Fit Living

Link: http://www.joefrielsblog.com/2010/09/aging-and-performance.html

Aging and Performance

Next week I’m doing a series of talks on training for endurance sport in Bangkok. One of the topics I’ll cover is the aging athlete. The following is an excerpt from that talk.

We’re obviously all getting older and that has implications for performance and for training. Around age 30 endurance athletes seem to reach a peak in performance. After that there is a slow decline year after year. At first it is so slight that the athlete may not even notice or may mark it up to poor training or bad luck. But by the early 40s it is generally apparent to most that performance is going the wrong direction. And the trend continues after that.

The accompanying chart of “World Marathon Records” (click to enlarge) illustrates what has happened to the best marathon times in the world by age group (this chart is a couple of years old now so please forgive me if I've missed a new record). Realize that the runners who set these records are the cream of the crop. They are undoubtedly blessed with remarkable genetics and have most likely trained very well in order to produce their best-ever-in-the-world times. Notice the steady increase in marathon race times until about age 70 when the change is rather abrupt. I’ve seen this same trend in age-group records for cycling and swimming also.

Some of this dramatic change around age 70 may be due to societal effects. The leading edge of the “baby boom” generation is just now reaching their mid-60s. In the early 1970s when that generation was just in their late 20s the running and fitness boom began. Many from that group are those who are now breaking age records in all sports. The generation that came just before the baby boomers (did they have a name or is that something relatively new?) didn’t have the same exposure to sport and fitness. The Great Depression and WWII probably had a lot to do with shaping that generation’s mores and lifestyle. My point here is that we may soon see the world records in all sports for the 70-year-old category drop as the next generation “ages up.”

In my next post I’ll discuss what you can do to slow the decline in performance as you get older.

I’m always on the lookout for any kind of information that I think might help people prevent falls or live a higher quality of life. So I was pretty excited when I came across a new research review in the British Medical Journal recently.

The study found that older adults who take Vitamin D may reduce their chances of falling by up to 19%. The findings of this review were based on the combined results of 8 different studies done on people over age 65 who took either a Vitamin D supplement or a placebo.

What’s interesting here is that the reduced risk for falling was only found in people who took between 700 and 1,000 IU (international units) of Vitamin D per day. Doses smaller than that didn’t appear to help.

The U.S. Institute of Medicine currently recommends 400 IU per day for people age 51-70, and 600 IU per day for people over 70, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they raise those number soon.

You typically find somewhere around those amounts in most daily multi-vitamins, but this new study shows that may not be enough.

You’ve probably heard that your body produces Vitamin D when you’re exposed to sun. In fact, I’ve read that your body can make anywhere from 3,000-20,000 IU of Vitamin D when you’re outside depending on how intense the sun is, how long you stay out, your skin tone, and how much of your skin is uncovered.

So if you live in a sunny climate and are outside a lot, this may not be an issue for you. Just make sure you don’t burn. But if you don’t see the sun much in the winter, or don’t go outside much when it is sunny, ask your doctor about Vitamin D supplementation. It’s quite affordable, less than $10 for a month’s supply, and you get it at any grocery store without a prescription.

I recently read an article from American Bone Health that discussed the impending increase in falls and fall-related injuries among seniors. The National Council on Aging refers to this as the “Silver Tsunami.”

It’s really a simple concept – the huge baby boomer generation is arriving at older adulthood, and those years, as we know, are associated with an increase in falling. As this huge group ages, it’s likely that we’ll see a lot more falls.

The article the reviews some of the familiar risk factors:

1. Vision problems
2. Physical limitations
3. Side-effects from medication
4. Environmental obstacles that can cause one to trip

Here’s what you can do to make sure you’re not part of the Silver Tsunami:

* Talk with your doctor about your medications.
* Have your eyes checked.
* Do balance exercises several times per week.
* Strengthen your legs.
* Remove tripping hazards like electric cords, throw rugs, frayed carpet, etc.

Understand that while it’s impossible to eliminate your risk of falling, you can greatly reduce your chances with a proactive approach.

I've talked before about how your leg muscles are the most important muscles when it comes to living a high quality of life because they help you move around and stay active.

Leg muscles are so important that I think everyone over 60 should be training their legs at least twice per week. Combining leg strengthening with exercises for balance can go a long way towards reducing your risk of falling.

The reason leg strengthening is so important is because after a certain age, you will start to naturally lose muscle mass. This process is called Sarcopenia, and a recent study from the University of Nottingham in England looked a little deeper into why it happens.

They took two groups—one with an average age of 25 and one with an average age of 65—and gave them insulin before breakfast to see how the insulin would affect muscle breakdown.

When you wake up in the morning, you haven’t eaten anything for 8 or more hours, so your body starts to break down muscle for energy. When you have breakfast, your body should stop breaking down that muscle because now it has energy from the food.

For the younger group of participants, that is exactly what happened. The insulin, which mimics what happens in your body after eating breakfast, stopped the muscle breakdown.

However, in the older group, it did not, meaning that muscle breakdown continued.

Unfortunately, you can’t do much about how your muscles react (or don’t react) to insulin, but the researchers think that strength training of the leg muscles can slow or stop the loss of muscle.

What are you doing for your legs?

Here are a few things to get you started.

1. Walk or use a cardio machine that uses the legs several times per week for at least 20 minutes. Good cardio machines would be an upright or recumbent stationary bike, Airdyne, NuStep, rower, or elliptical.

2. Strength train your legs 2 or 3 times per week. Your health club should have a good selection of leg strengthening machines. At home, you can do the stairs repeatedly or do squats up and down from a chair as well as marching in place.

Don’t let that precious muscle wither away, because it’s so crucial to your independence.

Regular Exercise Reduces Your Risk of Falling!

The Journal of American Geriatrics Society recently published the findings of a team at the George Institute for International Health in Australia who reviewed 44 research trials involving over 9000 people that assessed the value of various approaches to fall prevention.

They found that people involved in exercise programs experience 17 percent fewer falls than people who are not.

The best results were seen in groups that focused on balance training, whereas walking programs did not appear to have much of an effect in reducing falls.

Researchers also noted that those who engaged in a larger amount of exercise, 2 days per week or more for over five months, saw better results than less regimented exercisers.

This further confirms that consistently doing balance exercises can lower your risk of falling.

It is recommended that you do something to train your balance at least three or four times per week, and preferably every day if you can.