[Poll] Can anyone be sub-10?

What is the average cuber capable of achieving in his lifetime?

  • Sub-8

    Votes: 33 21.4%
  • Sub-9

    Votes: 9 5.8%
  • Sub-10

    Votes: 30 19.5%
  • Sub-11

    Votes: 7 4.5%
  • Sub-12

    Votes: 18 11.7%
  • Sub-13

    Votes: 9 5.8%
  • Sub-14

    Votes: 2 1.3%
  • Sub-15

    Votes: 28 18.2%
  • Sub-17

    Votes: 2 1.3%
  • Sub-20

    Votes: 16 10.4%

  • Total voters
    154
4 T-Perms in 10 seconds = 5.6 TPS. Can't see it myself.

I did 10 T perms in 10.34 seconds so thats 10+ tps but as you can see I only average around the 14 second mark Look ahead and 0 pauses are much more important than tps
 
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I did 10 T perms in 10.34 seconds so thats 10+ tps but as you can see I only average around the 14 second mark Look ahead and 0 pauses are much more important than tps

yeah and i cant even sub-1 a T perm if you gave me 10 tries to do it, so i'd take like 15 seconds when you account for hands getting tired, messing up, and transitioning from 1 T perm to the next.

i just don't really pause during my solves
 
I did 10 T perms in 10.34 seconds so thats 10+ tps but as you can see I only average around the 14 second mark Look ahead and 0 pauses are much more important than tps

Exactly, but trying to quantify what the average person's likely time spent with pauses and look ahead is difficult. You definitely can say it is atleast 0.
I've taken the T-Perms as a base line. In an actual solve the moves are going to be harder to execute than a T-Perm.
I'm just bringing to light that some people don't have an ever improving TPS, and a real persons maximum TPS can be as low as 5.6 TPS.

Take that into account with the addition of pauses and look-ahead can be equally as bad, and sub-10 looks even more unlikely.
 
Exactly, but trying to quantify what the average person's likely time spent with pauses and look ahead is difficult. You definitely can say it is atleast 0.
I've taken the T-Perms as a base line. In an actual solve the moves are going to be harder to execute than a T-Perm.
I'm just bringing to light that some people don't have an ever improving TPS, and a real persons maximum TPS can be as low as 5.6 TPS.

Take that into account with the addition of pauses and look-ahead can be equally as bad, and sub-10 looks even more unlikely.

5.6 may be your CURRENT max TPS, but I REALLY REALLY doubt that it is the fastest TPS your hands could ever be capable of...
Or do you honestly think that if you practised for 2 hours every single day for 10 years your TPS would not improve? I think it would improve quite significantly...
 
5.6 may be your CURRENT max TPS, but I REALLY REALLY doubt that it is the fastest TPS your hands could ever be capable of...
Or do you honestly think that if you practised for 2 hours every single day for 10 years your TPS would not improve? I think it would improve quite significantly...

Yes. You definitely gain tps just from spamming algs. If you were to learn even just full OLL and PLL by muscle memory and with proper fingertricks, your tps can't be that bad.
 
I think most of you are missing the point of the question. What is the average cuber capable of achieving in his lifetime?
This is why I think with an entire lifetime of practice, anyone can be sub-8. For some it may take only a few years, for others, it may take 20. But with so much available time, anyone could be sub-8. In 20 years time, a sub-8 average may not even be that impressive anymore. Any cuber can get to sub 8, but it's down to the skill and improvement of others as to whether or not they can become World Class.
 
I think most of you are missing the point of the question. What is the average cuber capable of achieving in his lifetime?
This is why I think with an entire lifetime of practice, anyone can be sub-8. For some it may take only a few years, for others, it may take 20. But with so much available time, anyone could be sub-8. In 20 years time, a sub-8 average may not even be that impressive anymore. Any cuber can get to sub 8, but it's down to the skill and improvement of others as to whether or not they can become World Class.

Given that speedcubing is relatively new, it'd be interesting to see what people like Feliks and Mats average when they get older. As of now, they are still improving somewhat, but at what age will they peak at and start to decline in speed?
 
Given that speedcubing is relatively new, it'd be interesting to see what people like Feliks and Mats average when they get older. As of now, they are still improving somewhat, but at what age will they peak at and start to decline in speed?

Interesting question. Maybe when they are more or less 25 years old?!
 
I'd say age wouldn't be a limiting factor until they're at least in their mid 30s but it is likely that they will have already reached their limit much sooner than that or they will have simply lost interest in cubing.

It may not be lost of interest. It could just be other committments like family and work that every adult has to cope with.
 
I think you'll find speed peaks in late teens to early 20's, after that, it's a slow downhill, but you can still be a pretty swift solver into your 50's.
Some background reading, the "choice-reaction" times are the ones to look at:
http://www.brianmac.co.uk/reaction.htm
 
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What about those top cubers who held the world records 5-10 years ago? Shouldn't they be around 8 secs by now?
They stopped cubing because private life, working, family and lack of time, or because they couldn't improve any more?
 
yeah and i cant even sub-1 a T perm if you gave me 10 tries to do it, so i'd take like 15 seconds when you account for hands getting tired, messing up, and transitioning from 1 T perm to the next.

i just don't really pause during my solves

truth is i can't sub 1 a t perm if you gave me a whole day trying (of course i don't use cfop and don't do t perm in actual solves, but still); lookahead is everything for me.
 
5.6 may be your CURRENT max TPS, but I REALLY REALLY doubt that it is the fastest TPS your hands could ever be capable of...
Or do you honestly think that if you practised for 2 hours every single day for 10 years your TPS would not improve? I think it would improve quite significantly...

Can you explain this: https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/p.php?i=2008BERG04
Active for 8 years, not sub-30.

I think the problem is, that the 'average person', everyone sees as themselves but with limitless time.
No doubt I would get a little bit faster, but it's not just TPS there are a whole lot of other factors, many of which seem to stutter even worse than TPS. Not only do my fingers not move that fast, my brain doesn't process that fast as well as my recognition and have some ham-fisted awkwardness which means I drop the puzzle, take a second to do a rotation, get constant lock-ups.
With the 'average person' argument. The average person does not cube, does not practice logic solving puzzles. The average person is more likely to be more like me (or probably even worse) and not like you.

As an analogy, it's the same with fitness, if I go and do a 5km running race. I come 150th out of 200, and even so I'm probably faster than the 'average person', because it's only the people interested in fitness that bother to turn up and run, there are probably 1000 other people that don't participate because they are not very good at it and therefore don't do it. So you have to make all these 1000 people run, and the chances are only 100 of those 1000 will be better than me. Really I'm 250th out of 1200.
 
Can you explain this: https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/p.php?i=2008BERG04
Active for 8 years, not sub-30.

Yes I can explain this quite easily.

He doesn't put in enough work, practise hours and effort to improve.
I'm quite sure that he hasn't practised 2 hours a day every day to improve his times as I said in my previous post.

I'm also quite sure that if he had done that he would have significantly better times.
Also in this specific case we have to take account to his age which might be starting to slow him down (not necessarily but might ;D ). Also note that Mats Bergsten is more of a BLD solver so he probably practises those events over sighted events. And he is actually decently good at those events :)

But when I say "anyone" in the concept of this thread I mean anyone who is not too young (I doubt a 5-year old could be sub-10) or too old (I also doubt that 90+ year old could be sub-10) or mentally or physically somehow handicapped.

But with these above limitations in mind I'm quite confident to say that"ANYONE" can be sub-10 if they are willing to put enough effort in to that task. Please note that this doesn't mean that everyone who cubes for 10+ years will automatically be sub-10. If they haven't practised seriously enough they probably won't. But if you REALLY want it and practise enough "anyone" can achieve it.
 
Let me explain the problem with this:"...if they are willing to put enough effort in to that task"
You need to understand that if you do physical effort, your body takes time to recover. If you go down the gym and lift weights, you will ache for a couple of days, during which time you won't be able to train, or it will be ineffective, so you rest, and then return to the gym. This puts a limit on how quickly you can build up your muscles - you can't just go down the gym 3 times a day and build up muscles 6 times faster than someone who goes once every 2 days. This applies to 'speed-training' for cube solving. If you do a load of intensive fast solving, you need time to recover, during that time, you will be slower, your arms/fingers will be tired. This problem gets worse the older you get. You tire earlier, you take longer to recover, so you can't re-train again. This factor puts a limit on what training can achieve.
If a 60-year-old man did the same training regime as Usain Bolt, he wouldn't be as fast as Usain, he wouldn't even be able to get out of bed the next day, and would probably still be limping 3 weeks later.

And then the mental slowness issue: it's not 'unavoidable', but the harsh reality is that brains change as you age, and apparent slowness is one of those changes.
 
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