Aging and Physiological Lessons from Master Athletes

Tanaka, Hirofumi; Tarumi, Takashi; Rittweger, Jörn

doi:10.1002/cphy.c180041

Cited by 43 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 342 publications

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“…Moreover, the products of sports technology (e. g. heart rate monitors, GPS units, running power meters) have been widely used to monitor training and performance [27,28]. It should be also highlighted that sports longevity was associated with health care and access to health services currently available [16][17][18]. Furthermore, a new generation of running shoes reduced the metabolic cost of running [29] and improved running economy [30,31], which might also improve performance in ultra-marathon runners.…”

Section: Improvement In Performance For the Annual Top Five Women Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such information about elite and age group runners competing in the world's oldest ultramarathon would be of both theoretical and practical interest for scientists and practitioners, especially in the context of consideration of master athletes as an example of successful aging [16][17][18][19]. The analysis of an ultramarathon held during ~100 years might lead to different results regarding participation and performance in both elite and age group runners compared to a race held for ~60 years such as '100 km Lauf Biel'.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Participation and Performance in the Oldest Ultramarathon–Comrades Marathon 1921–2019

Nikolaidis¹,

Knechtle²,

Vancini

et al. 2020

Int J Sports Med

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Participation and performance trends have been analyzed for different ultramarathons for limited time periods. This study examined trends in participation and performance in the oldest ultramarathon in the world, the ‘Comrades Marathon’ (South Africa), during a century (1921−2019). Data from www.ultra-marathon.org on 100 000 unique finishers were analysed using different general linear models. Women represented 4.2% of the total sample (n=4152), and the first women ran this race in 1978. Before the year 1965, the number of participants in the race ranged between 5 and 35 athletes, then started to grow exponentially until mid 90’s. An increase in finishers in the 70 s mainly due to an increase in male athletes in age groups 30−39, 40−49 and 50−59 years was observed (p<0.001). A stable running speed for overall women and men but an improvement in performance for the annual top five women and men were shown (p<0.001). Male runners were faster than female runners for all age groups (p<0.001). While overall performance was not improved across years, the annual top five women and men were able to improve their performance over years.

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Section: Improvement In Performance For the Annual Top Five Women Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Participation and Performance in the Oldest Ultramarathon–Comrades Marathon 1921–2019

Nikolaidis¹,

Knechtle²,

Vancini

et al. 2020

Int J Sports Med

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show abstract

“…O ther than many of their sedentary peers or patients with orthopedic constraints, master athletes continue to exercise until high age. [1][2][3][4] The age of peak performance usually occurs between 18 and 23 years, and performance starts to decline progressively after staying relatively constant in the third decade of life. 1 Maintaining high levels of physical exercise throughout the life seems to slow the multisystemic deterioration commonly observed in inactive individuals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance Declines Are Accelerated in the Oldest-Old Track and Field Athletes 80 to 94 Years of Age

Ganse

Drey

Hildebrand

et al. 2021

Rejuvenation Research

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Physical performance declines with age, even in exercising, healthy individuals without major illnesses or orthopedic issues. The rate of performance decline is often reported to accelerate after the age of 70 years, but almost no data are available on performance in the fittest oldest-old. To assess their rate of decline in performance, the biggest data set of track and field athletes aged ‡80 years (1567 results) ever published was generated for different disciplines from German Athletics Federations including 1997-2019. Performance at age 80 years of athletes still participating at age 85 years was compared with those who discontinued. Only 1 of every 22 athletes competing at age 80 years still competed at age 90 years. The performance decline was more than three times as steep in athletes aged ‡80 years (on average 1.

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“…Because elderly athletes (masters athletes) maintain high levels of physical activity, they may serve as an example of an optimal healthy human aging. Indeed, the master athlete has been proposed as an ideal model to determine successful aging due to his or her chronic participation in high-intensity exercise (Lazarus and Harridge, 2017;Tanaka et al, 2019).…”

Section: Editorial On the Research Topicmentioning

confidence: 99%