Due to numerous recent examples of endurance athletes performing at an elite level well into their 40's and for the purposes of this article I will define masters as over 45 years old. There are a multitude of factors that contribute to decreasing performance as we age but I am going to focus on a few that I think we can mitigate and maybe even improve depending on training history and other factors. Those are maximum oxygen uptake (VO2 max), muscle loss, and increase in body fat %.
The largest contributor and most scientifically verifiable cause of decreased performance in masters athletes is a decrease in the maximum amount of oxygen that can be utilized by the working muscles. VO2 max peaks in the mid 20's to early 30's normally and also serves as a kind of "ceiling" for your threshold with the best athletes in the world being able to get within about 90% of their VO2 max as a threshold value. The good news is that with regular training which targets maximum oxygen uptake you can greatly reduce this loss which is around 10% per decade or 1% per year on average. Simple, right? Well the bad news is that for most people this is by far the least enjoyable training and something that brings fear and dread when they see it on the schedule. Think workouts like 5 X 3 minutes at an effort that is basically as hard as you can go with not a lot of recovery. Or you can also target VO2 max with stuff like 40 seconds hard with 20 seconds easy repeated for 6-8 minutes. No matter how you slice it the bottom line is that it has to be very hard or else it isn't effective. But these type of sessions are a necessary evil and need to be performed almost year round in order to keep the decline at a minimum or improve if you haven't been exposed to this type of training in the past. On a related note most of us aren't anywhere close to that 85-90% of VO2 max as a threshold power so that can almost always be improved (even if VO2 declines or stays the same you can probably still increase your threshold or FTP). These type of workouts you should have more frequently in your schedule and are normally any kind of intervals of 8-30 minutes with very short recoveries. The intensity will vary but they are always targeting aerobic development or trying to get closer to the VO2 max ceiling.
Another thing related to performance in masters athletes which is fairly universal is that we tend to lose muscle mass with age. Along with this loss of muscle mass, the other downside as if that wasn't enough is that the muscle we tend to lose is what is called type 2 fibers otherwise known as "fast twitch" or glycolytic fibers. The result of this is that your maximum power output (defined as the maximum power you can produce for one pedal stroke or Pmax) is going to decline with age. Now you can slow the process but this is the exact reason you never see world class sprinters past the age of about 35 with rare to no exception. The good news here is that this is not due to a decline in muscle function or quality but rather it is entirely due to the amount of muscle decrease. So this is the number one reason that past the age of around 40 you really need to be strength training a minimum of 2 days per week up to 3 days per week max if you are also doing cycling training which everyone reading this is. This needs to be year round and ideally needs to continue for the rest of your life to keep muscle loss at a minimum.
There is one more thing I would like to discuss which is, with a lot of work and attention, entirely within our control and that is the fact that most masters tend to gain body fat as they age. This is another thing that is highly correlated with the corresponding loss of muscle mass and another reason to be diligent in keeping both high intensity workouts and strength training as a vital component of each week's training. The reason that it seems your metabolism is slower is almost entirely due to lower muscle mass. It has been shown that when muscle mass is the same between groups of people regardless of age, they will have roughly the same resting metabolic rate. All that to say that it is more important as a masters athlete to really keep an eye on food quality and in general focus on eating foods that are not calorically dense. These also tend to have the most nutritional value and will satiate you without ingesting a huge amount of calories.
So, in summary for masters athletes to maintain or even increase performance you will need to do a few things differently than when you were in your 20's. First and foremost is to strength train regularly in order to maintain muscle mass (a bonus here is that it also maintains bone density which also tends to decline as we age). Another is to never get too far away from doing some form of high intensity (above threshold) workouts. I will take care of that in your schedules but if it sometimes seems like random super hard workout, remember it is there for a reason. And another thing which I haven't touched on is recovery which becomes even more crucial as a masters athlete. Nothing will diminish the efficacy of a good workout or week of workouts more than a lack of recovery which is mostly determined by sleep and sleep quality. I can't stress how important it is to get at least 7 and even better 9-10 hours sleep as often as possible. If you skimp on sleep your body will not adapt as well to the workouts you are doing and your progress will suffer. And lastly, as a masters athlete, consistency is of utmost importance as I'm sure you have found that if you take time off it takes much more time to return to your former fitness. So if you don't have time to do the whole workout on your schedule as prescribed by your coach, at least do something. With consistency and attention to the topics above, your progress as a cyclist can continue to flourish as you age.
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