Physiological aging of champion runners

Abstract

The physiological adjustments to aerobic work (5.6 km/h, up a 9% grade) and to exhausting treadmill work of former champion middle-distance runners were determined in 1971, at ages 47-68 yr, 25-43 yr after their competitive careers in track. In the resting state the former athletes as a group are very much like nonathletes of the same ages. Efficiency in the aerobic walk was the same in both groups and did not change with age in either, but the former athletes on the average performed the walk with less strain as indicated by lower blood lactates, "ventilatory equivalents," and heart rates than nonathletes at corresponding ages. Mean VO2max of the runners declined from 71.4 ml/min-kg-1 in youth to 41.8 at a mean age of 56.6 yr, as compared with mean values of 50.6 and 36.5 ml/min-kg-1 in nonathletes at corresponding ages. VO2max had declined below the average of nonathletic men in only two of the former runners. Mean maximal heart rate declined with age from 186 to 180 in the runners, and from 199 to 186 in nonathletes at corresponding ages. Ventilatory responses of men in both groups were closely related to the increases of blood lactate in both aerobic and maximal work.

Why is walker-assisted gait metabolically expensive?

“…AVO 2 of 10 ml/kg/min is only a modest effort for young, healthy people, but for an elderly user, it is a large fraction ofVO 2 max. Several cross-sectional studies suggest thatVO 2 max declines approximately 0.58 ml O 2 /kg/min/year in older populations (people 55-85) [10][11][12][13][14]. Consider a typical 85-year old, community dwelling woman that has aVO 2 max of approximately 15 ml/ kg/min [14].…”

“…Many elderly people report that walkers are difficult to use [3,4]. A major difficulty is that the metabolic cost of ambulation with a walker is greatly elevated [5][6][7][8][9] combined with the diminished aerobic capacity associated with aging [10][11][12][13][14]. In this study, we quantified the major reasons why walker-assisted gait is so expensive.…”

Physiological Responses to Maximal Treadmill and Deep Water Running in the Young and the Middle Aged Males.

“…Generally, the functional capacity of the cardiovascular system declines with aging, resulting in a decrease in • maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) (Astrand, 1960;Kasch et al, 1985;Dill et al, 1967;Robinson et al, 1976). The…”

Relationships between body weight change and cardiovascular disease risk factors in male former athletes

“…11 The results of our study con®rm that the prevention of weight gain depends on continued physical activity rather than on the genetic predisposition. 24 The body fat percentage in middle-aged and older athletes is higher than in young athletes, although markedly less than in age-matched sedentary controls, showing that body fat increased by $ 2% over 10 y even in those athletes who remained highly competitive. 5 Our study suggests that most former athletes (59.3%) tend to gain weight during 15 ± 30 y after their sports career is discontinued (Table 1).…”

“…In a study of former elite middle-distance runners, the mean weight gain was 7.1 kg over $ 22 y after they stopped training. 24 Sarna et al 16 reported the highest weight gain in power sports athletes 28.5 AE 9.8 30.9 AE 5.6 27.1 AE 7.0* 22.5 AE 6.1*** *P`0.05; **P`0.01; ***P`0.001, values statistically signi®cantly different from`constant weight'. Table 3 Age-, physical activity-and weight-adjusted ORs and 95% CI for hypertension, abdominal fat distribution pattern and hyperlipidemias in different weight-change groups compared with the`constant weight' group Hypertension WHR !…”