Decline with age

[bob01]

Hi.
When I was 50 male I as a lightweight I did the 2000m indoor in a time of 6.46.6

I am interested to understand how the intervening 16 years with affect my possible time

I wish to set myself realistic goals

Any thoughts Bob

[sander]

Greg Smith and I have been looking at some data. Greg is writing up a blog post about it, to be published soon on analytics.rowsandall.com.

PM Greg. He may look into the data and give you an answer here.

[hjs]

Hi.
When I was 50 male I as a lightweight I did the 2000m indoor in a time of 6.46.6

I am interested to understand how the intervening 16 years with affect my possible time

I wish to set myself realistic goals

Any thoughts Bob

Look at the concept2 rankings, that will give you an idea. Same for Wr. Per age group.

[jackarabit]

Respected diviners and scriveners suggest reduction of peak power ~5% per annum from age 65 on. Bob, you’ve arrived at dysfunction junction! Presumably there is also some slip slidin in previous decades. What have you been up to between your last 15 birthdays? If you’ve been active with other things besides fork and spoon, you’ve maintained aerobic condition, muscle mass, and cardiac health. 6:46 2k would be egg in your beer, eh? Talk to Lindsay Hay. He’s on your number at age 66.

[bob01]

Hi Thanks for the input... so far.... some have suggested talking to ##### but not a clue how too

I have In the intervening 16 years .... kept myself quite fit.... cycling and a few weights....

I am finding that with cycling ... a lot on the wattbike with sufferfest.... that I am getting numbness where one does not want numbness: a little concerning to say the least.

I have always been a committed trainer and I am looking to supplement some work on the concept... and thought the indoor rowing champs might be a decent and inspiring aim

[jackarabit]

Lindsay may be listed in 60-69 hwt in 2018 C2 rankings for 2k. If not, check 2017. He may respond on this thread. I apologize for omitting to mention that he is a member of the forum, age group record holder, Australian record holder, came second in 65-69hwt category at 2017 World Indoor Rowing Challenge at Boston Mass. if you are unfamiliar with the rankings as mentioned by hjs, go to http://www.concept2.com/rankings.

[gregsmith01748]

I did some analysis of the rankings data. Based on all ranked 2Ks from 2002 to 2018, here are the declines.

The percentage is the decline in power over the decade. The groupings are obvious. The 50th.75th and 90th columns show how the declines differ for the "average rower" = 50th percentile. A pretty good rower (75th) and a rower in the top 10 percent for the 2k.



Another way to look at this is:


This chart shows 2K power broken down by year for lightweight male rowers. The black line is the mean. The bar encompasses the normal distribution of data, and the points are outliers. Some of the outliers are legit animals, others are people ranking fake numbers.

To jump it up, for losing about 1% on power per year is probably about what the data is saying, so if you do better than that, you're doing well.

[Ombrax]

Greg, that's very interesting.

One thing I notice is that Men and Women decline at surprisingly similar rates. The only real difference there is in the Lightweight 60 vs 70 age band. (Although that may be due to a small sample size for the women.)

[bob01]

Hi thanks for your endeavours... appreciated

A couple of points.... one probably easier to address.

What is the relationship ... power to 2k time??

within the age bands (the older the group the more pronounced) the faster rowers are usually the younger rowers!!

Thanks bob

[bob01]

So... a male lightweight should deteriate by about 10% over the decade ... and someone in their mid 60s should deteriate by approx. 6% .... assuming that deteriation is linear (which it probably isn't) 16% (as you say circa 1% per year- although I would imagine the decline accelerates with age)...so a 2.5% decline in pace ????... so 6.47 at 50 could aim for 7.00 at 66??

Am I along the correct lines ??

Thanks Bob

[gregsmith01748]

Power and time have a cube law relationship, so a percentage decline in power is not exactly the percentage change in pace. The easiest way to do it to convert the orginal pace to power and then apply the decline, then convert power back to pace.

A 2:00 pace is about 200W (actually 203W)
A 2:15 pace is 142W
A 1:45 pace is 302W

So, your example, a 6:47 2k at 50 is a 1:41.75 pace is 332W. From 50 to 60, the decline for 75th percentile lightweight male rowers was 11%. If we estimate the decline in the sixties is linear, then taking 6/10 of the 13% is another 8%. So let's call that about an 19% decline. Take 19% off 332W leaves 268W. That converts back to a 1:49 pace, or a 7:16 2K.

Easy, right?

There is a nifty calculator on the Concept2 site here: http://www.concept2.com/indoor-rowers/t ... calculator

By the way, Sander caught a mistake. The plot that I posted showing the decline by year was for a different event. Here is the correct plot for 2K performance by lightweight male rowers.

[lindsayh]

Hi Thanks for the input... so far.... some have suggested talking to ##### but not a clue how to I have In the intervening 16 years .... kept myself quite fit.... cycling and a few weights.... I am finding that with cycling ... a lot on the wattbike with sufferfest.... that I am getting numbness where one does not want numbness: a little concerning to say the least. I have always been a committed trainer and I am looking to supplement some work on the concept... and thought the indoor rowing champs might be a decent and inspiring aim

I heard someone mention my name! This could be a little long so sorry in advance.
Hi Bob. the first question is the personal message (PM) - if you are on the Forum and ticked the right box then you can receive a PM - to contact someone just click on their name and you can see the PM facility to contact them and C2 notifies you that there is one in their inbox. You can also send a message from your account by identifying their address in the lists.
FWIW I think that the 1% decline seems about right although that is addressed in Greg's chart as power in Watts I think rather than pace/500m and they are not linear so the decline measured in pace will be faster than the watts. The other thing about decline is that it may not be "natural" - illness and surgical events can intervene as Cyclingman Jim can attest. Richard Stevenson has hit the hip replacement hump in the past few weeks and Steve Roedde has been unwell I understand.
You have to be lucky a bit too and careful with body management - I have never had a significant illness or injury.
The difficulty in comparing performance is that it is so skewed by previous training history, when we started on the erg, natural athletic ability/suitability, underlying health and how hard you want to train to meet goals either general fitness through to serious racing (which is a ton of fun if you have a competitive streak).
For me I sat on the erg first at 57 after 25 years in the gym so pretty fit and better at anaerobic than cardio it turns out. As you can see from my signature the PBs were reached around 65y but that was done over years on 5/6 sessions a week of pretty serious training around 40-70k a week but I am not a naturally athletic kind of guy. I have also been working against the significant OA of my knees which must play a role.
The really successful oldies tend to work pretty hard and have a previous athletic training history so I am sure you can do it if you want to. Richard S I know regularly did >100k a week and Steve even more. (and not junk meters either). My mantra has been to train harder as we age
I have also noticed that my 500m times have declined more rapidly than the longer ones - partly I am sure because I have been doing lots of aerobic in the past 18m and partly because it is the power and high watts which probably goes first. Don't drop the weights.

[lindsayh]

I wrote my piece whilst greg was posting - as usual thanks for putting that into real numbers.
Just a note about commitment Bob - I am in Brussels visiting my first grandchild for the first time and have still managed 5 sessions on the erg this week.
Just about to head off - it is snowing outside!!

[bob01]

Hi .... 7.16 seems a lot more doable than 7.00 LOL

[bob01]

I wrote my piece whilst greg was posting - as usual thanks for putting that into real numbers.
Just a note about commitment Bob - I am in Brussels visiting my first grandchild for the first time and have still managed 5 sessions on the erg this week.
Just about to head off - it is snowing outside!!

Ive no problem with commitment.... as said I am 66 and have been a gym regular all my adult life... training hard too... probably over doing it on occasions. I had ME a 20years ago and still went to the gym... albeit less often and with less intensity.

I trained hard to get the 6.47! and although will want to continue with the cycling, will again.


This thread has been informative and I thank those who have or will contribute