About This Project

With increased revenue and financial compensation, it has become practical for athletes to compete until later in life. Major sporting events including older athletes have dominated the news coverage in recent years. Most older athletes make every effort to maintain performance. But declines in performance are inevitable due to aging. We believe a decline in exercise training that happens over years mediates the age-related decline in athletic performance. But this has not been answered.

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What is the context of this research?

One method of assessing physiological functional capacity (PFC) is to determine changes in peak performance with age in athletes; this is advantageous because confounding variables are absent and physiological aging is the only contributor. Studies have found PFC assessed by swimming performance declined linearly until the age of 70 followed by an exponential decline after. Authors’ concluded that habitual exercise plays a role in determining PFC and speculated the decline in performance may reflect the decrease in training volume. Data is now available from US Masters Swimming of swimmers' training volume that can be matched with their annual peak performance. This data will allow us to answer the question: as a swimmer ages how does their training volume impact performance?

What is the significance of this project?

The demographics of the aging population in the United States is dramatically changing causing an increased number of adults in the 65 and over age group. Physiological functional capacity (PFC) is the ability to perform the physical tasks of daily life and the ease with which these tasks can be completed. PFC declines with advancing age. Therefore a greater portion of the US population will face obstacles related to a reduced PFC in the approaching years. This study looks at the training and performance of masters athletes to be used as a way of assessing PFC in these aged athletes, who serve as models for “successful aging”.

What are the goals of the project?

We have already compiled data from the US Masters Swimming database on training volume and performance at national meets over the course of 2-6 years in masters swimmers. The first goal is to get the statistical analysis of the data completed using a Hierarchical Linear Model to predict the masters swimmers’ performance using effects of aging, training, and the interaction of aging and training. Then we will move towards writing the manuscript and having it peer-reviewed.