Athletes and Age: Just how long can professional athlete can compete for
Most elite athletes are young; any time a team is shown on television most of the members are in their twenties and some are even in their teens. Only a few old guys are in their thirties. When an athlete hits the thirty age barrier their performance starts to decline. Their bodies start to age and they are not able to run as fast as they could or jump as high. There are some intrepid people who are pensioners and are still competing. A person's body starts to deteriorate when they age the athletes performance starts to suffer.
In most professional sports the maximum age limit that we see is 30 or if they really push it 35. It usually does not go beyond that. Most footballers retire between the ages of 36 and 38. During the 70s the concept of mature athletes was non-existent. Although over the years people decided that even though mature athletes; those over the age of 40, could not compete against younger athletes, they could compete against athletes in the same age bracket. This led to the start of a Master division in most sports. The Masters division is very popular in almost all sports disciplines and there is even an Olympic style competition called the World Masters Games. These games proved to be very popular and were attended by almost 20,000 mature athletes.
Basically what happens to an athlete as they age is that their hearts become weaker and they cannot pump as much blood around their body compared to a younger athlete. This phenomenon along with a decrease in a mature athletes ability to take in oxygen is called the VO2 max. This is why an athlete cannot perform at the same level as a younger athlete whose heart is pumping huge quantities of blood around their bodies and gives them the ability to consume massive amounts of oxygen. An athlete's ability to perform decreases year by year. A study found that an athlete's performance decreases almost 3.5% per year after they hit 35 years old. Then it continues to decrease until they reach 75 when it starts to rapidly decrease.
There are athletes who defy this trend and show us that all it takes is willpower and mental fortitude and a mature athlete can compete even into their 90s. A few athletes who have played professionally at very impressive ages are Michael Jordan, who played basketball at the age of 45, Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli who is a cyclist and was competing at the age of 49 and John McEnroe who still played tennis at the age of 49. These age defying athletes just show us that anything is possible no matter how old you are. These aren't the only ones who competed in sporting events well past their prime. John Tatum is 90 years old and he is a professional swimmer. He swims three times a week and is one of the healthiest old men to date. In 2009, he competed in the DC Golden Olympics and swam in the 25 metre free style event which he won in a time of 21 seconds. It does not matter whether he had no competition, just the fact that he can get into a pool at the age of 90 and compete in a swimming competition is enough to make him a heroic old man.
In sports to keep everything fair and balanced a system called age grading was introduced towards the end of the 80s. It is a system that is able to adjust an athlete's performance according to how old they are. The measurements are fed into a table and the performance judged against that. This age grading system is used to ensure that there is a level playing field for all athletes in their specific age groups.
Even though an athlete's abilities and performance decline with age, training and conditioning can help them remain active and fit well into old age. With mature athletes competing even at the age of 90 just shows us that with the right attitude and the right sort of training it is never too late to take up the sport you always wanted to even if you think you are too old. It seems you can never be too old if you are fit and healthy.
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