UK: Older can mean faster

LONDON (THE TIMES), June 17, 2005:

Older runners are speeding up more rapidly than their young competitors You are as young as you feel. That’s the mantra that sustains many of the baby-boomers and their older counterparts as they defy expectations about the capabilities of their age. And now there’s evidence to show that getting older is no barrier to improved athletic performance, either, with older people closing the gap with their younger competitors in the running world. The health benefits of exercise have been confirmed recently by a study which found that taking exercise helps to ward off mobility problems in old age.

Professor Marjolein Visser and researchers at the US National Institute on Ageing looked at the exercise habits of men and women aged 70-79, and discovered that, after four and a half years, those who had been inactive from the start were most likely to have become immobile (finding the task of walking 400 metres or climbing ten steps difficult or impossible).

Visser, an epidemiologist, says her results show “the importance of an active lifestyle in old age”, adding that simply walking for up to two hours a week can be an antidote to mobility problems.

Several studies have shown that becoming active in old age has positive health benefits, “showing it is never too late to start”, she says.

It is not only a person’s mobility that will benefit from regular workouts, but their blood pressure, bone density and self-esteem, too. Aerobic activity, in particular, has been shown to prevent age-related mental decline. Last month, researchers at the University of California reported in the Journal of Neuroscience that exercise inhibits Alzheimer-like changes in mice and could do the same in human beings.

Physical activity was found to improve learning ability and to lower levels of plaque-forming beta-amyloid proteins in the brain, a hallmark of Alzhiemer’s.

Keeping active in old age isn’t simply about preventing the signs of senescence.

Older athletes are capable of the same degree of physical improvement as those in their twenties and thirties. In a study of people aged 55 and over, Dr Kerry Stewart, a clinical exercise physiologist at the John Hopkins school of Medicine in Baltimore, found that they experienced the same improvements in muscle strength, oxygen consumption and other physiological parameters as did younger people.

Ceri Diss, a sports scientist at the University of Surrey, Roehampton, who is studying the effects of ageing on athletic performance, agrees that getting older need not even mean a downturn in performance in endurance activities such as running.

Although flexibility and elasticity, which affect power and speed, do decline with age, aerobic capacity and cardiovascular fitness remain fairly constant. “The lung capacity of people in their fifties and sixties is not necessarily worse than it was in their thirties and forties,” Diss says. “The key is to keep exercising regularly and not let it lapse.”

Older runners may be getting faster, according to a report in the British Medical Journal. Professor Peter Jokl, an orthopaedic expert at Yale University School of Medicine, and his colleagues have found that runners aged 50 and over are speeding up more rapidly than younger people. They analysed the finishing times of all 415,000 runners in the 26.2 mile New York marathon between 1983 and 1999 and discovered that finishers from the older age groups showed the greatest increases in speed, with women aged 60-68 improving most markedly, running an average four minutes quicker each year (men of the same age ran just over one minute faster than previously).

Jokl says his results showed that someone can “maintain a very high performance into the sixth or seventh decade of life”, adding weight to the theory that “people grow weaker not simply because of age but because they don’t use their muscles as much as they did” when they were younger. “Twenty-five years ago few 60-year-old men, and even fewer women, or their doctors, would have considered it possible for someone of that age to run 26 miles.”

He believes the faster times can be put down to cultural change and a growing population of older people willing to attempt intense exercise as they get older.

Jokl predicts that veteran athletes will continue to improve over time as they try new training techniques and as races for their age group become more competitive.

What Age Barrier?

Want to exercise more but haven’t run for a bus in a quite a few years? Follow these tips.

* If you haven’t exercised for a while, it’s important to have a check-up with your GP first.

* Always make sure that you warm up thoroughly: muscles, tendons and tissues become less flexible, so you will need to stretch and walk for at least ten minutes to avoid injury. Repeat for a cool-down after exercise.

* If you like the idea of running but haven’t put on a pair of trainers since school, start with gentle walking — up to 20 minutes at a time — and gradually increase to a brisk walk.

* If you can, progress to slow running as this is more beneficial to the heart and lungs (and because it is weight-bearing, it helps to prevent the onset of osteoporosis): start with a two-minute walk, two-minute jog pattern for 20 minutes.

* Once you can manage that, move on to jogging and then gradually increase the distance and speed over time. www.runnersworld.co.uk has plenty of advice for older runners.

* Older exercisers need longer to recover, especially after more intense sessions. Run on alternate days and give your legs time to recover either through rest or through joint-friendly aqua activities.

* Don’t overdo things too quickly. Running too far, too soon is a major cause of Achilles tendon problems and shin splints.

* Watch what you wear: as we age we become more vulnerable to the effects of cold. If you are running or walking outside, wear layers that can be peeled off as you work up a sweat.

* Consider weight training to complement a running or aerobic-based programme. Twice a week on the weights can offset age-related muscle loss.

* If you suffer from painful joints or arthritis, try swimming or aqua-aerobics. Water acts as a giant cushion and supports up to 90 per cent of the body weight. However, you will need to complement aqua activities with some weight-bearing exercise to protect your bones.

* Yoga has no age barriers — many British Wheel of Yoga teachers (www.bwy.org.uk ) are in their sixties and over. It helps with flexibility and strength.

* Golf, tennis, badminton and other racquet sports help to prevent bone loss in the preferred arm. Remember to balance out by exercising both sides of the body though. By Peta Bee Copyright 2005 Times Newspapers Ltd.