good post. i doubt that it could be possible to predict how an individual will age, it's so hypothetical. even one tiny factor of thousands shortly after this "prediction" will change everything: sleep, eating habits, joy, sorrow, influence of pharms etc.
but one thing seems to work well: the official wma age grade calculator. excellent.
“Are there any credible scientific studies that can predict with some precision the effect of aging on distance running?”
I guess this is a bit of a trick question with the obvious answer being “NO”. “Aging” in and of itself is not a disease but a collection of changes too long to list here. The WMA-Age-grading calculator is our current best mathematical predictor. Personally it’s not been very accurate as my mile and 5K times have gone from 85% at age 18 to 77.9% at age 53, and now, being injured for 1+ years: 0%.
correct me, if i am wrong? is there a misunderstanding?
i think, the wma age-grading calculator is not a predictor-tool. it compares an age-performance of a specific age-group with the best result of this age-group ("age-performance %") and it calculates what you should have to run as a young lad to perform at the same level ("age-graded result").
you were a stronger runner with 85% at age 18 than at age 53 (77,9%).
for example: a runner at age 45 is doing a 3k in 9:10. his pr at age 25 is a 8:30. which time is better or harder to achieve? the 9:10 at age 45. if this 45 years old athlet, performing a 9:10, would be 25 years old instead of 45, he would do it in 8:20,4.
I wouldn't quite call this a scientific study in a strict sense but for my graduate course in signal processing, statistics, and data mining, I wrote a paper on the subject of slowing down over time. I looked at distances from the mile up to the marathon and tried to find races with large sample sizes with freely available data where I could try to eliminate as much bias as possible (such as from weather). For instance, I collected nearly 800,000 entries from the NYC Marathon, which was probably the worst weather entry but had the most data. It's been suggested I publish it but it's not really my field of study and I there's more to do that I haven't quite done. I do heavy statistics in astronomy, so like I said, it's not really a strict scientific study, but I'd like to think I did a good scientific analysis for the class (I've been a graduate student for a few years, if that gives me any more credibility).
I took large sample sizes because I argued you couldn't follow individuals because of things like injuries and training variations, and I didn't use age records because those follow only the elite runners. Without giving away too much of the beef of it (in case I ever do publish it), my results were as follows:
-It is very clear that you see a broken power law form of the slow down. That is, you slow down by some relatively stable rate until a certain threshold age and then you slow down worse after that point. There wasn't enough data at the oldest ages (>70) to see if there was another break (my other limit was
Sliding Toward the Twilight wrote:
ralphieDo you really need a study to tell you why 60 year olds don't run as fast as 20 year olds? Do you actually think that that if 20-something world record holders kept running at the same intensity, they'd never slow down? If you do, lack of scientific studies is the least of your problems.
I don't need a study to tell me I slow down with age. I know I do. What I want to know is what percentage of my PR I should be at twenty years after my PR age. That sort of thing.
Again, age graded performances are built on times run in those age groups. Many good Masters in their 40s and 50s never competed when they were young, so that method doesn't tell the whole story.
I ran a 15:23 5K when I was 25. When I was 46 I ran a 16:43. I know where that puts me in my age bracket compared to where the 15:23 put me, but it doesn't explain why I am where I am. Some people seem to be able to run much closer to their PRs well into their 40s, others not so much.
Do you have examples of elite runners who are able to run much closer to their PRs? Are there any former elite 50 yos who are really close to their PRs?
Look, one feature of aging is that your cells are not being replicated with the same fidelity...and as a consequence they are not as good as they were in your prime. You're just not the same as you were in your prime. If you push try to maintain your old training practices or up the training you will break down and therefore decline in your athletic performance. No one violates this rules. Sure, there are outliers, but they still decline in performance.
Even in an activity like chess, you'll notice that the very best players in the world are not very old. Even the brain can not defy the aging process.
Kind of funny that NOBODY in 4 pages of responses can answer the question with actual evidence. The answer that has been discussed some is loss of concentric strength:
J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 1995 Nov;50(6):B399-406.
The influence of aging on muscle strength and muscle fiber characteristics with special reference to eccentric strength.
Hortobágyi T, Zheng D, Weidner M, Lambert NJ, Westbrook S, Houmard JA.
Source
Biomechanics Laboratory, School of Health and Human Performance, East Carolina University, USA.
Abstract
It is well established that aging seriously reduces isometric and concentric muscle strength due to atrophy, deterioration of mechanical properties, and motor unit loss. However, there is limited information on the impact of aging on eccentric strength despite the fact that such forces play an equally important role during daily activities. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of aging on three expressions of muscle strength (isometric, concentric, and eccentric) in relation to muscle fiber characteristics, with special emphasis on eccentric force. Sedentary but healthy men (age range 18-80 years, n = 60) and women (20-74 years, n = 30) were tested for maximal effort isometric, concentric, and eccentric (1.05, 2.09, 3.14 rads.s-1) quadriceps strength, body composition, and muscle fiber characteristics of the vastus lateralis (men only). There was a significant (p `` .05) approximately 30 N per decade decline in isometric and concentric forces, but only 9 N per decade reduction in eccentric strength. There was a significant reduction in Type II muscle fiber area with aging (p < .05). Isometric, eccentric, and concentric force correlated r = .33, r = .32 (p < .05), and r = .12 (p %% .05) with Type II muscle fiber area, respectively. The correlation between age and fat-free mass/force ratio ranged from r = .39 to .43 in men and r = .27 to .50 in women. The data suggest a relative preservation of eccentric strength with aging in men and women that seems to be independent of muscle mass or muscle fiber type or size.
Stride rate doesn't seem to change but the amount of power per stride does, and this also affects heart-lung function. And this is why EVERY aging runner or sprinter should be doing regular weight training.
But there's another reason. Older people don't train as much or as hard. Dr. David Costil has in his book some data on Hal Higdon, who trained similarly (trying for marathon trials) over a number of years as he aged, and his VO2max didn't change over many years.
If you train like you used to, I think you will get adaptions like you used to.
It's not a 100% predictor, but the WAVA age-grade tables/calculator are pretty darned good. Obviously, there are some folks who start late and get some of the "low hanging fruit" in terms of improvement and PRs that way. And I think we all recognize that Ed Whitlock is just an entirely different species of stud. But a lot of data went into those tables, and they work most of the time. Like a lot of folks on this board, I got back to my HS PRs by age 30-31, and if I had trained at 27-28 like I did then, I might could have been even faster. By 35 it was like flipping a switch. Now at 45, if it were not for the age-grading, I would cry to read my log. But at least in terms of perceived effort cross-referenced with quality of training, they seem to hold up very accurately for me.
What I find doubly interesting is to take a race time, convert it, and plug that back into Daniels or McMillan or Purdy and figure about training paces. It's not always clear, but there are some neat patterns, particularly involving easy runs. My mind and muscle memory still wants to run what used to be really easy, and what is now not hard at all. But a few of those in a row and I discover that I can't recover. I've got a friend in his 60s who races better relative to his age than me, but on paper he trains what seems super-slow. Starting to think he might be smarter.
coach d wrote:
"If you train like you used to, I think you will get adaptions like you used to"
Do you mean to sy that someone who at 30 yo ran 50 mpw and had 15 min 5k ability, can train at 50 mpw at the same intensity at say....50 yo?