Sports Performance Peaks Between 20 and 30

Sports Performance Peaks

At 20-30 Years of Age...

Then Irreversible Decline Follows

New Study Suggests Sport Performance Follows A Basic Physiological Law

Describing the evolution of performance levels in elite athletes and chess grandmasters, researchers at the IRMES (Institut de Recherche bioMédicale et d'Epidemiologie du Sport at INSEP, Paris, France), have published their new findings in AGE, the official journal of the American Aging Association.

This article conforms with the epidemiological approaches developed by the laboratory, and suggests that changes in
individual performance are linked to physiological laws structuring the living world.

Physiological parameters that characterize human capabilities (mobility, reproduction or the capacity to perform tasks) evolve throughout the life cycle. The physical and intellectual abilities follow the same pattern, starting at the moment of conception: The performance of each individual is limited at birth, then increases to a peak before declining until death.

With these findings, researchers modeled the careers of more than 2,000 athletes (from a panel of 25 Olympic disciplines) and grandmasters of chess. They demonstrate a simple, direct relation between changes in performance and the age of the individuals.

The results of this study validate a model previously published: The evolution of the performances of an individual throughout his life follows an exponential growth curve to a peak before declining irreversibly, following another negative exponential curve. This peak is reached at the age of 26.1 years for the
disciplines studied: athletics (26.0 years), swimming (21.0 years) and chess (31.4 years).

For each data set, the evolution curve is representative of a range of 91.7% of the variance at the individual level and 98.5% of the variance in terms of sport events.

Moreover, these cycles are observable in other physiological
parameters such as the development of lung function or cognitive skills, but also at the level of cells, organisms and populations.

This study suggests that technical change, energy consumption and development strongly influenced the performance of individuals. These changes have increased significantly over the last century compared to today's values. Ultimately, the modeling of changes in performance with age can be extended to all individuals and lead to an estimate of life expectancy.

Further research will refine these descriptive models and apply them to other areas of human activity (scientific, economic, ecological ...), and test their viability, which may help to assess the relationships of man to his environment.

Story Source: Springer Science+Business Media.
Journal Reference: Exponential growth combined with exponential decline explains lifetime performance
evolution in individual and human species. AGE, 2011;

This article is for informational and educational purposes only, and is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Consult with your doctor or healthcare professional for medical and nutrition advice.