As athletes grow older, their bodies respond differently to exercise.

 This book by Dr Peter Reaburn—sports scientist and self-confessed crazy competitive masters athlete—addresses an area previously ignored: how to keep a competitive edge and slow the inevitable age-related decline in performance. For more info, click this link -

Free Fact Pages for Masters Athletes on - Endurance (click on me for more info)

Endurance is the ability to last. Whether it is to survive a marathon run, a 40 kilometer time trial on the bike, a six-minute rowing race, or a 1500m swim, we must have the capacity to finish the event.

Team players such as touch players, netballers or footballers must also have endurance, not only to last the duration game but to recover from both sprints in the game and from game to game if playing in a number of games in a day or on successive days.

Speed and Power (click on me for more info)

One of the most obvious things masters athletes notice as we age is that we get slower. While some aging athletes I know may be faster than when they were younger through training smarter or through using a more scientific approach to their training, in general the frustration of slowing down hits us all.

With few exceptions, my experience in masters swimming, veteran cycling, distance running and triathlon over many years is that too many aging athletes use endurance-training methods and expect to go fast. According to the training principle of specificity, this is not possible. The purpose of this chapter is to suggest a more scientific approach to speed and power training in the aging athlete.

Throughout this website and the associated book The Masters Athlete it has been emphasized how important weight or resistance training is for the aging athlete, regardless of whether for endurance events, middle distance events or pure speed events. This is due to the fact that one of the major changes that occurs with aging is a loss of muscle mass, particularly after the age of 50 years and even more so after the age of 65-70 years. A loss of muscle mass means decreased strength, decreased force production, and thus decreased speed and power. Muscular speed and power are important for success in sprinting in every sport, jumping and throwing events in athletics, hitting, kicking and punching movements in other sports

Strength (click on me for more info)

Strength development for the aging athlete is essential due to an age-related decrease in muscle mass and strength observed in not only aging non-athletes but also masters athletes who have maintained hard training into older age. My own research suggests that this decrease in strength and muscle mass begins to occur at around 45-50 years but accelerates after age 65-70 years of age. Thus, the older the athlete, the more important strength training becomes.

Loss of muscle mass is one of the major factors affecting reduced performance in aging athletes. In aging non-athletes, research has shown that muscle mass decreases by nearly 50% between the ages of 20 and 90 years. This appears to occur in four stages.

1. Muscle size peaks between 16-19 years of age for females and 18-24 years for males.
2. Between 25 and 50 years there is a 5-10% decline in muscle size.
3. Between 50 and 65-70 years there is another 15% decline,
4. After 65-70 years there is another accelerated loss of a further 25%.

This decrease in muscle mass is due to a number of age-related factors including:

• Decreased muscle fibre size, particularly in the fast twitch muscle fibres.
• Decreased number of muscle fibres (less muscle per unit volume), especially the strength and power producing fast twitch fibre (at age 30, about 60% of muscle fibres are fast twitch, at age 80, it’s about 30%).

These changes in muscle mass are even more marked in women. Apart from these changes, the reasons for the decline in muscle mass with age have been suggested to be due to impairment of the nerve-muscle junction function and a lack of activation of the fast twitch fibres with age through inactivity. Given that the fast twitch fibres are activated with speed, power and strength training, it makes sense that the aging athlete should be placing a strong emphasis on strength and power training as well as high intensity endurance and sprint training, all of which can activate the all important fast twitch fibres.

Taken together, the age-related decrease in muscle size and strength impacts all aspects of athletic performance in masters athlete, in particular events or sports that demand speed and power. In non-athletes, research has shown that strength increases up to age 30 years, plateaus between 30 and 50 years, then decreases by about 30% between ages 50 and 70 years and then dramatically declines after 70 years of age.

Team Players (click on me for more info)

One of the most obvious things masters athletes notice as we age is that we get slower. While some aging athletes I know may be faster than when they were younger through training smarter or through using a more scientific approach to their training, in general the frustration of slowing down hits us all.

With few exceptions, my experience in masters sport is that too many aging athletes use antiquated team sport training methods or just play the game socially and expect to perform at a high level. According to the training principle of specificity, this is not possible. We need to analyse what the team player needs and train those qualities correctly.

Full info can be found here - http://www.mastersathlete.com.au/masters-athlete-book/