Age-Related Performance Decline

[Ralph Earle]

Some years ago I analyzed the data behind the Nonathlon. The Nonathlon data are the fastest times posted at each age in each event.

With pace (seconds/500m) as the dependent variable regressed on distance, age and age-squared, the Rsq was over 0.88 (i.e., p.d.g.)

The decline among male heavyweights during the seventh decade of life was 0.9 seconds from 60 to 63, 1.0s from 63-65, 1.1s from 65-68 and 1.2s from 68-70. The average of 1.0/year matches the old CRASH-B handicaps for that decade.

Before folks' undies ride up, yes, I know that I am not following a representative group of ergers year after year; this analysis shows the average age-related decline among top athletes.

As far as individual ergers go, I recently looked at David Woodard's performance at 60 minutes throughout his 60s. The WR holder for that event, his decline averaged 0.8s/500m across those ten years.

So I feel fairly confident in recommending 1s/500m/year for heavyweight men in their 60s. Your results may vary of course.

In addition to the other factors mentioned in this thread, I would add side-effects from medication. I'm 66; I started taking blood-pressure medicine about five years ago. Within a week I saw a drop in pace of THREE seconds/500m at every distance. It was quite a shock; I had no idea that could happen. ( My only hope is that a stress-free retirement will eliminate the need for the medicine and I'll get those 3s/500m back!)
.

[NavigationHazard]

Thanks for the reminder, Ralph. Interesting stuff.

There's a LOT of ranking data on-line now. Someone with time/inclination could actually try to track repeat 2k rowers from 2002 through the present season. Most of the difficulty would be in data sorting.

Trying to do cross-sectional analysis of the recent annual rankings doesn't get all that far. Here's HW men 24 and up (2009 rankings) who rowed better than 6:45. Obvious same age/same result duplicates were eliminated; the fastest time was used in the event of multiple entries from the same rower at the same age; multiple entries from the same rower were kept if he aged up during the ranking year and there were different ranked times at each age (e.g. Gareth Archer). I limited the analysis to 6:45.0 or better to keep things manageable:



I think the sifting yielded about 615 results. Fairly obviously, the data's all over the place. Simple regression of age vs. pace here is useless -- there's basically next to no relationship. Offhand, I'd say this is a testament to individual circumstance. The mass of people is distributed here, there and everywhere on the peak performance/decline continuum. Thus it's impossible to generalize from this large a slice of ranking data.

If you start winnowing things down to look at only the faster times, generalizations begin to emerge. Here's only HW men within 5% of the top time by ranking age (cut off arbitrarily at age 51 because you start to get times slower than 6:45):



There's still considerable scatter, but the data's generally a lot more coherent.

If you winnow down further to the top three times by ranking age it's more coherent still. I'd say it's because the top performers are going to be somewhat closer to whatever's theoretically achievable at a given age than the general erging population. Here's age and pace:



And as in the Seiler study, age and watts:



The results are nowhere near as predictive as Ralph's look at the Nonathon. But very generally, top performers who've peaked can expect a subsequent decline of about 1 second of pace/year on average from 24-50. Alternatively, there looks to be an average decline of maybe 3.6 watts/year.

[bloomp]

Nav,

In looking at the last graph of age vs watts, there are several outliers that really would skew the data. Maybe a better way to look at it would be to choose people that may have performed marginally but are still continuing to train/race?

Otherwise, it is a effective analysis of the available data. I think that the decline shouldn't be considered an average, but looked at by 5 or 10-year spans. From 25-26 years of age (or some similar gap), there will be an increase in wattage if anything.

Paul

[leadville]

Nav - impressive effort; thanks for the work.

I wonder if the decline in the 'top three' is specific to the top performers, and the rest of us exhibit different trends. As the data are from a select few, these few (these few, these happy few) may be 'outliers' whose physiology is different from the rest of us.

Thus the result could be biased due to an inherently unique population which by definition suffers less performance decline less than the rest of us humans.

As they are top performers, it's also highly likely they've been able to keep training, stay healthy, avoid stuff that hinders performance (kids, work, hobbies...). Separating out these factors from the 'inherently gifted' is not possible, but merits contemplation

Food for thought (albeit low cal).

[Nosmo]

Yes, it is a wooden boat. It is the love of my life.

Either you are not married, or you are confident that your wife is not going to read this thread.

Years ago I had a good bike racing buddy whose girlfriend once asked him "if he loved his bike more then her". He said, "Mary Beth, just don't ask me that question. Just don't ask."

She was mature enough not to say anything more. They have been happily married for about 15 years now. He doesn't ride much anymore.

I also had a friend who said a teammate on the Princeton bike racing team had a girlfriend told him, "it is either me or your bike". He said "fine" and went for a ride. Can't prove it true but I'd be surprised if it didn't happen many times.

[Byron Drachman]

Yes, it is a wooden boat. It is the love of my life.

Either you are not married, or you are confident that your wife is not going to read this thread.

Years ago I had a good bike racing buddy whose girlfriend once asked him "if he loved his bike more then her". He said, "Mary Beth, just don't ask me that question. Just don't ask."

She was mature enough not to say anything more. They have been happily married for about 15 years now. He doesn't ride much anymore.

I also had a friend who said a teammate on the Princeton bike racing team had a girlfriend told him, "it is either me or your bike". He said "fine" and went for a ride. Can't prove it true but I'd be surprised if it didn't happen many times.

I have a 50th wedding anniversary coming soon. Still, you can find a wife anywhere. How often can you find a good wooden boat? (Obviously the wife does not read this forum.) Heh, heh, just kidding in case someone is thinking of blackmail.

[NELSON]

My 2 cents on the yearly performance decline. I have been erging for 25+ years and have all my historical data dating back to 2001, I am pretty sure that was the start year for the concept2 ranking data for the ranked pieces.
First, I am not in the world class category, just very consistent in my workouts through the years. I have always tried to rank a yearly PB in each of the ranked pieces, not the marathons. See below my ups & downs.
500-- 5000-- 10000-- 1HR
2001 - 1:38.1 - 1:59.8 -2:02.2 -2:04.3
2002 - 1:41.6 - 1:58.7 -2:05.5 -2:04.4
2003 - 1:38.0 - 2:02.2 -2:01.9 -2:04.6
2004 - 1:37.7 - 2:00.8 -2:04.8 -2:05.2
2005 - 1:45.2 - 1:59.4 -2:04.7 -2:05.4
2006 - 1:45.0 - 2:01.7 -2:05.4 -2:08.5
2007 - 1:43.2 - 2:02.6 -2:04.9 -2:11.2
2008 - 1:42.3 - 2:01.8 -2:05.0 -2:07.0
2009 - 1:42.5 - 2:05.9 -2:08.4 -2:15.8
2010 - 1:41.9 - 2:04.4 -2:08.7

2005 thru present, I have been battling cancer, chemo & radiation, but I think my pace times still show consistency. From one year to the next, I sometimes gain and sometimes lose.

[Bob S.]

I have a 50th wedding anniversary coming soon. Still, you can find a wife anywhere. How often can you find a good wooden boat? (Obviously the wife does not read this forum.) Heh, heh, just kidding in case someone is thinking of blackmail.

Reminds me of one I heard many years ago. "A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke." No, I am not into cigars, but that line has always amused me.

Bob S.

[richelieu]

Nelson. Damn, good to see you here. I was just thinking about you and the Mile High Sprints. I was thinking I might take a run in there this year to see if you were still "the man", throwing down an hour row and then doing the 2k race. You were, and still are, one of my great inspirations. Honest to God, if the rest of you here have not met this man you are the lesser for it. Hats off to you sir. I am, as always, in awe. Take care Nelson. Be safe. live well, live strong. dennis

[NavigationHazard]

(snip)

I think that the decline shouldn't be considered an average, but looked at by 5 or 10-year spans. From 25-26 years of age (or some similar gap), there will be an increase in wattage if anything.

Paul

I assume you meant 36 years, since that's how old Benton was when setting the year's best time. Conventional wisdom would suggest a drop in times (also increase in watts) up until a year best set somewhere in the low 30s, followed by slowing times/watts decline. True, conventional wisdom would be dead wrong re LWs, where Henrik Stephensen lately has been a good decade ahead of the expected trajectory .....

You're quite right, though, that a simple linear regression is going to miss improvement into the 30s and a delayed decline. If you get creative with the math you can fit a rather better curve. Here's a 6th order polynomial fit:



And you can do better still by restricting yourself to fitting a curve to the top times by age:



This last is actually roughly what I'd expect: a slight improvement in best times from the mid-20s into the early 30s, followed by a general decline continuing through the 40s into middle age....

[Steve G]

Nelson. Damn, good to see you here. I was just thinking about you and the Mile High Sprints. I was thinking I might take a run in there this year to see if you were still "the man", throwing down an hour row and then doing the 2k race. You were, and still are, one of my great inspirations. Honest to God, if the rest of you here have not met this man you are the lesser for it. Hats off to you sir. I am, as always, in awe. Take care Nelson. Be safe. live well, live strong. dennis

Dennis
A true gent as always
Good to see you are still looking on in the erging world.
Happy New Year to you, hope it's a good one on the bike!
Steve G
59 64kgs UK

[Citroen]

This last is actually roughly what I'd expect: a slight improvement in best times from the mid-20s into the early 30s, followed by a general decline continuing through the 40s into middle age....

Jon, do you get the same shaped graphs for the LW men since the subject who triggered this discussion claims to be lightweight without ever having any struggle against his scales?

Do you get the same for the fairer sex or is there not enough data?

[NavigationHazard]

I have no concrete idea, as I haven't sorted out either the LW data or data for women....

There are something like 14000 entries all told in last year's on-line rankings. There's actually a surfeit of data....

[bloomp]

Yes, it is a wooden boat. It is the love of my life.

Either you are not married, or you are confident that your wife is not going to read this thread.

Years ago I had a good bike racing buddy whose girlfriend once asked him "if he loved his bike more then her". He said, "Mary Beth, just don't ask me that question. Just don't ask."

She was mature enough not to say anything more. They have been happily married for about 15 years now. He doesn't ride much anymore.

I also had a friend who said a teammate on the Princeton bike racing team had a girlfriend told him, "it is either me or your bike". He said "fine" and went for a ride. Can't prove it true but I'd be surprised if it didn't happen many times.

Exactly why I date within the sport. I can find the insanity I'm looking for and someone that doesn't mind my erging/rowing obsession.

Nav, that is what I was looking for, though my example wasn't just the one huge outlier that that 36 year old guy did. But what you have shown essentially is what I was thinking. Slight improvement, then it drops off.

I think that over the next five years, that curve will shift to the right, and the drop in the 20s-30s will be a little more extreme. Better training, more athletes, more college programs pumping out excellent athletes for clubs/national teams.

[NELSON]

Yo Dennis,
Right back at you, man it is so good to hear from you, it made my day. Our last connect was the 2007 Boston Crash-B, great day for me. Hope to see you at the Mile High Sprints on 1/23. I will limp,so to speak, to the rower this year. I will be coming off a chemo session, Wed- Fri (48hrs on 12 days rest), so I will only be doing the 30:00 row more of a flushing out session. I want to be there to support the event, you know how I luv the atmosphere.
Thank you so much for the very, very kind words but truth be told YOU KNOW YOU ARE MY HERO...

Later, Dude