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Swimming Performance Assessment in Fishes
Published on: May 20, 2011
Age and gender interactions in physiological functional capacity: insight from swimming performance
1Department of Kinesiology, University of Colorado, Boulder 80309, USA. tanakah@stripe.colorado.edu
Journal of Applied Physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985)
|March 1, 1997
Summary
Aging significantly impacts athletic performance, with endurance swimming declining linearly until age 70, then exponentially. Women experience faster declines than men, especially in longer events.
Area of Science:
- Sports Science
- Gerontology
- Human Physiology
Background:
- Aging leads to physiological decline, affecting athletic capabilities.
- Highly trained athletes offer a model to study age-related performance changes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the influence of age, gender, and event duration on swimming performance.
- To analyze trends in peak exercise performance across different age groups.
Main Methods:
- Retrospective analysis of US Masters Swimming Championships data (1991-1995).
- Regression analysis of freestyle swimming times for various distances (50m to 1500m).
Main Results:
- Endurance swimming performance (1500m) declined linearly until ~70 years, then exponentially.
- Women showed significantly greater performance declines than men with age.
- Performance decline was more pronounced in longer events for women, but consistent across longer events for men.
Conclusions:
- Physiological functional capacity, assessed by swimming, decreases linearly until 70-80 years, then exponentially.
- The rate of age-related decline in swimming performance is linked to event duration and gender.
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