Super agers
 

Super interesting article posted by a friend of mine on FB about older people crushing it in the cycling world. Here are a few snippets:

“by what immortal powers does an 85-year-old man ride 10 miles in 23.46? That’s over 25mph! Or a 60-year-old woman ride 50 miles in 1:59.47? “

“We need to look at what determines VO2 max. It’s your max heart rate, max stroke volume [of the heart], max ability to get oxygen into your blood and the max rate of getting it out of the blood and into the muscle. The biggest factor is a progressive decline in maximum heart rate,”

“Training is always a process of breakdown followed by synthesis – building back stronger. There is debate on whether the main factor in older athletes is the breakdown speeding up or the synthesis slowing down.”

It’s not only post-workout recovery that declines, but also the ability to recover within workouts.

If you can avoid damaging yourself in crashes and avoid patellar problems, then I really think the experience and knowledge of your body that you accrue can help you stay fitter for longer.”

...if you are struggling to hit your training targets, do not presume the reason is your age. Ageing is a slow, gradual process. If your performance has declined dramatically from one year to the next, there is probably an underlying physiological cause and it could be something as simple as fuelling.*

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/l...jP2RKyh1NCG0Bg