It’s tempting to roll your eyes when you hear people marvel about the fact that a professional athlete is still performing at a high level in their mid-30s and beyond. After all, there are plenty of older adults out there crushing PRs and breaking athletic world records.
Now, new research published in the Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle finds that there is a certain age when fitness levels start to peak—but there are also some very effective things you can do to extend your fitness longevity.
Whether you’re training to crush your age group in an upcoming 5k or just want reassurance that your hard work at the gym really is paying off in the longevity realm, here’s what doctors want you to know.
Meet the experts: Maria Westerståhl, PhD, lecturer at the Karolinska Institutet-Stockholm Department of Laboratory Medicine and lead author of the study; Shane Davis, MD, non-operative sports medicine physician at Tufts Medical Center; Brad Wilkins, PhD, assistant professor of human physiology and Director of the Oregon Performance Research Laboratory at the University of Oregon
What did the study find?
For the study, researchers from Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet followed 427 people from ages 16 to 63. During the nearly 50-year study period, the participants were asked to participate in a range of fitness and strength tests, like their vertical jump ability (which is often used to measure muscle strength) and moves that track their aerobic capacity.
After crunching the data, the researchers discovered that physical ability starts to decline as early as age 35. From ages 35 to 63, the drop in physical capacity dropped from 30 percent to 48 percent.
But there’s a huge caveat here to keep in mind: People who stayed physically active had a much slower decline than those who weren’t as athletic.
What does ‘decline’ even mean here?
The word “decline” doesn’t sound fun when we’re talking about your fitness, but it’s not as tragic as it seems, according to Maria Westerståhl, PhD, lecturer at the Karolinska Institutet-Stockholm Department of Laboratory Medicine and lead author of the study.
“After peak capacity is reached, the decline is very slow at first, with approximately a 0.5 percent decrease per year,” she says. “However, this decrease accelerates with age, and by age 60, we lose more than 2 percent of our capacity each year.”
That may mean you can’t run as fast as you once did with the same amount of training, you can’t jump over a puddle as easily as you used to, or it feels harder to lift and carry some objects around, Westerståhl says.
“The stronger you are before the decline sets in and the more you exercise afterward, the later—if ever—this restriction to your independent life will occur,” she says.
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Why performance starts to drop after 35
There are a few potential reasons for this. “One of the biggest things is that your muscles start to waste away, especially if they’re not used,” says Brad Wilkins, PhD, assistant professor of human physiology and Director of the Oregon Performance Research Laboratory at the University of Oregon.
As you lose muscle mass, it can impact your strength and endurance, points out Shane Davis, MD, non-operative sports medicine physician at Tufts Medical Center.
There also seems to be an “inherent biological aging process” that impacts signaling between your nerves and muscles, Westerståhl says. That can slow you down over time, she explains.
How to keep up your fitness performance
It’s really important to stress this: Your fitness isn’t doomed to fall off a cliff after age 35. “The height of your fitness peak and how fast you come up and go down does seem to be changeable,” Wilkins says.
While consistent training is important, Wilkins says you can actually improve or maintain your fitness as you age by tweaking things as you go. “We get wiser with age, and our training may be able to be optimized for the responses we want as we get older,” he says. “Your decision-making may also get better. You might be rising in a lot of different performance aspects, like better nutrition and sleep. That may mean your performance won’t decline as much as you’d think.”
Westerståhl agrees. “Those who were physically active—either from before or by becoming active later in life—had a capacity 5 to 10 percent higher compared to those who were not physically active.” Being physically active can help you perform the same as someone up to five years younger than you, she adds.
You can also build muscle mass, strength, and endurance throughout your life, Davis says. “Regular exercise can also slow declines seen in normal aging. So while it may be more difficult or impossible to reach the peak physical performance one could have in their 20s, it does not mean that people cannot improve from where they are today and maintain good physical fitness throughout life,” he says.
While you’re at it, Westerståhl recommends doing what you can to maintain a healthy weight, eat a good diet, and get plenty of sleep. “Good overall health will support your ability to be active and to benefit from exercise,” she says. So, keep on pushing yourself. You may be surprised at how much you can achieve, even as you get older.
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