Age and Performance

Age and Performance.
Part 1 of a series of articles for older runners. Part 1 concentrates on what actually happens to the body as it gets older. Subsequent articles will concentrate on endurance and speed.

Age need not lead to loss of endurance. Older runners may lose speed, but their experience and mental strength enables them to go on performing well for a long time. It is inevitable that we will all slow down with age. Evolution depends on a rapid turnover of the generations and there is a built-in obsolescence in living material.

Cells divide less frequently as they get older and eventually stop altogether.
The total number of brain cells we have declines with age.
Damaged muscle cells are replaced more slowly.
The production of growth hormone (GH) by the pituitary gland declines with age.

This means that:

Your muscles lose some of their ability to gain in strength and size as a result of training.
Recovery from training – and competition – takes longer.
You tend to lay down fat because of a decline in blood levels of ‘insulin-like growth factor 1′, whose production is stimulated by GH.

As we get older, we lose muscle fibres. In the general population it is lost at the rate of around 2% and in trained runners at an average of 0.5% per year, starting sometime between the ages of 35 and 40. The decline starts later in well trained individuals and progresses more slowly in those who stay in training, but it is still inevitable. Fast twitch fibres are lost more rapidly than their slow twitch counterparts. And this, together with a decline of elasticity in the ligaments, means that athletes lose their speed much more rapidly than their endurance. The good news, though, is that training raises the whole level of performance, and continued training maintains a high level.
With age, we become increasingly prone to such ‘degenerative diseases’ as heart disease, cancer, hypertension, diabetes and bowel diseases. But most of these are preventable to some degree, with exercise – and particularly endurance exercise –playing a significant role.

Analysing questionnaires from a survey of some 100 Master athletes, Bruce Tulloh found that among those who had taken up exercise after age 40, training brought about improvement in performance for at least three years and sometimes as long as five. Eventually, though, the slope of improvement will flatten out. Harder training may maintain performance levels for a short time, but inevitably a steady decline in performance will set in although this in no way negates the health benefits of exercise. Whatever age you are when you start training, you will show rapid improvement.

It is important to realise that your body need not decline significantly – especially between age 30 and 60 – as long as you continue to make it work! Exercise has been described as the elixir of life since it can reduce your risk of a variety of ills and even slow down the aging process.

Now you have some idea about what happens to you as you get older, subsequent articles will help to put a spring in your step and show you just how to get the best out of yourself!
The answer is quite simple, contained within these four steps:

1. Start with a training load that you can handle, given the constraints of your daily life;

2. Working with a coach or a club, improve both the quality and the volume of your training. A small (5-10%) increase in volume every two weeks is a reasonable target;

3. Keep a training diary to assess the impact of your training on your performances, taking note of fatigue, injury and illness;

4. Divide your year into periods, (An Introduction to Periodisation) with specific goals for each, and assess your progress, or lack of it, at the end of each period. If you are continuing to improve, and you can find the time, there is no reason why you should not increase your training volume or introduce a new training element.

Your Training Diary (If you sign up to the Running4Women Newsletter you will receive a complimentary Training Diary!) will reveal the signs of overtraining – continual tiredness, minor infections, bad sleeping pattern, decline in performance. The solution is to reduce the load for at least two weeks or until you feel fresher, whichever is the longer.