Longitudinal trends in master track and field performance throughout the aging process: 83,209 results from Sweden in 16
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Longitudinal trends in master track and field performance throughout the aging process: 83,209 results from Sweden in 16 athletics disciplines Bergita Ganse & Anthony Kleerekoper & Matthias Knobe & Frank Hildebrand & Hans Degens Received: 26 July 2020 / Accepted: 21 September 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract In the research of age-related performance declines, the value of cross-sectional versus longitudinal data is an ongoing debate. This paper analyses the largest longitudinal master track and field data set ever published to compare the age-related decline in performance between 16 athletics disciplines in crosssectional and longitudinal data. The data set contained 83,209 results (64,948 from men, 78.1%; 18,261 from women, 21.9%) from 34,132 athletes (26,186 men, 76.7%; 7946 women, 23.3%), aged 35–97 years. In 61 Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-020-00275-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. B. Ganse (*) : H. Degens Research Centre for Musculoskeletal Science & Sports Medicine, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Manchester Metropolitan University, John Dalton Building, Manchester, UK e-mail: [email protected] A. Kleerekoper Department of Computing and Mathematics, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Manchester Metropolitan University, John Dalton Building, Manchester, UK M. Knobe Department of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery, Lucerne Cantonal Hospital, Lucerne, Switzerland F. Hildebrand Department of Orthopaedic Trauma Surgery, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany H. Degens Institute of Sport Science and Innovations, Lithuanian Sports University, Kaunas, Lithuania
athletes, 20 or more, and in 312 athletes, 15 or more results were available. The data were analyzed by regression statistics/ANCOVA. Men had a higher performance than women, irrespective of discipline in both cross-sectional and longitudinal data (p < 0.001). The performance in cross-sectional data was lower compared with the longitudinal data in all events and at any age (p ≤ 0.007) except for 1000 m men. The average age was lower in the cross-sectional than the longitudinal data (p < 0.001); men 46 and 58 years, women 44 and 56 years, respectively. The annual percentage rate of decline did not differ significantly between crosssectional and longitudinal data, or between sexes in most disciplines. Performance declines after age 70 were 1.7 times (men) and 1.4 times (women) as steep as before. In conclusion, although longitudinal master athletics data of athletes with 10 and more results has higher average performance and age compared with cross-sectional data, cross-sectional data give a good impression of the annual percentage decline in performance, which was similar in men and women. Keywords Longevity . Lifespan . Big data . Athletics . Sports . Successful aging
Introduction Athletic performance declines with age, despite our best efforts to stop or minimize losses in physical capabilities by exercise, nutrition an
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