(Press-News.org) American athlete Tom Brady has done the seemingly impossible, winning his seventh Super Bowl at the age of 43 in spectacular fashion. He's joined by stellar company: At 39, Serena Williams has won 23 grand slams, one of them while pregnant.
The reasons for age-defying athletic performances are dependent on numerous factors, including diet, but a new study by Iranian and University of South Australia researchers shows that when it comes to track and field events, the age when athletes peak often depends on the sport.
Discus and javelin throwers as well as marathon runners and race walkers are likely to achieve their best performances at a later age than sprinters, hurdlers and middle-distance runners. Why? It comes down to muscle fibres and technique.
UniSA Executive Dean of Allied Health and Human Performance, Professor Roger Eston, says that the number, type (fast twitch or slow twitch muscle fibre) and size of muscles required for different sports is one of the main biological reasons for these differences.
In a paper published in the European Journal of Sport Science, Prof Eston says that pace, endurance, power and strength are affected by age to a different extent.
"Legs experience maximum growth before the trunk, hands, neck and head, so sprinters and jumpers are more likely to peak at a younger age than throwers," he says.
Previous studies have also reported that peak hand-grip strength occurs between the ages of 30-39 years in both sexes, favouring older discus and javelin throwers.
Field sports also require time to master complex techniques, compared to sprinting which is more about raw power.
Belarus discus thrower Elena Zvereva holds the record for the oldest track and field world champion, winning her title in 2001 at the age of 40. She also went on to compete at the 2009 World Championship at the age of 49.
Similarly, US thrower Al Oerter is one of only two athletes to win the same individual event at four consecutive Olympic Games, from 1956 to 1968. Germany's Lars Riedel won five times at the IAAF World Championships, from 1991 to 1997, and then again in 2001 after finishing third in 1999.
The researchers studied best performances of world-class track and field athletes from 14 years and up, including the most recent Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games in 2016.
Their goal was to come up with a model for coaches to predict peak performance in different sports.
"This will help with setting goals, managing expectations, identifying talent at the right age and preventing injuries," Prof Eston says.
The taller the athlete, the more likely they are to succeed in discus, javelin, high jump and long jump. Heavier male discus throwers also perform better than those who weigh less.
The earlier window for achieving personal bests in sprinters and middle-distance runners is limited by injury, compared to throwers, race walkers and distance runners where they peak at a later age.
Interestingly, women achieve their peak performance at a later age than men in most disciplines. This is attributed to a later start in professional training, taking time out to have children, and other genetic factors that favour endurance among women.
The statistics also show that most athletes who peak at an early age also have much shorter careers. For example, about 80 per cent of Olympic athletes who reached peak performance between 19-21 years had retired by the age of 22.
The researchers recommend that if athletes want to prolong their careers, they should look at long-distance and race-walking events, or specialising in more than one event to improve their all-round development.
INFORMATION:
Notes for Editors
"Prediction of elite athletes' performance by analysis of peak-performance age and age-related performance progression" is published in the European Journal of Sport Science.
The study was led by the Department of Sport Sciences at the University of Zanjan, Iran. It also involved the Shahid Beheshti University in Iran and the University of South Australia.
Australian researchers have come up with two key recommendations from studies of the annual influenza season - one highlighting the benefits of antivirals in reducing repeat hospitalisation, and the other to watch for underlying cardiovascular disease.
While the world focuses on the rising COVID-19 death toll, seasonal influenza continues to cause significant mortality and poses a significant economic burden every year.
The South Australian study, conducted at two major metropolitan training hospitals between January 2016 and March 2020, collected data from 1,828 adult patients (average age around 66) who were hospitalised with influenza A and B.
Researchers compared outcomes for patients who did and did not take the antiviral ...
On February 19, the world's second-largest greenhouse gas emitter, the United-States, will rejoin the Paris Agreement. This will kickstart a year of intensifying policy activity ahead of the United Nations Climate Change conference (COP26) in November, when countries will re-commit to their emissions reduction goals.
"The early signs are that 2021 could be the most important year for action on climate change since 2015," says Aengus Collins, deputy director of EPFL's International Risk Governance Center (IRGC). "A growing number of countries and organisations are committing to ambitious decarbonisation goals. The pace is picking up and it is crucial not to let progress be derailed."
The most pressing ...
LOS ANGELES -- Some 15% of couples struggle with infertility. When couples fail to conceive, guidelines recommend both the man and woman undergo a tandem fertility evaluation.
For men, this includes providing at least one semen sample, which is analyzed to determine if there are factors reducing the sperms' chances of fertilizing an egg.
The current gold standard of sperm fertility evaluation requires men to provide a sperm sample in a lab or clinic, which is then examined within an hour. After an hour, the sperm begin to die, and the results are no longer accurate.
However, a new END ...
One of the most abundant bats in Europe may be attracted to wind turbines, a new study shows.
The activity of common pipistrelle bats was monitored at 23 British wind farms and similar "control" locations close by without turbines.
Activity was around a third higher at turbines than at control locations, and two thirds of occasions with high activity were recorded at turbines rather than the controls.
The reasons for this are not clear. Possibilities include attraction to the turbines themselves, or the presence of more of the bats' insect prey around turbines.
"Either way it means the risk of fatality at wind turbines is increased, and probably explains the high fatalities of common ...
DALLAS - Feb. 11, 2021 - A study led by UT Southwestern has identified a mechanism that controls the activity of proteins known as chaperones, which guide proteins to fold into the right shapes. The findings, published online today in Nature Communications, could shed light on hundreds of degenerative and neurodegenerative diseases caused by protein misfolding, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Huntington's, potentially leading to new treatments for these devastating conditions.
Every protein in the body is originally produced in a linear chain, with amino acid building blocks strung together one after another. But to fulfill their roles in cells, explains study leader Lukasz Joachimiak, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Center ...
DALLAS, February 11, 2021 -- Structural racism is a public health crisis in the U.S. and worldwide. The scientific publishing community can improve our understanding and address the significant health impacts of structural racism in racial and ethnic disparities research, according to a new statement, "The Groundwater of Racial and Ethnic Disparities Research: A Statement from Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes," published today in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, an American Heart Association journal, from the journal's editors.
It is critical to acknowledge the societal structures - the groundwater, as it is called in "The Groundwater Approach: Building ...
HIV self-testing could reduce the time between HIV infection and HIV diagnosis amongst trans people when compared to standard testing services, suggests new research in EClinicalMedicine.
The project was a collaboration between the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), University College London (UCL), and the Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit. It involved more than 100 trans men and trans women in England and Wales, and is the largest HIV self-testing trial in this community to be reported.
Participants were first randomised into two groups, ...
Variants of nine genes increase the risk of developing Addison's disease, a rare disease in which the immune system attacks the adrenal glands. That is according to the largest genetic study to date on patients with Addison's disease. The findings help increase knowledge about what causes the disease. The study was conducted by researchers at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, and Bergen University, Norway, and is published in the journal Nature Communications.
"By studying the single largest collection of samples from patients with Addison's disease, we've been able to carry out the first genetic ...
The strange social structure of tiny fish called emerald coral gobies may be explained by family loyalty, new research shows.
Coral goby groups contain a single breeding male and female and - as "sequential hermaphrodites" - the subordinate gobies can take over either role if one of the breeders dies.
The puzzle for biologists is why breeders tolerate the smaller non-breeders sharing their space and competing for food.
One explanation is "kin selection" (favouring related individuals).
Reef fish are often assumed to disperse at random after hatching, meaning groups of adults should not be closely related, but the new study finds "positive relatedness" ...
Pigs will probably never be able to fly, but new research is revealing that some species within the genus Sus may possess a remarkable level of behavioral and mental flexibility. A study published in END ...
