Rittweger Jörn, di Prampero Pietro Enrico, Maffulli Nicola, Narici Marco V
Institute for Biomedical Research into Human Movement and Health, Manchester Metropolitan University, All Saints Campus, Manchester M15 6BH, UK.
Proc Biol Sci. 2009 Feb 22;276(1657):683-9. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2008.1319.
Human physical performance is notably reduced with ageing. Although the effects of ageing are often compounded by disuse, the study of master athletes provides an opportunity for investigating the effects of ageing per se. It is often held that sprinting is more affected than endurance performance. However, past analyses of master athletic world record data have yielded opposite observations. We argue here that our understanding of these data improves by considering how, biomechanically, metabolic power is related to athletic performance. In line with earlier studies, our analysis showed that running speed declines with age in a more pronounced way for endurance events than for sprinting events, confirming former studies. However, when assessing the metabolic power required to achieve the running world records, sprint and endurance events show a relatively uniform decline with age across the different events. This study has reconciled formerly conflicting scientific results and improves our understanding of the ageing process. However, it is unclear as to which are the governing mechanisms that cause the different systems in our body, responsible for sprinting and for endurance performance, to be affected by ageing in a remarkably uniform way.
随着年龄增长，人类的身体机能显著下降。尽管衰老的影响常常因缺乏运动而加剧，但对大师级运动员的研究为探究衰老本身的影响提供了契机。人们通常认为，短跑比耐力表现更容易受到衰老的影响。然而，过去对大师级运动员世界纪录数据的分析却得出了相反的结论。我们在此认为，通过考虑代谢功率在生物力学上如何与运动表现相关联，能增进我们对这些数据的理解。与早期研究一致，我们的分析表明，耐力项目中跑步速度随年龄下降的幅度比短跑项目更为明显，这证实了先前的研究。然而，在评估创造跑步世界纪录所需的代谢功率时，短跑和耐力项目在不同赛事中随年龄呈现出相对一致的下降趋势。这项研究调和了先前相互矛盾的科学结果，增进了我们对衰老过程的理解。然而，尚不清楚是哪些控制机制导致我们身体中负责短跑和耐力表现的不同系统以如此显著一致的方式受到衰老的影响。
