Age by distance effects in running and swimming records: a note on methodology

Running and swimming records by Masters athletes provide useful data for appraising age trends in physical performance; however, different forms of analysis have yielded conflicting conclusions about whether the deterioration with age is greater on sprint events or longer events. Aspects of analytic procedure that have contributed to the conflict include the use of time or velocity as the dependent variable, and the expression of age trend as relative or absolute change. An evaluation of underlying issues showed that meaningful inferences can be derived either where relative age change is compared across events, or the dependent variable is transformed to a logarithmic scale for purposes of comparing absolute change across events. Confounding of variables is introduced if absolute change in velocity is analyzed with respect to both age and event. The conclusion from every analysis in the literature that permits meaningful inference is that deterioration with age is greater on events of beyond sprint distance.