sports
conditioning
As active ageing becomes increasingly common among the general population, so too does the success of veteran athletes. Kirstyn MacRandal reports on their specific sports conditioning requirements
conditioning SPORTS SERIES
STAYING ON TOP F
or athletes today, reaching the age of 25 no longer means coming to the end of their career. More and
more often, we’re seeing professional athletes who are performing well into their 40s or even 50s. Take Michael Schumacher, for
example, who has returned to the track from retirement at the age of 42, or Martina Navratilova, who was 49 when she retired from tennis in 2006 after winning the mixed doubles title in the US Open and reaching the quarter-fi nals of the Wimbledon women’s doubles. We’re also seeing a trend for including
a veterans category within Masters competitions, such as the European Golf
(Both images on this page) AC Milan is renowned for the
longevity of its players’ careers – Paolo Maldini retired aged 41
Seniors Tour, which is exclusively aimed at elite athletes over the age of 50. In order to maintain the fi tness
of their youth, these athletes must take into consideration a number of factors that affect their training regime. We’re told that lean muscle peaks at the age of 25, and that the heart and lungs reach their apex during our 30s. Research has shown that over-use injuries are the most common challenge for veteran athletes; the incidence of exertion-related cardiovascular events is also greater among older athletes, especially men. So what do athletes need to do
to prevent their muscles losing their fl exibility, bones becoming more brittle and cells not processing oxygen as well? According to a number of studies, training programmes for senior athletes should incorporate a signifi cant level of
strength and power training in order to combat muscle degeneration and, in turn, prevent injury. However, these studies also say
it’s important that training is not as concentrated or highly intensive as is commonly the case among younger athletes, and that suffi cient recovery time is given between sessions. Furthermore, training regimes must be individually tailored and focus on the predominant energy pathways and performance requirements for a given sport.
elite veterans Nowadays, there’s a growing number of professional veteran athletes competing at elite tournaments – athletes such as Olympic rower Greg Searle (see HCM Nov/Dec 10, p36), Bernhard Langer from the European Golf Senior Tour and members of AC Milan Football Club. How have these athletes adapted their training regimes to combat the common issues associated with the passage of time and still maintain optimum performance to compete against younger athletes? Greg Searle won Olympic Gold in
the 1992 Games in Barcelona, in the coxed pair with his brother Jonny. Now aged 39, he has come out of a 10-year retirement in a bid to win a second gold medal at the London 2012 Olympics. With his second attempt just one year away, Searle has adapted his training regime from that of 1992 to accommodate the effect of time on his body. “It used to be ‘no pain, no gain’, whereas now it’s a slow building of physiology over time with fewer explosive sessions,” he explains. This
40 Read Health Club Management online at
healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital august 2011 © cybertrek 2011
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