Concept2 Forum

Recently the view has been expressed that "The minimal [aerobic] decline with age is .3 seconds a year over 2K." When pressed for a citation, the proponent responded with "The reference was cited on the British forum. Look it up, if you're interested." Okay, I did.

Almost certainly this is a misrepresentation of a C2-sponsored 1998 study referenced in a web-archived PeakPerformance newsletter from (I think) late 2006.

The newsletter article can be found at http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/rowing- ... rans-35855

The underlying study in question is K. STEPHEN SEILER, WANEEN W. SPIRDUSO, and JAMES C. MARTIN, Gender differences in rowing performance and power with aging," Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 30 121-7 Ja 1998.

Basically, the authors did statistical analysis of roughly 4000 results from early 1990s C2 rankings for 2500m erg pieces. Their aim was "to determine the impact of age and gender on ergometer rowing performance."

Their results: For all subjects age was only modestly correlated with performance in men or women (r = 0.58 and 0.46, respectively). When regression analysis was restricted to only the 95th percentile of each 2-yr age increment (119 men, 79 women), age was a powerful predictor of performance variance in men and women (?90%). In the top men, the pattern of performance decline was curvilinear. Between ages 24 and 50, performance decline was only 3% per decade, compared to 7% from ages 50 to 74. The pattern of performance decline in women was essentially linear across the same 50-yr age span. Conclusion: Performance time to power output conversion revealed that men and women lose absolute power at a similar rate across the age span analyzed. However, their different starting positions on the exponential power-velocity curve create distinct differences in the pattern of performance decline and the maintenance of relative power. These data suggest that differences in the effect of aging on performance across different endurance sports are caused more by physics than physiology.

Note the difference between a statistically observed performance decline of 3% per decade for top-performing men from age 24 up to age 50 (0.3%/year), thereafter accelerating to 7% per decade; and an alleged reduction in aerobic capacity translating over 2000m to a strictly linear 0.3-seconds/year.

Ignoring any problems from applying statistical observations at 2500m to 2000m pieces, it's true that an 0.3% performance slowdown per year can resemble closely the results of a linear 0.3-second/year performance decline.

Row a 6:40 2k at age 40 (1:40 pace) and decline by .3% a year and at age 50 you'll row 6:52.2 (1:43 pace). Decline by .3 seconds a year from the same starting point and you'll end up with a 6:52.0. That's an accident: the initial percentage increment (.3% of 100 seconds/500 pace) is .3 seconds. However the amount of divergence actually depends on your starting and ending points, and on the pace you're working with.

For example:

.3% decline/year over 2k

5:36.6 @ age 32 -> 5:55.2 @ age 50
6:40.0 @ age 32 -> 7:02.2 @ age 50
8:00.0 @ age 32 -> 8:26.6 @ age 50

.3 second decline/year over 2k
5:36.6 @ age 32 -> 5:58.2 @ age 50
6:40.0 @ age 32 -> 7:01.6 @ age 50
8:00.0 @ age 32 -> 8:21.6 @ age 50

Moreover, according to the authors, performance decline more than doubles in top-performing men past the age of 50, to 7%/decade. Extend the above extrapolations and you get:

5:36.6 @ age 32 -> 6:48.4 @ age 70
6:40.0 @ age 32 -> 8:05.4 @ age 70
8:00.0 @ age 32 -> 9:42.4 @ age 70

.3 second decline/year over 2k
5:36.6 @ age 32 -> 6:22.2 @ age 70
6:40.0 @ age 32 -> 7:25.6 @ age 70
8:00.0 @ age 32 -> 8:45.6 @ age 70

Most importantly, none of the above necessarily applies to any individual top-performing male rower (let alone the general rowing population). The fallacy of division teaches that what's true of the whole need not be true of some or indeed any of the parts. Thus attempting to use an individual result at age X to predict an individual result at age X plus N is quite misguided.

Moreover, there's absolutely nothing in the study to suggest a minimal decline in aerobic capacity translating to 0.3 seconds/year. Not for top-performing male rowers aged 24-50; still less so for top-performing 50+ males, whose performance decline was found to have accelerated....

Thanks for that, Nav.

Sure, we already knew that the standard decline in performance, as reflected in the rankings, is more like 1.2 seconds per year (.3 seconds per 500m, not .3 seconds per year).

I thought the study was of an entirely different sort reporting results of an entirely different sort, although I am not sure that this assumption was all my bad, other than my disrespect in this case for the rule:

Never believe anything you read on the internet!

ranger

ranger wrote:... other than my disrespect in this case for the rule:

Never believe anything you read on the internet!

ranger

Ah, once again the irony. From the most prolific writer on this internet forum.

Yankeerunner wrote:

ranger wrote:... other than my disrespect in this case for the rule:

Never believe anything you read on the internet!

ranger

Ah, once again the irony. From the most prolific writer on this internet forum.

Yea, this forum is just fun stuff.

Social chit-chat.

Nothing serious.

The stuff on here about how standard training plans for rowing (the IP plan, the Wolverine Plan, Paul Smith's 10 MPS, etc.) can improve your 2K score is especially questionable, as we have all discovered.

ranger

ranger wrote:Thanks for that, Nav.

Sure, we already knew that the standard decline in performance, as reflected in the rankings, is more like 1.2 seconds per year (.3 seconds per 500m, not .3 seconds per year).

I thought the study was of an entirely different sort reporting results of an entirely different sort, although I am not sure that this assumption was all my bad, other than my disrespect in this case for the rule:

Never believe anything you read on the internet!

ranger

In your posts on this topic, you were using the .3 metric in the context of .3 seconds over a 2k.
As your post below clearly indicates

ranger wrote: The recent estimate is that the minimal decline in a 2K on the erg due to loss of aerobic capacity is only .3 seconds a year.

That means that a 60s lwt should be capable of 6:10 and that over the last seven years, due to my physiological decline, my 2K may have only lost a couple of seconds.

7 years, x .3 seconds/year = 2.1 seconds. "a couple of seconds"

ranger wrote:Never believe anything you read on the internet!

Well you sucked it up big time ranger. The .3 secs/year has been the basis for all your predictions concerning your own [future] performance and has also the formed the basis of your criticism of other rowers.

The devil, as ever, is in the detail. Autodidacts seldom see the wood for the trees unless they are whacked round the face with an axe shaft.

[Incidentally, I note that you edited your original knee-jerk comment where you dismissed Nav's analysis saying that the study he reviewed was not the one you meant. Why did you retract that comment?]

I'm the guy that caused NavHaz' investigation; allow me to expand on the question of age-related declines in performance.

Ranger asserted that the loss of aerobic capacity increases erg times for a 2k by a mere 3 seconds over a decade (thanks to NH we now know this is a misreading by Ranger); despite that a key when considering the impact of age on performance is to understand that aerobic capacity is not the only factor.

Re Ranger's reference to aerobic capacity, I don't know what 'aerobic capacity' means. If this refers to maxVO2, it is but one component of the cardiovascular system's role in athletic performance. The other major ones are lactate threshold (expressed as an absolute value and not a percentage of maxVO2) and economy of exercise; the former decreases with age, while the latter does not appear to appreciably decline with age. You can't isolate one factor from performance; lactate threshold, vascular elasticity, neural responsiveness and other factors significantly affect performance.

For Ranger to claim that times will only drop .3 sec per year due to 'loss of aerobic capacity' MAY have been technically correct (although thanks to NayHaz' research it clearly was not) but that's like saying a race car will only slow down .3 sec per lap due to tire wear, when it is also running out of gas and low on oil and has lost sixth gear and is overheating - factors which will slow it down MUCH MORE than .3 sec per lap.

Exercise physiology is not overly complicated, but it does require a little research to make sure you aren't taking things out of context, or just completely misunderstanding them. This is particularly problematic when one bases their training and projections of performance on misinterpretations of 'research' or science (as noted by snowleopard).

Thanks for the legwork, Navhaz. I would note that there has been a wealth of excellent research on the impact of aging on performance, much of it fairly recent. While I haven't read it all, what I have seen does generally support the 'decline followed by a steeper decline' noted by NavHaz.

As to why, I can only guess it has something to do with a decline in testosterone production along with other changes in the endocrine system that have yet to be fully appreciated.

Maybe it's all that energy we used to build strong rowing muscles is now going to that lush growth of ear and nose hair...

Too much math for me.

Tell me how little (or how much) I am supposed to have slowed down in the last couple of years--after age 60--and I'll know how fast I'm supposed to row.

Thanx.

PS--stfu ranger

leadville wrote: all that energy we used to build strong rowing muscles is now going to that lush growth of ear and nose hair...

You've noticed that too?

leadville wrote: For (TSO) to claim that times will only drop .3 sec per year due to 'loss of aerobic capacity' MAY have been technically correct (although thanks to NayHaz' research it clearly was not) but that's like saying a race car will only slow down .3 sec per lap due to tire wear, when it is also running out of gas and low on oil and has lost sixth gear and is overheating - factors which will slow it down MUCH MORE than .3 sec per lap.

This could be carried even further:
With aging factored in, it is inappropriate to try to "shift into 7th gear".. because there never was one on the jalopy.

Example:
a 1:34 pace 2k for a 58 year old weighing less than 165 lbs is only achievable in 7th gear....

Yankeerunner wrote:

ranger wrote:... other than my disrespect in this case for the rule:

Never believe anything you read on the internet!

ranger

Ah, once again the irony. From the most prolific writer on this internet forum.

In addition, the statement cannot be true:

If the statement is assumed to be true, then since it is on the internet you cannot believe it. Therefore some things on the internet can be believed. Therefore the statement is false.

But this is off topic, unless you want to consider that the aging process can cause some professors to decline mentally and write silly statements.

Back to the topic of age-related performance decline, this is a topic that interests me. Being in the seventh decade, I can testify that performance does decline with age. The obvious strategy is to see how much you can minimize the decline, and accept the decline as part of the journey to be enjoyed as much as possible.

Byron Drachman wrote: The obvious strategy is to see how much you can minimize the decline, and accept the decline as part of the journey to be enjoyed as much as possible.

That has been my goal for many years. And I have come to learn that the acceptance of the decline is an important factor in the process. The enjoyment part of it is a bit more nebulous.

Bob S.

Byron,

Weren't you a professor of math or science or engineering? I appreciate the sentiment about striving to slow down as slowly as possible and existential acceptance.

But with your training, can't you give me a number--0.XX seconds/500 pace per year is the average decline? Is there no ergometric North Star to guide my navigation into senility?

TomR - re your question - But with your training, can't you give me a number--0.XX seconds/500 pace per year is the average decline? Is there no ergometric North Star to guide my navigation into senility?

There are averages, and estimates, and guesstimates, but nothing concrete that can convert age to performance - at least not accurately.

There are a couple of issues - first, there would have to be a longitudinal study of a statistically appropriate number of scullers with consistent training and health and their performance on an erg. not likely...

second, we are all individuals with different anatomical and physiological attributes, different stressors, family situations, goals and obstacles. So even if we could find a study that indicated a drop of X seconds/500 meters, all that would be is an 'average', which is fine in the abstract but meaningless for you or me.

A few of us old folks may remember Don Spero, US Olympic sculler (sixth in 1964 despite an injury, world champion in 1966). in the late eightes I saw Don enter a race on the Potomac after not rowing for months, if not years, and crush the competition handily. And there were some pretty fast scullers in his race, a couple were even US national team scullers.

Point is that Spero is an example of an athlete who had the ability/talent to not row for months yet handily defeat other elite athletes. He's at the far end of the spectrum, while most of us tend towards the middle (or other end).

Long way of saying, averages are pointless. I ain't no Don Spero, so I can't expect to do what he can do. Do what you can, give father time the respect he deserves (or the finger on occasion), and race other guys your age. Unless Spero shows up, it'll be a fair fight.

Instead of focusing on decline, think about how you compare to others your age, and how that changes over the years. If you maintain and improve, good on ya'.':D'

one of the great things about high skill sports like sculling is that one can always improve technique so one can get faster as one ages. On the ERG one can only train more intelligently

I understand that each of us has unique gifts, that each is genuinely and wonderfully individual.

Having said that, isn't there some benchmark, some average, some number that does rough justice to the sort of decline one might likely see, if one were merely average, a sort of grade-C erging being?

Not that I'm suggesting anyone posting is average.