Take recovery seriously.
Along with a dip in top-end speed, the first
effect of aging on training that most endurance
athletes notice is a loss of recovery capacity.
While you’re still able to do more or less the
same workouts you’ve done in the past, you
start to notice that you just don’t bounce back
from them quite as quickly.
To limit the negative effects of not being
able to perform hard workouts as often, you
need to take your recovery very seriously. Religiously practice all of the little measures that
can help you bounce back faster after workouts
including post-workout nutrition, ice baths,
massage and wearing compression socks.
No matter how consistent you are with
such measures, though, you will not be able
to perform as hard as often as you once did.
Don’t force it. Listen to your body and adapt
by spacing out your key sessions a little more
in your training. This is a concession to aging
that will actually reduce aging’s effects on your
race performances compared to what would
happen if you tried to train like the younger you.
are an Tioxidan Ts
The FounTain oF youTh?
s Tre Tch and s Treng Th Train.
Our muscles and joint tissues lose elasticity
as we age, and our muscles also shrink and
lose strength. It’s important to increase your
commitment to stretching and strength training
As we get older, our bodies gradually
lose their capacity to fight free radicals
with antioxidants—including those free
radicals that cause fatigue during exercise. Could antioxidant supplementation
combat this effect of aging on endurance
performance?
A new study conducted by researchers at the University of California, Los
Angeles and published in the Journal
of the International Society of Sports
Nutrition provides intriguing evidence
that antioxidant supplementation may
actually be helpful to older endurance
athletes. The subjects of the study were
16 male cyclists between the ages of 50
and 73 years who trained at least four
hours per week. Half of the subjects were
randomly assigned to take an antioxidant
supplement daily for three weeks while
the others were given a placebo. All of the
subjects engaged in their normal training during the study and all underwent
performance testing at the start of the
study, again after one week, and one
last time after three weeks.
At week one, the subjects receiving
the antioxidant supplement exhibited
a 16. 7 percent increase in anaerobic
threshold. This increase was almost completely maintained at three weeks. There
was no change in anaerobic threshold
in the control group. The supplemented
subjects also exhibited an increase in
power output at anaerobic threshold
while the control subjects did not.
It’s unclear how that increase was
achieved. There were no major changes
in any of the physiological parameters
measured in the supplemented group.
And a complicating factor is that the
supplement used in this study contained
the amino acid L-arginine in addition
to antioxidant nutrients. L-arginine is
known to increase the body’s production
of nitric oxide, which helps the blood
vessels relax, increasing blood flow. It
is possible that this mechanism was
responsible for the supplement’s effect
on anaerobic threshold.
So, while the results of this study
hint at the possible benefits antioxidant supplementation may offer aging
athletes, more research is still needed.
Stay tuned.
