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1 Department of Kinesiology and 2 Divisions of Cardiology and Geriatric Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309
Received 7 May 1996; accepted in final form 29 October 1996.
Tanaka, Hirofumi, and Douglas R. Seals. Age and gender
interactions in physiological functional capacity: insight from swimming performance. J. Appl.
Physiol. 82(3): 846-851, 1997.
One experimental
approach to studying the effects of aging on physiological functional
capacity in humans is to analyze the peak exercise performance of
highly trained athletes with increasing age. To gain insight into the
relationships among age, gender, and exercise task duration with use of
this model, we performed a 5-yr (1991-1995) retrospective analysis
of top freestyle performance times from the US Masters Swimming
Championships. Regression analysis showed that in both men and women
endurance swimming performance (i.e., 1,500 m) declined linearly from
peak levels at age 35-40 yr until ~70 yr of age, whereupon
performance declined exponentially thereafter. In both genders, the
variability among the top 10 winning times in each 5-yr age interval
increased markedly with advancing age. Compared with the 1,500-m
freestyle, performance in the 50-m freestyle (short-duration task)
showed only a modest decline until ages 75 and 80 yr in women and men,
respectively. The rate and magnitude of the declines in both short- and
long-duration swimming performance with age were significantly
(P < 0.05) greater in women than in men. In the women, the percent decline in swimming performance over a
50-yr age period from the 19- to 24-yr to the 69- to 74-yr age groups
became progressively greater from the shortest distance (50 m) to the
two longest distances (800 and 1,500 m), whereas in men, no differences
were observed in the magnitude of performance decline with age among
the five longest distance events (i.e., 100-1,500 m). The percent
gender difference in performance throughout the age range studied
became progressively smaller (P < 0.05) with increasing distance from 50 m (19 ± 1%) to 1,500 m (11 ± 1%). The findings in this cross-sectional study indicate that from peak levels at age 35-40 yr, physiological functional
capacity, as assessed by swimming performance, decreases linearly until ~70-80 yr of age, whereupon the decline becomes exponential.
Moreover, the rate of decline with advancing age appears to be
associated with event duration and gender.
aging; gender difference; exercise mode specificity
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