Age-Related Declines in Lower Limb Muscle Function are Similar in Power and Endurance Athletes of Both Sexes: A Longitudinal Study of Master Athletes

Abstract

The age-related decline in muscle function, particularly muscle power, is associated with increased risk of important clinical outcomes. Physical activity is an important determinant of muscle function, and different types of physical activity e.g. power-based versus endurance-based exercise appear to have differential effects on muscle power. Cross-sectional studies suggest that participation in power-based exercise is associated with greater muscle power across adulthood but this has not been investigated longitudinally. We recruited eighty-nine male and female power and endurance master athletes (sprint and distance runners respectively, baseline age 35–90y). Using jumping mechanography, we measured lower limb muscle function during a vertical jump including at least two testing sessions longitudinally over 4.5 ± 2.4y. We examined effects of time, discipline (power/endurance) and sex in addition to two- and three-way interactions using linear mixed-effects models. Peak relative power, relative force and jump height, but not Esslingen Fitness Index (indicating peak power relative to sex and age-matched reference data) declined with time. Peak power, force, height and EFI were greater in power than endurance athletes. There were no sex, discipline or sex*discipline interactions with time for any variable, suggesting that changes were similar over time for athletes of both sexes and disciplines. Advantages in lower limb muscle function in power athletes were maintained with time, in line with previous cross-sectional studies. These results suggest that improvements in lower limb function in less active older individuals following power-based training persist with continued adherence, although this requires further investigation in interventional studies.

The Relationship Between Physical Housing Characteristics, Housing Accessibility and Different Aspects of Health Among Community-Dwelling Older People: A Systematic Review

“…Several body functions are affected by the biological aging process, which has consequences for housing needs. For instance, the muscle mass tends to decline with increasing age, which can be associated with reduced strength ( Ireland et al, 2021 ). This age-related decline can affect older people’s well-being, life satisfaction, and quality of life if the housing environment is not designed or adapted to compensate for reduced muscle strength ( Boström et al, 2018 ; Crist, 2000 ).…”

Investigating External and Internal Loads in Male Older Adult Basketball Players during Official Games

“…Masters athletes are proposed as an ideal model for successful aging due to longterm involvement in physical activity and/or individual and/or team sports maintaining their aerobic and anaerobic functions, strength, and coordination, which have proved to be associated with life independence [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. In particular, research on masters athletes focused mostly on individual sports (i.e., [8,10,[12][13][14][15]21,[24][25][26][27][28][29][30]), whereas limited studies specifically investigated team sports [12,[31][32][33][34][35][36] and particularly masters basketball players [13,37].…”

Effects of Aging and Fitness on Hopping Biomechanics

“…Master athletes can be considered as rare examples of aging without the common confounder of increased sedentarism at older age [ 4 ]. Previous research on master athletes has shown a clear effect of age and athletic specialization on muscle power since, while aging is associated with a 40% reduction in jumping power from the 3rd to the 7th decade of life, sprint-trained master athletes have greater jumping power than endurance master athletes [ 4 , 5 , 6 ]. To a large extent, the age-related decline in jumping power is explicable by age-effects on body composition [ 7 ].…”