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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Age-associated power decline from running, jumping, and throwing male Masters world records | | Author(s) | Paolo Gava, Helmut Kern, Ugo Carraro |
| Journal title | Experimental Aging Research, vol 41, no 2, March-April 2015 |
| Publisher | Taylor and Francis, March-April 2015 |
| Pages | pp 115-135 |
| Source | http://www.tandfonline.com |
| Keywords | Older men ; Physical capacity ; Musculoskeletal systems ; Athletics ; Performance ; Correlation. |
| Annotation | The capacity to perform everyday tasks is directly related to the muscular power the body can develop. Although the age-related loss of muscle power is a fact, the characterisation or the rate of muscle power loss remains an open issue. Data useful to study the decline of skeletal muscle power are largely available from sources other than medical tests, e.g. from Masters athletes' track and field competitions. This study aims to identify the age-related decline trend of the power developed by athletes taking part in the track and field events. Absolute male world records for 16 events were collected, along with world records of male Masters categories. Performance was normalised with respect to the absolute record. The performance of various age groups is consequently represented by a number ranging from 1 (world absolute records) to 0 (null performance). The performance of a jumping event is transformed into a parameter proportional to the power developed by the athletes: the displacement of the athlete's centre of gravity. Throwing events are further normalised for the decreasing weight of implements with the increasing age of the Masters athletes. Most track and field events show a linear decline to 70 years. The annual rate of power decline for all the events (running, throwing and jumping), using a simplified synthesis, is 1.25% per year. The events that involve mostly upper limbs (shot put, throwing the javelin) show a higher rate of decline (1.4% per year) compared to those where the lower limbs are mostly involved (long jump 1.1%, track events 0.6-0.7% per year). This analysis of muscle power decline is only partially in line with the results of works based on clinical tests. A clarification of the reasons for such discrepancy may provide clinically significant information. Human power decline in Masters athletes was analysed, adopting a coherent approach based on an extended database. Skeletal muscle power starts declining after the age of 30, with slight variations depending on the events. This conclusion is in line with only some of the previous studies. The various trend lines point to 0 at the age of 110 years, which is in line with the present human survival age. The study can be further developed with a suitable database for male and female Masters performances to facilitate longitudinal studies, which are currently lacking. (RH) |
| Accession Number | CPA-150529278 A |
| Classmark | BC: BI: BK6: HU: 5H: 49 |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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