How does age affect sports performance

Maximal heart rate is the highest heart rate in beats per minute one can achieve during increasing intensity of endurance exercise. And this decrease reduces both cardiac output and oxygen delivery to the muscles, which translates to a lower VO2max and thus to lower performance in endurance events as we age.

Even if oxygen delivery to muscles goes down, the ability of your muscles to efficiently utilize the oxygen they do get relative to a given workload this is called exercise economy is well maintained into our 60's and 70's, though total muscle mass tends to decline as we age, and can contribute to declines in performance as well. In terms of competitive endurance exercise, rowers have shown the least decline in VO2max with age, but the difference to other sports isn't huge.

And it might be because rowing is a lower-impact sport than cycling with crashes and running constant pounding. Let's not forget the muscles. Some evidence suggest that for sports that require high levels of strength or power, like weightlifting, age-related limitations may reside in our skeletal muscles, those muscles that move our bones and joints.

For competitive weightlifters over the age of 40 masters level , performance drops more precipitously than it does for endurance athletes such as runners, swimmers and cyclists. That's likely because weightlifting draws on type II muscle fibers called "fast-twitch" muscles to produce strength and power. Research indicates that these cells decline in number and function with age.

Not only do these cells decline with age, but so do the cells that support the repair and growth of skeletal muscles in response to exercise decline. These age-related declines are not as obvious in type I muscles, those muscle fibers most associated with endurance-type exercise. Recovery can take longer. As they age, many athletes complain that the ability to recover from hard bouts of exercise diminishes.

This can affect the intensity and volume of training of all athletes. But in many contact sports, such as professional American football or rugby, recovering from injuries and the cumulative effects of hard hits becomes the limiting factor in continuing to play at the highest level. This strengthened the main assumption that the is congruent, i. Premature with faster maturation or delayed with slower maturation individuals have an age of peak performance at an earlier resp.

This can be the result of multiple endogenous and exogenous factors including, but not limited to, genetic heterogeneity and varying social or environmental conditions.

Heterogeneity in individual trajectories in two contests. Performance is gathered in A, C the m. Each dot corresponds to a performance and each color corresponds to an individual.

The black line is the average performance at each age. A total of unique trajectories of elite athletes are plotted in C , totaling 57, performances. Sources for performance data are detailed in [ 18 ].

A total of unique trajectories of Grandmasters are described in D , totaling , performances. A random selection of 10 individual trajectories are presented in A and B. From a biological point of view, such alterations with aging are also empirically measured in other species, including the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans , mouse lemurs Microcebus murinus , mice Mus domesticus , greyhounds and thoroughbreds [ 14 , 18 , 38 , 39 ].

For all studied species, the convex hull is a , with the age of peak performance occurring earlier in life, ranging from 4. Yet, other studies pointed out similar observations in drosophila [ 40 , 41 ], codling moths [ 42 ], rodents and monkeys [ 43 ], and zebrafish [ 44 ].

This research furthers knowledge on physical and mental development from the time of the first cellular division. Functional assessments provide unique phenotypic biomarkers, as well as convenient tools to measure responses to later life interventions [ 45 ].

The age-performance relationship has also been studied in the general population [ 46 — 48 ]. Nassif et al. They observed a suggesting the species pattern is consistent across elite athletes and the general population. Bongard et al. This could be explained by the fact that the underlying biological mechanisms leading to decline in performance affects all individuals in a similar fashion.

The picture is not as clear when analyzing the individual trajectory from a public health perspective. Thus, measuring performance at different ages would allow monitoring of physical ability as a proxy of physical fitness [ 45 ]. History of individual trajectories and strategies to expand the ; Performance against age in arbitrary units for A an individual that alters his in a self autonomous manner and B effect of a beneficial strategy on another individual.

The described in A is the result of perturbations associated with i detrimental lifestyle such as sedentary behavior in early childhood, ii an injury or disease affecting the performance and iii a major change in lifestyle that results in an artificial, delayed age of peak performance occurring much later in life.

In B we show how a beneficial strategy is expected to expand the , providing room for an increase in performance. There are several strategies to modify age-related health trajectory: physical activity is thought to have beneficial effects on both physical health and mental well-being [ 50 , 51 ].

For purposes of this review, only physical activity measured by activity monitors was considered. It has the potential to increase lifespan while reducing the global burden of disease [ 52 , 53 ]. It has an effect over the regulation of aging within and across several physiological systems [ 54 ].

For older adults, sarcopenia, frailty and osteoporosis can be major concerns therefore, strength training exercises may be particularly beneficial [ 55 — 57 ]. Physical activity has strong benefits for maintaining functional independence and health-related quality of life, in addition to possible lifespan extension. There is empirical evidence of the anti-inflammatory effects of physical activity [ 60 , 61 ].

Chronic inflammation has deleterious effects on physiological function [ 62 ], increasing the risk and progression of chronic diseases such as several types of cancer, [ 63 ] cardiovascular disease, and the risk of mortality [ 64 ]. The benefits of physical activity appears to depend on the amount of weekly activity in a non-linear fashion [ 65 , 66 ]. The minimum amount of physical activity affecting mortality is estimated at 15 min per day, resulting in 3 years of increased longevity [ 67 ].

Much higher doses, such as practiced by highly trained athletes, engaged in about ten times the amount recommended by the WHO, has been associated with 7 years of increased life expectancy [ 68 , 69 ]. Greater levels of physical activity, even at advanced ages, seems to result in maintenance of functional capacity, that may prevent age-related decline and favor a longer lifespan [ 54 , 70 ].

The slower rate of functional decline has been shown to be predictive of lower mortality rates. Previous studies have shown that walking speed is inversely related to all-cause mortality [ 71 , 72 ]. Lower grip strength, assessed by dynamometer, is related to both musculoskeletal disorders but, more importantly, with all-cause mortality [ 75 ].

A recent study showed an association between the number of push-ups and the risk of cardiovascular events in midlife [ 76 ]. The converging evidence suggests an complex association between physical activity, measures of functional capabilities, and longevity.

Their analysis is based solely on the decreasing part of the , but as detailed above the decrease in performance is complex in all situations studied. Given the inevitable age-related decline in functional capacity, accompanied by degeneration in multiple organ systems, it is important to identify targets that could compress morbidity. Physical activity is one such target, with benefits for health that have therapeutic and societal value.

The effect of physical activity on mental health is currently being investigated with heterogeneous results. Some researches suggest that physical activity may delay the onset of neurodegenerative processes and can be a potential adjunctive treatment for neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression [ 78 — 80 ] and cognitive impairment [ 81 ]. Physical activity might also be a promising strategy for dementia prevention and disease modification [ 82 ], although this is a late-stage disease.

Fiatarone Singh et al. But the effect is not so clear, as other studies pointed out that physical activity does not slow cognitive impairment in people with mild to moderate dementia [ 86 ].

There also seems to be little evidence of a neuroprotective effect of physical activity when investigating such effects in the Whitehall II cohort study [ 87 ], although the Framingham study shows clear effects on brain volume in the elderly [ 88 ].

On the other hand, several researches showed that cognitive training seems to be associated with a reduction in the risk of dementia [ 89 , 90 ]. Another possible approach for hindering the age-related decline in functional performance and increasing lifespan is changes in nutritional strategy. Several types of diets can increase chronic inflammation further escalating the risk of degenerative diseases such as type 2 diabetes, stroke, coronary heart disease [ 91 ] or increasing size and speed of tumor growth [ 92 ].

It should be noted that calorically restricted and ad libitum-fed animals are relatively sedentary in testing facilities which questions the definition and status of control and CR animals. It seems that animals in the wild have access to food comparable to CR animals in animal facilities but maintain an increased level of activity [ 95 ]. Akbaraly et al.

However, it seems obvious that implementing CR in humans is unlikely. Worse, results in humans demonstrate that diets often lead to weight gain in the long term. In a study comparing dieting to non-dieting twins, Schur and colleagues demonstrated that those dieting gained more weight over a four-years follow-up than their non-dieting twin [ 97 ]. Long-term weight loss maintenance is thus difficult to sustain [ 98 ] which demonstrates the need for alternative strategies.

Two of the main alternatives to CR are: 1 increasing activity levels and 2 developing drugs that mimic the cellular and molecular pathways of CR making CR studies mandatory to understand the underlying mechanistic pathways.

However, as humans have evolved to run and hunt when starved [ 99 — ], this may represent a resolution to some of the controversies surrounding caloric restriction. When starved, the expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor is promoted which in turn shifts brain metabolism, is trophic to the brain, and anti-inflammatory therefore, potentially aiding with age related cognitive decline.

This can be simply performed by exercising in the morning, while having fasted overnight. This practice forces the body to use keto-acids as its major source of energy thereby making a major metabolic shift. Measuring increased physical activity using activity monitors has shown increased brain volume in the elderly [ 88 ]. Ideally, a combination of nutritional, behavioral and therapeutic interventions could lead to strong synergic beneficial effects for a better healthspan and longer lifespan, constituting a direction for future research.

The major growth of physical performance and capabilities during the twentieth century has been associated with considerable increases in life expectancy, which has doubled in the past years [ , ]. It was supported by a massive exploitation of fossil fuel energies that greatly contributed to the increase in food production, human reproduction, sport performances, lifespan and human height among others [ , ].

This phenotypic expansion — also called techno-physio evolution by Fogel [ , ]- comes at the expense of a major ecological collapse that also affects health through pollutants, climatic changes and resource depletion, thus limiting, or even reversing, the expansion pattern. Major changes in current policies should be rapidly taken in order to limit such detrimental effects. Reversing sedentary behavior through the promotion of physical and mental activity and adopting a healthier lifestyle are beneficial strategies that would help reduce the performance drop and possibly delay the appearance of chronic disease [ 53 , — ].

Finally, technological innovation, through pharmacology, robotic or neural prostheses may allow for an increased recovery from injuries while delaying chronic disease effects Fig. Increased knowledge of the biological mechanisms leading to performance decline in cells and tissues through experimental research would also allow for targeting new biochemical elements [ , ] and additional strategies for altering the decrease in performance.

However, the performance decline is difficult to escape, even among well-trained athletes. If so, multiple mechanisms associated with the generation of multiple age-related diseases would be involved. It is clear that metabolism is compromised at an early stage in neurodegenerative diseases associated with ageing [ ] which may well be modifiable. Age-related upper limits in physical performances.

J Gerontol Ser A. Article Google Scholar. Has athletic performance reached its peak? Sports Med. Return to sport among french alpine skiers after an anterior cruciate ligament rupture: results from to Am J Sports Med. PubMed Article Google Scholar. Integrative biology of exercise.

Tanaka H, Seals DR. Endurance exercise performance in masters athletes: age-associated changes and underlying physiological mechanisms. J Physiol. Regular decline in physical working capacity with age. The differentiation between cross-sectional and longitudinal age trends proved to be important in both these studies.

Your email address will not be published. Thank you for expressing interest in joining our mailing list and community. You can change your preferences or unsubscribe by clicking the unsubscribe link in the footer of any email you receive from us, or by contacting us at audience researchoutreach. Subscribe To Our Free Publication Thank you for expressing interest in joining our mailing list and community. I consent to receiving promoted content: We are able share your email address with third parties such as Google, Facebook and Twitter in order to send you promoted content which is tailored to your interests as outlined above.

I consent to receiving promoted content. Would you like to learn more about our services? I would like to learn more about Research Outreach's services. We all grow older, but the ageing process affects us differently. Their physical fitness is often recorded in sport performance records over a long period of time, making them ideal for studying the effects of ageing. Professor Emeritus Michael Stones, of Lakehead University, Ontario, Canada, used a statistical method called mixed linear modelling to analyse age-linked changes in master marathon runners.

Although rarely used in this kind of study, this method provides the most accurate representation of such age trends. The results show that performances by faster runners decline more slowly, and that those with younger ages at entry better maintain their pace into older age. Master athletes offer excellent opportunities for the study of human physical performance. Personal Response Could the methods used in the study of marathon runners potentially be applied to other sports?

How does age change sport performance? Master athletes have the answer was last modified: June 1st, This feature article was created with the approval of the research team featured.

This is a collaborative production, supported by those featured to aid free of charge, global distribution. Want to read more articles like this? However, trained athletes continue to maintain superior levels of performance throughout their lives. Athletic events such as the high jump provide somewhat different curves Fig. Although the world records [ 13 ] are again excellent in comparison with what can be presumed to be the performance levels in the general population, the decline in performance is steeper already in middle age 0.

This may, in part, be due to the more complex mixture of strength, power, flexibility and technical skill needed in the high jump than in events such as sprint running. Differences in competitive status, training volume and intensity, and the use of different jumping technique by the younger compared to older athletes are also likely to play a role [ 4 ].

In the absence of any major changes in training or untoward injuries, longitudinal data should thus indicate a smaller age-related decline. This is supported by the results of athlete HS in the figure, who has retained a similar jumping technique and training volume when competing in the high jump. In the case of moderate training status and level of performance in adulthood, the plasticity of individual development makes it possible, at least for some time, to postpone the age-related decline or even to improve performance cf.

Conzelmann [ 20 ] and Fig. Official world records for high jump in different age categories for men and women [ 13 ]. The figure also shows individual longitudinal data for a Finnish jumper HS. Long-distance running such as the marathon, which is an extreme sport on account of its high demands on aerobic power and muscle endurance, also shows excellent levels of performance in older athletes competing continuously in that event Fig. The open age world record for men has been achieved at age 35, and official results have been recorded until the 10th decade in both men and women.

For comparison, the best year-old marathon runner would be able to cover a distance of above 2. World all-time best results for marathon running in different age categories for men. Data from [ 13 ] and [ 21 ]. Among the physiological determinants of endurance exercise performance, a progressive reduction in maximal oxygen uptake, with contributing factors such as decreased maximal stroke volume, heart rate and arterio-venous O 2 difference, appears to be the primary mechanism associated with the decline in performance with age [ 3 , 23 ].

Although the slope of the age-related decline in aerobic capacity in endurance-trained athletes resembles that in untrained persons [ 23 , 24 ], this decline cannot be solely attributed to ageing as these athletes also reduce their training intensity and volume as they get older [ 3 , 23 ].

On the other hand, the age-related decline in aerobic capacity in controls may be biased in that the subjects tested in the oldest age groups probably represent individuals with better health and fitness than the average sedentary population [ 4 ].

It is also noteworthy that, where the slopes of the decline are similar, the relative difference in aerobic capacity between endurance athletes and non-athletes is actually greater with ageing. As suggested above, the volume and intensity of physical training and the plasticity of performance affect both athletic ability and the age-associated decline in performance.

Figure 4 shows the individual development of performance in an athlete with relatively stable and moderate training volume but with distinct changes in the type of training engaged in over the years. The athlete competed in power events such as hurdling, high jump and decathlon until age 25, when he turned to aerobic events such as endurance running and cross-country skiing.

Since age 47, he has trained mainly muscle strength and power and competed in the same events as he did at around age Individual development of performance in different running and jumping events together with changes in aerobic capacity and muscle strength over the years in a track-and-field athlete with regard to the focus of training. The results are percentages of performance at age 20— The track records represent official competition results, aerobic capacity a direct measurement of maximal oxygen uptake and muscle strength one repetition maximum in bench press Suominen, unpublished observations.

The changes in training modalities of this athlete have clearly influenced the development of his record performances and measures of muscle strength and aerobic capacity.

At the same time as his maximal oxygen uptake increased with aerobic training, his muscle strength decreased. Increasing the amount of strength and power training rapidly improved his performance in the bench press as well as in the high jump and m sprint, and maintained his level of performance in these events virtually unchanged over the following 15 years. On the other hand, his m race records seemed to deteriorate due the loss of longer sprints in training.

Genetic influences play an important role in explaining individual differences in exercise participation [ 25 ] and training responses [ 26 ] in general populations see Kujala, in this issue. Although scientific evidence in master athletes is lacking, good inheritance of physical traits as well as optimal exercise habits and acquisition of adequate sport skills from childhood through adolescence are likely to be fundamental to achieving excellent athletic abilities in adulthood and ageing.

The present example shows that later-life transitions in the types of physical training can also considerably modify the age-associated changes in the different aspects of maximal physical performance.

If more elite athletes were to utilise their genetic potential for training and competing in the older age groups, they could further raise the upper limits of human performance and reduce the overestimation of age decrements in the oldest groups, particularly in women. It is important to note that health complications may occur during sports and that the occurrence of severe injuries and diseases usually ends the athletic career, thus further selecting the athletes competing in old age.

However, the risk for most chronic diseases is reduced among master athletes, and there seems to be no such health-related reasons as to why those who have good training background and feel healthy should not participate in master athletics [ 27 , 28 ].

Elite master athletes with long-term devotion to physical training are challenging present estimates of age-related changes in maximal physical performance. Although a distinct age decrement remains, the official records of athletes competing in track and field events such as running and jumping show that sport performance can be preserved at an extraordinary high level well into old age.