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Articles in PresS, published online ahead of print October 18, 2002
J Appl Physiol, 10.1152/jap.00438.2002
Submitted on May 16, 2002
Accepted on October 14, 2002
1 Department of Kinesiology and Applied Physiology, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA
2 Department of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, CO, USA
3 Department of Kinesiology and Applied Physiology, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA; Department of Medicine, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, CO, USA
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: htanaka{at}mail.utexas.edu.
One approach to studying the effects of aging on physiological functional capacity is to analyze the peak exercise performance of highly-trained athletes with increasing age. We followed-up personal swimming performance times of 640 individuals (321 women, 319 men) who participated in the US Masters Swimming Championships over the 12-year period of 1988-1999. All swimmers placed in the top 10 in their age group in either 50m or 1,500m freestyle events over 3 or more years (mean 5 years). A random coefficients model for repeated measures was used to derive a line of best fit from a group of regression lines for each subject. Both 50m and 1,500m swimming performance declined (performance time increased) modestly until ~70 years of age, whereupon a more rapid decline in performance was observed in both men and women. Compared with the 1,500m freestyle performance, the 50m freestyle declined more modestly and slowly with age. The rate and magnitude of declines in swimming performance with age were greater in women than in men in 50m freestyle; such sex (gender)-related differences were not observed in 1,500m freestyle. Overall, the variability along a population regression line increased markedly with advancing age. The present longitudinal findings indicate that: 1) swimming performance declines progressively until age 70, whereupon the decrease becomes quadratic; 2) the rates of the decline in swimming performance with age are greater in a long-duration than in a short-duration event, suggesting a relatively smaller loss of anaerobic muscular power with age compared with cardiovascular endurance; 3) the age-related rates of decline are greater in women than in men only in a short-duration event; and 4) the variability of the age-related decline in performance increases markedly with advancing age.
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