
Why Runners Get Slower with Age - scotch_drinker
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/09/09/why-runners-get-slower-with-age-and-how-strength-training-may-help/
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evo_9
This is very interesting to me. I'm 48 and play hockey 3 days a week, often
against guys in there 20's currently playing college or Juniors. I have been
actively increasing my leg workout for the past year and it's noticeable, esp.
in my quickness and overall speed.

I'm actually about to start doing squats which are something I've never done
much of because I've been lucky genetically and have always had very large
calves and thighs. I picked up a book recently espousing the benefits of
squats in particular (Starting Strength for those interested) and I think
that's the next thing for me to keep or maybe even increase my speed.

The other thing I started doing about a year back now is a upright bike
'sprint' where I basically peddle easy for around 20 seconds, then 10 seconds
of full-on max aerobic type sprint. I then rest another 20 seconds peddling
easy, followed by 10 more seconds, and finish the same on a final third
sprint. When I say full on sprint I mean to the point where I nearly barf
every time I complete this part of my workout; you really have to push
yourself and not just go a little faster. Prior to switching to this sprint
type workout I did a rotation of long day/short days on an elliptical; on my
long day I did 40m and on my short I'd do 20m.

What I noticed as I've gotten older is that my endurance remained fairly
consistent but my 'explosiveness' was going away. Just switching to the
sprints has helped me regain a lot of my speed. In fact a good friend that
I've skated with on and off for about 15 years remarked that he thought I was
faster now than I've ever been. Considering I've been chasing down
20-something Junior players on break-aways, it seems about right to me.

I think adding in the squats will further help diminish my leg muscle decline
and hopefully give me a bit more quickness my first three 'chops' from a dead
stop.

I write about all this stuff on my personal blog which focuses on fitness,
health and most of all hockey such as this recent post:
[https://existentialquandary.wordpress.com/2015/09/07/sunday-...](https://existentialquandary.wordpress.com/2015/09/07/sunday-
night-sept-6th-drop-in/)

Edit: Book title was wrong - link is in another comment - thanks for linking
to it!

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lizxrice
Your bike sprint workouts sound similar to Tabata cycling intervals:
[http://britishcyclesport.com/2013/training/tabata-
intervals/](http://britishcyclesport.com/2013/training/tabata-intervals/)

Got to agree workouts like that are _really_ hard!

~~~
evo_9
Thanks I hadn't seen this before.

I got the idea from a BBC program on fitness, I think it was a Horizon's where
they had the host doing these sprints and they equaled much longer endurance
workouts. I was dubious at first but the results seem to hold up.

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reasonattlm
Mechanisms to think on:

1) Stiffening of tendon tissue via cross-linking and calification.

2) Loss of muscle mass and strength via all of the varied mechanisms
implicated in sarcopenia, ranging from mitochondrial dysfunction to
extracellular matrix disruption via cross-links and senescent cells, to fatty
infiltration of muscles, diminished stem cell activity, etc, etc.

3) Inefficiency in blood flow to muscles, either through neurological
impairment in the normal blood vessel dilation process or through cross-
linking and calcification to stiffen blood vessel walls.

4) Dysfunction in cartilage for all the reasons implicated there, such as
cross-linking, loss of stem cell function, and so on.

There are others, but note that all of these are secondary consequences of
types of primary damage that occur as a result of the normal operation of
metabolism. They are all targets for repair treatments yet to be constructed.

------
kelvin0
Can't recommend this book enough:
[http://startingstrength.com/](http://startingstrength.com/)

------
revelation
Running speed for any event beyond a few seconds is not limited or determined
by muscle strength, but the much much much more important aerobic capacity (as
they discuss in the beginning, but of course don't bother to make the
connection).

Performance in endurance sports also peaks around 27 years of age, so most
people will naturally get faster until then and only decline afterwards. So
you don't simply get slower with age.

~~~
seiji
Exactly. Your cardiac output is a function of age, routinely stated as "220
minus your age in years is your maximum heart rate." (Or: maxBPM(age) = 220 -
age)

When I'm going all out, my watch says I hit 180 bpm which is pretty darn close
to my (220-32=188) max rate.

~~~
nashequilibrium
Source: "endurance sports also peaks around 27 years of age" I have seen most
triathletes hitting their best time in their early 30s. Chrissie Wellington
actually only started professional ironman in her 30s. She was ironman
champion in 2007(30),2008(31),2009(32),2011(34).

Also cardiac output is more correctly a function of stroke volume, how much
blood is pumped for each stroke. Therefore very well trained athletes actually
have a lower max hr.

Also cardiovascular drift can increase your max HR, this happens when it's
very hot or you have lost a lot of water due to sweating, this causes stroke
volume to decrease and heart rate to increase while you still at the same
physical output. You hear ppl saying my heart rate was so high and i didn't
feel like i was working that hard, it's usually due to cardiovascular drift.

~~~
revelation
Triathletes are a odd group to base this on. In any case, the exact age isn't
important and you would of course expect this to vary dramatically. The point
was that it is very far from being as simple as "performance decreases as you
age".

But you are correct to point out that your parent is very far off the mark.
Max HR is not a useful predictor of performance, and you can not calculate it
with a formula. What you want is a test to exhaustion to determine it, but
these are highly dubious due to the psychological aspect, and at the end of it
you might have a correct value for max HR, only to realize that it is pretty
useless for any prediction purpose.

Case in point, Chris Froome, winner of the Tour de France in 2015, has a max
HR of around 170, yet he can sustain 450W for a hour. Meanwhile plenty of
people with a max HR of 200 and beyond can't climb stairs without heavy
breathing.

