

Any innovations that we can do to make the sport more interesting?

​@@jmgonzales7701 none running on two legs is the greatest thing that's happened to humanity its why we're here also sweating i guess

Very well said

​@@fcasacm4824 Nah, thumbs are actually more important

That's literally sub 4 minute mile pace. Tf you mean "decent"

@@Smokeiziz-it3ruhonestly i feel like higher up people in track have pretty high standards for themselves, ive noticed this alot in my team too

Yep. There is categorically no way that anyone who has actually run and trained at track thinks the 400m is harder than the 800. For me, the 800 is by far the most brutal. Hitting your anaerobic wall at about 650 metres and trying not to vomit/shit yourself on the home straight. Hideous race. Also, the 1500 can be an absolute monster if you go out too hard.

B-i-n-g-o.

800 and 3200 r the worst for me while the 1600 and 400 r the easiest i find

Well said! That is a fantastic point.

I really like how you actually gave a point for distance instead of just saying “there’s time to recover” ignoring that after a mile you’re gonna be hurting the rest of the race.

@@R.W.P. yup. If you’re recovering you’re probably not racing it right lol

Couldn't of said it better myself. That final 100 is the most grueling thing ever xD

Nah 800m is absolutely more physically grueling + there is definitively strategizing in the 400m. There are way way way way more 400m athletes scared of the 800m or 400m Hurdles than there are either of those athletes scared of the 400m. Run an a lot 400m and then do it again without stopping and tell me how much easier it is than just doing the 400m.

That is a great point, totally agree, also in the 400m you can't be tripped up by a competitor. 800m is no joke, you could make a great case for it being the hardest event.

800 you literally get bumped off the line and probably will get bumped at least three other times throughout the race. In other words, you are going to get knocked out of the zone and you need to have the mental strength to quickly recover. Not to mention, you have to find a path. The fastest way to run the 800 is to run on the rail, but the rail is also the easiest way to get boxed in. Running in lane 2 for a long time costs you valuable time and valuable energy too. The 800 is not merely about ability. It's a tango, and you have to be better than your opponent on the dance floor.

I've also run a ton of 400s too. I'm not biased because I run 800s. They are both hard

I don't know why but I have ran both 400m and 800m, and 800m was easier for me. Maybe because I was tactically sound and relied more on endurance(Which I had been told quite often by my coach/fellow runners)? Not entirely sure though.

Bro how to deal with shin pain just above ankle after doing long jump pls help

@@kaluwa5946Those are probably shin splints and they come from a weakness of the muscles in your shin. The stress goes onto the bone and it causes quite a bit of pain. You can look em up

​@@kaluwa5946nothing you can really do but rest. Only exercise that kind of help is calf stretching.

@@kaluwa5946that’s just from not stretching/not being In shape lol. OR it could be the soles in your shoes.

​​@@kaluwa5946 workout your tibs and calves

Nah the 800m is still the hardest

@@nicholasquintin5676 Wrong. A 400 is a flat-out sprint; an 800 isn't. I saw a guy vomit after running a 400.

​@@nicholasquintin5676nah bruh as someone who ran both the 800m and 400m. That last 100m is more painful than an 800m finish.

@@profd65you think an 800 isn’t?

@@Ennn117yes 800 is NOT a flat-out sprint.

Exact thing happened to me, I even fell at the finish😭

this just happened to me 😭

Yeeeeeees, this happened with me too! In the last 100m, I just down, my legs started to wobble and I was staggering in the floor in front of 200 people 😪

indeed，400m was most painful distance i ever run.i even felt fear about it

Man, what a time Penn Relays were. I ran there also for the 4x400m. That crowd is something other worldly and so many people around. I popped off also, we got first in our heat and it was worth it.

@@jrelldun When my track coach was in HS the entire stadium was cheering his name as he broke the 800m record as an undersized sophomore. Still gives me goose bumps thinking about how cool that must have been for him!

@@joecowan3719 I can imagine man, every HS track athlete should experience it.

And when I run 400s I mean it's brutal running the last 100 meters u basically push through the painful oxygen debt that ur Body goes through like it's excruciating bro a week ago after practice I was doing 400s and when I finished for like 10 mins I couldn't even move my legs and I was jus Laying there💀

Yes for me there is definitely a battle between the 400m and the 800m but I found that the 800m burned the legs extremely while the 400m is the whole body saying stop. For me, vomiting after a 400m is common but I have never vomited after an 800m

As a former collegiate runner who competed in the 400 and 800, I was also relieved to run the 400 because as you said...the 800 is HELL!!!

Thanks, great to hear!

Slower runners have to be more like 800m runners. David Rudisha (800m WR holder) has run the 500m in 57.69, which should be physiologically equivalent to sub-elite sprinters running 400m.

" everyone on my track team shared the opinion that its a distance event where you have to sprint the whole time." Nah, that's a 800m race

Fantastic comment and great points! This is what makes track and field such an amazing sport (also why we didn't say definitively that the 400m is the hardest). You're spot on about the training and abilities of 1500m runners. VO2 max training is brutal and their 400 ability is crazy considering the amount of endurance work they do. The mental component of the marathon and the type of training required at the elite level is truly remarkable, easily could be the most difficult.

My view is they grow or expand. They get skinny or they bulk up. They get lazy or courageous. Comparing two forms of torture as to which inflicts the most suffering is kind of kinky. Having gotten that off my chest, I would say the 800 is the hardest, as far as I can gauge from what I see, it is getting to be two 400 reps, which is the definition of cruelty.

Mile is definitely up there, the olympic standard for a mile is 4 minutes or so. That’s 4, 60 second 400’s back to back. Insane.

You can pull into a pace in the mile. You can't do that in the 800. The 800 is far worse.

haha! That's great

Really appreciate it 🙏

Thank you so much! 🙏

Yep

Thanks, really appreciate it.

Thank you!

Thank you, really appreciate that 🙏

That's an extremely good point I've never thought about. But for the average athlete there's no way a 400m is more painful than a marathon.

@@crosh3301 speaking for myself (an above average but far from elite athlete), the 400, 800, and mile that I used to compete in were truly more painful than 5k's and 10k's. In distance races your body reaches an equilibrium and you get your "second wind" and a meditative runners high. Middle distances all you get is a trip through lactic acid hell, lol. My longest training runs were about half marathon distance, so I won't speak on the marathon

The only thing harder than running 1 400... Is 2 400s. Totally agree, 800 is a beast.

@@TheBswanwhy do you think 400 is harder than Mile+?

Mile gives you room for error. If you mess up you can chill for a bit and come back and you don't start hard with the mile. @@R.W.P.

@@UziiTubeWe’re taking about how hard it is to run. Not how penalized you get for tripping.

@@UziiTube Also your never ‘chilling’ during a mile. It’s a prolonged effort. You go as fast as your body can withstand for the distance. And even that is not comfortable. Also the mile has much higher chance for an error in the first place plus you can only beat someone if you’ve messed up if you had a bodily advantage over them in the first place. And varying on your style you can start hard.

not true. F=ma the best most efficient way to run the race is to accelerate and decelerate as little as possible. Your velocity should remain the same the entire race.

@@tann_man that's actually what I mean. You run harder in the last 150m, but you don't actually accelerate. You just keep yourself from decelerating as much as possible

It's more akin to 100yrd free. Top swimmers go low 40s and top runners go low 40s. The 200m is like the 800. I was really good at 50s and 100s in swim and 200s and 400s in track. I went to TX state championship for 100 fly, 100 free and 100 back and 50 back then switched sports and picked up running my senior year (a month behind the other runners) and almost made it to state in the 400m, the biggest differentiating factor between myself and my teammates was the ridiculous amount of conditioning you get from swimming, it translated very well into the 400m (I even competed some 800m but it more just to make the 400m feel shorter by comparison)

for sure

Thanks!

Really appreciate it. As someone who transitioned to road cycling after being a track athlete in college I absolutely agree! Would love to make that video (even though it wouldn't get many views on this channel 🙂) The mental challenge of a TT at any distance is unreal, difficult to describe to someone that hasn't done it.

You bring up an interesting point, most athletes are unable to truly push themselves to that limit. The ability the best 400m runners have to go that deep is very rare.

⁠@@OutperformOfficialI personally feel like any race can be the ‘hardest’ if you go your 100%

@@R.W.P. What a blanket statement

@@R.W.P. Yes and no. At the end of a competitive 100m, you see people celebrating. At the end of a 1500m, they may need a moment, but they'll quickly be fine. But a typical 400m ends with most athletes just collapsing into the ground as soon as they cross the finish line (and sometimes before).

@@unaccompaniedseal4035 that’s the point

Thank you 🙏

Appreciate it!

Thank you for not lying

🙏

Fantastic write up, thanks for sharing!

Thats why so many 400 runners train for longer distances on interval days. Endurance besides speed is everything.

@@donnybrooklads Golden words it is

Appreciate it! 🙏

🙏, agree!

Absolutely! I don't think many people know about the kilo in track cycling (bummer its not in the olympics anymore).A good friend of mine that was an elite cyclist said that it would take him more time to recover after that ~1-minute race than after a 2-week stage race. He also passed out and crashed after finishing on 2 separate occasions. I imagine it could be similar for speed skating.

@@OutperformOfficial exactly. Eric Heiden talked a lot about the kilo and the 1500 in speed skating. I was a 13 time national champion for Trinidad and Tobago and suffered my share of killer kilos.

Yup

Good point, there is nothing like track! The 800m is a killer and a case could be made that it is harder. One thing to keep in mind, very few athletes are able to push themselves in the 400m as hard as the top athletes can. That type of exertion is as unique as their running talent.

@@OutperformOfficial Indeed! Thats why I find the 800 harder, because I simply don’t have the capacity to make a 400 hurt XD

Yeah, as a middle distance guy, nothing fills me with more dread than the thought of that 2nd lap of the 800 haha

Then you're running your 5ks correctly. However, there's still a sense of pace in the 5k. The only time you "pace" in a 400 is the second 100. After 300, it's the most grueling 100m imaginable in my opinion

Very interesting!

🤣 Great story!

Probably true - the 400 broke me, I can't imagine the hurdles as well

I totally agree!!!

Valid point, negotiating those final 3 barriers on the home stretch is colossal. Plus you've got the stride pattern factor, especially now at the elite level.

@@OutperformOfficial Yes, I ran my last college meet in 1999, but I remember the pain! The sport has advanced so much with things like the techniques and training you have in your videos. It’s fascinating watching them and then using them to coach my son and his teammates on my free weekends. Great videos. We appreciate them! Keep them coming!

Nope, you cannot physically run the 400H the same way as a 400m. If you run the 400H the exact same way as the 400m you will not get over the last 4 hurdles, fact. I found that out in my first 400H race!!! 😂 You must have more speed reserve in order to complete the 2nd half of the 400H. BTW this video on the 400m is spot on, now apply this experience during a race to the 400H… Good luck 😅

Thank you! 🙏

Thank you, that is great to hear. Go for it!