Sport is not only for the young - as our Chairman, Sylvester Stein, a gold medal-winning veteran athlete - can testify. The latest special issue of Peak Performance focuses on Ageing & Performance. Read on for some exclusive excerpts.
Intensity vs volume for ageing athletes
For many years the
conventional wisdom of exercise pundits was that more was better; that long,
slow workouts were much more beneficial - for health and fitness - than short
bursts of intense exertion.
For some time now the tide has been turning –
and Peak Performance Newsletter has been in the vanguard of opinion-formers
arguing that intensity is (often) more important than volume when training for a
wide range of sports and events.
And it now seems that health as well as
fitness benefits most from high-intensity exertion. Walking used to be
recommended as a prophylactic against heart disease, but the latest research
suggests that only vigorous activity is effective in reducing heart
deaths.
The high-intensity-is-best theme is given a different slant in
Peak Performane’s latest special issue on ageing and performance. In his lead
article on how to maintain speed in the face of advancing age, John Shepherd
points out that human growth hormone, which plays a crucial role in maintaining
many aspects of fitness, including speed, is released in the body in direct
proportion to the intensity of the exercise being performed.
Other
strategies recommended by Shepherd for fending off the age-related decline in
the various parameters of speed include:
• Hill training, which works to
offset the typical reduction in stride length and increase in ground contact
time;
• Weight training to offset the decline in fast twitch muscle
fibres;
• Plyometric exercises for stride length and fast twitch
maintenance;
• Creatine supplementation for enhanced muscle power.
Ageing and distance running
Speed and power are close
cousins, both relying on the ratio of fast twitch to slow twitch fibres within
the muscles. As Craig Sharp points in his article on ageing and distance running
in the latest issue of Peak Performance, aging muscle has been shown to contain
higher proportions of slow twitch fibres, which might be good news for marathon
runners, but is less so for any athlete in search of speed and
power.
Sharp presents a grim catalogue of the normal manifestations of
age-related deterioration, with body fat rising, lean mass declining, height
falling, cardiorespiratory capacity diminishing and muscles
atrophying.
Nevertheless, the extraordinary marathon performances of very
elderly runners set out in an accompanying table proves that such losses are
reversible to a greater or lesser extent.
His tentative conclusion is
that an estimated 20-40% - or maybe even more – of the physiological
deterioration associated with ageing is not inevitable but is due to a
‘detraining effect’ of decreased exercise, often coupled with an increase in
body fat.
Never has the athlete’s motto of ‘use it or lose it’ seemed
more apt!
Get
Peak Performance Delivered To your Door and learn how to be fitter, faster and
stronger, whatever your
age.
(http://www.pponline.co.uk/prewp/htw-62.html)
Nourishment for ageing joints
Regular PP contributor
Andrew Hamilton is even more upbeat in his detailed account of nutritional
strategies to protect the joints from age-related degeneration.
As time
goes by, he explains, joints tend to become less flexible, full-range movement
more difficult and pain and stiffness ever more apparent. It is these mechanical
limitations, more than anything else, that can scupper the best-laid plans of
even the most determined veteran athletes.
Nutrients of particular
importance for older athletes and should be well supplied in their diets
are:
• Vitamin C for collagen formation;
• Omega-3 oils (from nuts,
seeds, oily fish and wheat germ) for anti-inflammatory effects;
•
Sulphur-containing amino acids (from some vegetables, meat, poultry, fish and
dairy products) for joint cartilage health;
• Bioflavinoids (from all fruit
and vegetables, and buckwheat) for anti-inflammatory effects and improved local
circulation;
• Antioxidants (selenium and vitamin E) for protection against
the damaging ‘free radicals’ that proliferate in the body with age;
•· Zinc
and copper for a range of protective benefits.
Additionally, Hamilton
recommends the following supplements:
• Glucosamine sulphate for reducing
pain and stiffness, increasing mobility and offsetting the joint space narrowing
that typically occurs in degenerative conditions;
• Chondroitin sulphate ,
which appears to promote cartilage water retention and elasticity;
•·
S-adenosylmethionine (SAMe), which plays similar roles to those of glucosamine
and may also work as a ‘natural’ antidepressant.
In summary, ‘despite the
fact that older athletes are more vulnerable to chronic joint pain and
stiffness, you are not powerless to act. While it is obviously vital to get your
training right and to incorporate any other rehab/injury prevention techniques
deemed necessary…there is also a place for nutrition’.
Power v endurance
This theme is taken up again
in the ‘What The Papers Say’ section of the latest issue of Peak Performance. It
comes in a report of a US study based on world record statistics, showing that
ageing diminishes muscle power considerably sooner and more dramatically than
endurance in both men and women.
While rowing (endurance) performance in
men peaks in the twenties and declines by just 4% between 25 and 55,
power-lifting records show a much steeper and earlier decline. (Fascinatingly,
women’s endurance performance peaks in the thirties rather than the twenties –
but that’s another story!)
Fitness and the ageing brain
Meanwhile, there are
heartwarming suggestions in this issue of Peak Performance that those who take
care to maintain their fitness will not only hold the physical impact of ageing
at bay but also protect their memories and other intellectual capacities from
the ravages of age.
In a US study reported in the ‘What The Papers Say’
section, researchers scanning the brains of a group of ‘high-functioning’
over-50s observed substantial age-related deterioration in tissue densities in
the frontal, parietal and temporal cortices.
That was the bad – although
not particularly surprising – news. The good news was that those demonstrating
aerobic fitness showed substantially reduced losses in these areas.
And
the even better news was that the brain regions and tissue most obviously
protected by aerobic fitness were the very ones that play central roles in
successful everyday functioning and whose losses are associated with a variety
of clinical syndromes, including schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s
disease.
Click
here to get the latest issue of Peak Performance - delivered* and online - and
get 3 free back issues
too.
(http://www.pponline.co.uk/prewp/htw-62.html)
Activity and memory
Fitness is also linked with
a reduced rate of memory decline in middle age, in new British research reported
in the same section of Peak Performance. In this retrospective study of just
under 2,000 middle-aged people born in the same week in March 1946, physical
activity at age 36 was significantly associated with better memory performance
at age 43 and with a slower rate of memory decline from 43 to 53
years.
There was also evidence that continuing exercise after age 36 was
important, since those who became inactive did not show the same benefits as
those who were still exercising at age 43 or had taken up exercise for the first
time.
The suggestion is that it is never too late to benefit from
exercise – and further research on this same cohort of ageing adults should
confirm whether this is true.
Read all the articles in this
special issue of Peak Performance - take out a cheap trial subscription and get
a bundle of free gifts.
(http://www.pponline.co.uk/prewp/htw-62.html)
Yours,
Isabel Campbell
Editor
Peak Performance
PS If you haven't already
done so, why not join the Peak Performance Online Community,
where athletes and coaches from around the world meet to seek advice, exchange
opinions and chat about sport. Click here to register now - it's 100%
free:
http://www.pponline.co.uk/community
HOW DO SOME ATHLETES SUDDENLY IMPROVE THEIR PERFORMANCE TO WORLD STANDARDS?If you have ever wondered how some athletes, having competed for years, suddenly improve their performance to world class standards, you now have the answer in your hands. Inside this report you’ll find the latest training procedures used by the world’s top athletes and sports people to boost performance to international levels. In this report: exercises guaranteed to increase your strength, stamina, fitness and speed
|
Peak Performance and How To
Win are published by Electric Word plc, 67-71 Goswell Road, London, EC1V 7EP,
United Kingdom.
*Delivery of Peak Performance only in the US, Canada and EU countries. Everyone
else can download their issue from our online backup area.