Muscle morphology and performance in master athletes: A systematic review and meta-analyses

Abstract

Despite advancing age, this review suggests that chronic exercise training preserves physical function, muscular strength and body fat levels similar to that of young, healthy individuals in an exercise mode-specific manner.

Superior Aerobic Capacity and Indices of Skeletal Muscle Morphology in Chronically Trained Master Endurance Athletes Compared With Untrained Older Adults

“…The study of individuals who have chronically undertaken structured exercise training and continue to compete, into their later years, referred to as Master Athletes (MA), provides a model to investigate the impact of inherent ageing on physiological function, without confounding aspects of biological ageing. In a recent meta-analysis, we reported that endurance-based MA displayed a 55% greater aerobic capacity compared with age-matched untrained individuals, whereas resistance trained MA demonstrated greater strength than agematched untrained individuals 14 . Furthermore, others have shown that although a decline in physiological function remains apparent in MA, high physical activity may ultimately A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t 4 improve the healthspan by shifting the 'set point' of age-related physiological deterioration to later in life 15,16 .…”

The age-related loss of skeletal muscle mass and function: Measurement and physiology of muscle fibre atrophy and muscle fibre loss in humans

“…In human studies, lifelong exercise has been suggested to minimise muscle loss ( Mckendry et al, 2018 ) and prevent the age-related loss of MU number, and presumably fibre number in the TA of old (64 years) ( Power et al, 2010 ) but not very old (79 years) athletes ( Power et al, 2016 ). However a further study found masters athletes (69 years) had a similar number of MUs in the TA as age matched controls ( Piasecki et al, 2016a ).…”

Nutrition and physical activity countermeasures for sarcopenia: Time to get personal?

“…; McKendry et al . ). On top of this, older adults are susceptible to periods of muscle disuse ( e.g .…”

“…On the other hand, a recent meta‐analysis showed that masters (veteran) strength/power athletes, but not masters endurance athletes, exhibited attenuated strength loss compared to untrained, age‐matched controls (McKendry et al . ). This suggests that chronic endurance exercise does not confer the same protection against age‐related declines in muscular strength as resistance training (McKendry et al .…”

“…This suggests that chronic endurance exercise does not confer the same protection against age‐related declines in muscular strength as resistance training (McKendry et al . ). Furthermore, randomised clinical trials demonstrate superior gains in strength in older adults following resistance training compared to aerobic training (Liu & Latham ).…”