Age and gender interactions in physiological functional capacity:
insight from swimming performance.
Tanaka, Hirofumi, and Douglas R. Seals.
DEPARTMENTS OF KINESIOLOGY AND MEDICINE (CARDIOLOGY AND GERIATRIC
MEDICINE), UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO
APStracts 3:0513A, 1996.
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 using this model, we performed a 5-year (1991
-1995) retrospective analysis of top freestyle performance times from
the U.S. Masters Swimming Championships. Regression analysis showed
that in both men and women endurance swimming performance (i.e.
1500m) declined linearly from peak levels at age 35-40 until age 70,
whereupon performance declined exponentially thereafter. In both
genders, the variability among the top 10 winning times in each 5
-year age interval increased markedly with advancing age. Compared to
the 1500m freestyle, performance in the 50m freestyle (short-duration
task) showed only a modest decline until ages 75 and 80 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-year age
period from 19-24 to the 69-74 age groups became progressively
greater from the shortest distance (50m) to the two longest distances
(800 and 1500m) whereas in men, no differences were observed in the
magnitude of performance decline with age among the five longest
distance events (i.e. 100-1500m). The percent gender difference in
performance throughout the age range studied became progressively
smaller (p<0.05) with increasing distance from 50m (19+/-1%)
to 1500m (11+/-1%). The findings in this cross-sectional study
indicate that from peak levels at age 35-40, physiological functional
capacity, as assessed by swimming performance, decreases linearly
until age 70 to 80, whereupon the decline becomes exponential.
Moreover, the rate of decline with advancing age appears to be
associated with event duration and gender.
Received 7 May 1996; accepted in final form 29 October 1996.
APS Manuscript Number A438-6.
Article publication pending Journal of Applied Physiology.
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1996 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 31 December 1996