Posted by Eric Brown

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!

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.

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.

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