Post by carruthersjam on Feb 4, 2008 12:44:25 GMT -8
Excerpts provided.
www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/health/nutrition/31BEST.html?
_r=1&oref=slogin
YOU know what is supposed to happen when you grow old. You will slow
down, you will grow weak, your steps will become short and mincing,
and you will lose your sense of balance. That's what aging
researchers consistently find, and it's no surprise to most of us.
But it is worth remembering that the people in those studies were
sedentary, said Dr. Vonda Wright, a professor of orthopedics at the
University of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Wright, a 40-year-old runner, decided to study people who kept
training as they got older or began competing in middle age. She
wanted to know what happens to them and at what age does performance
start to decline.
Their results are surprising, even to many of the researchers
themselves. The investigators find that while you will slow down as
you age, you may be able to stave off more of the deterioration than
you thought. Researchers also report that people can start later in
life — one man took up running at 62 and ran his first marathon, a
year later, in 3 hours 25 minutes.
It's a testament to how adaptable the human body is, researchers
said, that people can start serious training at an older age and
become highly competitive. It also is testament to their findings
that some physiological factors needed for a good performance are not
much affected by age.
Researchers say that you should be able to maintain your muscles as
you age, including the muscle enzymes needed for good athletic
performance, and you should be able to maintain your ability to
exercise for long periods near your so-called lactic threshold,
meaning you are near maximum effort.
But you have to know how to train, doing the right sort of exercise,
and you must keep it up.
"Train hard and train often," said Hirofumi Tanaka, a 41-year-old
soccer player and exercise physiologist at the University of Texas.
Dr. Tanaka said he means doing things like regular interval training,
repeatedly going all out, easing up, then going all out again. These
workouts train your body to increase its oxygen consumption by
allowing you to maintain an intense effort.
"One of the major determinants of endurance performance is oxygen
consumption," Dr. Tanaka said. "You have to make training as intense
as you can."
When you have to choose between hard and often, choose hard, said
Steven Hawkins, an exercise physiologist at the University of
Southern California.
"High performance is really determined more by intensity than
volume," he added. "Sometimes, when you're older, something has to
give. You can't have both so you have to cut back on the volume. You
need more rest days."
Dr. Hawkins, who says he no longer runs competitively, adds that he
tries to put his findings into practice. "I run a couple of times a
week and I try to make it as fast as I can," he said. "I'm not
plodding along."
He also has been amazed by some people who seem to defy the rules of
aging, people he describes as "those rare birds who get faster." Some
subjects in Dr. Hawkins's research study, which followed runners for
nearly two decades, actually had better times when they were 60 than
when they were 50.
"We really don't know why," Dr. Hawkins confessed. "Maybe they were
training harder."
Then there are people like the 62-year-old man who suddenly took up
running and began running fast marathons. That man's inspiration to
become a runner, said James Hagberg, an exercise physiologist at the
University of Maryland, was watching a lakefront marathon in
Milwaukee. "He got all fired up," Dr. Hagberg recalled.
And there are people like Imme Dyson, a 71-year-old runner who lives
in Princeton, N.J. She took up running when she was 48 and loved it,
she says, from the moment she put on a pair of running shoes. Her
daughter, who had been a college triathlete, told her how to train.
"She said, `Mom, if your workout didn't hurt, you didn't work hard
enough,' " Ms. Dyson said.
"Working consistently really is the recipe," she said. And it has
made a difference for her, allowing her to run races, from 5K to
marathons, so fast that she is consistently among the best in the
nation in her age group. She has run a 15K cross-country race in
1:19:08, a pace of 8:29 a mile. And she ran a 10K race in 51 minutes
50 seconds, a pace of 8:20 a mile.
Not every aging athlete does so well. But Dr. Hagberg found that
studies of aging athletes sometimes were distorted because they
included people who had cut back on or stopped training. That's
understandable; there is no reason, researchers say, to exhort
everyone to maintain an intense effort decade after decade.
www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/health/nutrition/31BEST.html?
_r=1&oref=slogin
YOU know what is supposed to happen when you grow old. You will slow
down, you will grow weak, your steps will become short and mincing,
and you will lose your sense of balance. That's what aging
researchers consistently find, and it's no surprise to most of us.
But it is worth remembering that the people in those studies were
sedentary, said Dr. Vonda Wright, a professor of orthopedics at the
University of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Wright, a 40-year-old runner, decided to study people who kept
training as they got older or began competing in middle age. She
wanted to know what happens to them and at what age does performance
start to decline.
Their results are surprising, even to many of the researchers
themselves. The investigators find that while you will slow down as
you age, you may be able to stave off more of the deterioration than
you thought. Researchers also report that people can start later in
life — one man took up running at 62 and ran his first marathon, a
year later, in 3 hours 25 minutes.
It's a testament to how adaptable the human body is, researchers
said, that people can start serious training at an older age and
become highly competitive. It also is testament to their findings
that some physiological factors needed for a good performance are not
much affected by age.
Researchers say that you should be able to maintain your muscles as
you age, including the muscle enzymes needed for good athletic
performance, and you should be able to maintain your ability to
exercise for long periods near your so-called lactic threshold,
meaning you are near maximum effort.
But you have to know how to train, doing the right sort of exercise,
and you must keep it up.
"Train hard and train often," said Hirofumi Tanaka, a 41-year-old
soccer player and exercise physiologist at the University of Texas.
Dr. Tanaka said he means doing things like regular interval training,
repeatedly going all out, easing up, then going all out again. These
workouts train your body to increase its oxygen consumption by
allowing you to maintain an intense effort.
"One of the major determinants of endurance performance is oxygen
consumption," Dr. Tanaka said. "You have to make training as intense
as you can."
When you have to choose between hard and often, choose hard, said
Steven Hawkins, an exercise physiologist at the University of
Southern California.
"High performance is really determined more by intensity than
volume," he added. "Sometimes, when you're older, something has to
give. You can't have both so you have to cut back on the volume. You
need more rest days."
Dr. Hawkins, who says he no longer runs competitively, adds that he
tries to put his findings into practice. "I run a couple of times a
week and I try to make it as fast as I can," he said. "I'm not
plodding along."
He also has been amazed by some people who seem to defy the rules of
aging, people he describes as "those rare birds who get faster." Some
subjects in Dr. Hawkins's research study, which followed runners for
nearly two decades, actually had better times when they were 60 than
when they were 50.
"We really don't know why," Dr. Hawkins confessed. "Maybe they were
training harder."
Then there are people like the 62-year-old man who suddenly took up
running and began running fast marathons. That man's inspiration to
become a runner, said James Hagberg, an exercise physiologist at the
University of Maryland, was watching a lakefront marathon in
Milwaukee. "He got all fired up," Dr. Hagberg recalled.
And there are people like Imme Dyson, a 71-year-old runner who lives
in Princeton, N.J. She took up running when she was 48 and loved it,
she says, from the moment she put on a pair of running shoes. Her
daughter, who had been a college triathlete, told her how to train.
"She said, `Mom, if your workout didn't hurt, you didn't work hard
enough,' " Ms. Dyson said.
"Working consistently really is the recipe," she said. And it has
made a difference for her, allowing her to run races, from 5K to
marathons, so fast that she is consistently among the best in the
nation in her age group. She has run a 15K cross-country race in
1:19:08, a pace of 8:29 a mile. And she ran a 10K race in 51 minutes
50 seconds, a pace of 8:20 a mile.
Not every aging athlete does so well. But Dr. Hagberg found that
studies of aging athletes sometimes were distorted because they
included people who had cut back on or stopped training. That's
understandable; there is no reason, researchers say, to exhort
everyone to maintain an intense effort decade after decade.