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I have been in the Army for the last 8 years (27 years old). I would like to regain the 4.3 speed of youth. It is not like I'm slow now, its just no where near the same. It would be great to play some semi-pro football, just for fun. A child at 17years old will cause one to give up certain things in life. The hardest thing is being away so long. I am trying to figure out how to organize my power lifting with the speed drills. Don't get me wrong the basics are there, but just rusty on the finer parts of the scheduling. Plus, I don't want to get my hopes up if it unrealistic to want to get to a 4.4/4.4 level again. It would be nice to know also what type of time frame it would take to get there. Hard work ethic is not an issue, I've been in Spec Ops & a Drill sergeant for God sake!

I personally train athletes for the 40. This is the program I recommend.

Spend 35-45 minutes twice a week on this progressive, 12-week program up to 15 weeks. This workout includes the warm up, drills and the core workout. In addition to the 45 minute workout, I recommend agility drills, plyometrics, medicine balls and weight training to maximize performance.

The speed workout is as follows:

Run ten repetitions each workout.
Week 1
20 yds. from a standing start twice a week.

Week 2
25 yds. from a standing start twice a week.

Week 3
30 yds. from a standing start twice a week.

Week 4
Tuesday, 25 yds.
Thursday, 20 yds.

Week 5
Tuesday, 25 yds.
Thursday, 20 yds.

Week 6
Tuesday, 30 yds.
Thursday, 20 yds.

Week 7
25 yds. twice a week

Week 8
30 yds. twice a week

Week 9
35 yds. twice a week

Week 10
Tuesday, 25 yds.
Thursday, 30 yds.

Week 11
Tuesday, 35 yds.
Thursday, 25 yds.

Week 12
Tuesday, 40 yds.
Thursday, 25 yds.

Weeks 13-15
40 yds. twice a week

During the 13-15 weeks athletes should be running at maximum speed. This is the time athletes report to camp or when practice starts.

The 40 yard conditioning will prepare the athlete for acceleration.

Coach George Payan

Your hopes of regaining a speed you used to posses are by no means unrealistic. How fast you can be is determined by basically 2 things: ratio of fast-twitch to slow-twitch-fibers and training (strength training and plyometrics (lets say running is a plyometric exercise)).

So if you run a 4.3/4.4 at 18 or so you'll still be able to run that time at 27. Possibly you could get even faster with the right training (I think the fastest sprinters run a 4.1 on 40).
Basically you have the potential or you don't. Donovan Bailey did have the talent by nature and that's why he could break the world record and become a track star even though he started running track at 23/24 and started doing it full-time at 26! The best 400m sprinter of Germany who won a medal at some Olympic games started doing track at 22 (never having been into sports as youngster) BTW. A lot of ppl probably told them they were too old and should have started earlier but that's bullshit..for other sports that are mostly about coordination and ball handling skills starting late in life is definitely a disadvantage, but not in sprinting.

I'm only playing basketball, but I know a lot about conditioning and that type of stuff and I don't think anybody will be able to prove me wrong to you. Because otherwise Donovan bailey wouldn't have been able to break the 100m world record and wouldn't still be holding the 60m (or is it 50?) world record. Oh and a lot of top-notch sprinters were(are?) still running the times they ran in their 20s in their early 30s and winning medals (I think Donovan bailey of course..and Carl Lewis are 2 good examples). So obviously the reason you're not as fast as you used to be isn't because you re too old now, but only because you haven't been working on your speed. I assume you used to play football in high school and were doing sprint drills back then?

A lot of ppl might tell you "you're too old for that" and would have told Donovan bailey the same thing, but running fast or jumping high is mostly a thing that's determined by your genes and something in which everybody can live up to their potential even if they start late. So maybe you could even become a top-notch sprinter (if u get back down to 4.3/4.4 and can run the 100m equally fast, you'd have a pretty good 100m time)