Athletic performance vs age

LOL yeah, Art comes up with some amazing racing (facts ).

Check this one and he never would respond to my question to clarify his claim.

 

I am surprised no one has mentioned jack Baldwin in this thread. At 65+ he runs with and leads Pros, many in better cars and is always a consistent and thoughtful World Challenge competitor.

 

The actor George Burns lived to be 100 years old and famously chain smoked his entire life. It won't convince anyone that smoking is good for you.

 

It makes a big difference if you are racing aero cars or not, since anything over 2g lateral is a very different cardio game as you can't breathe under that strain (up to 4g at times), as a result, you are holding your breath a significant amount of time during a lap, while your pulse is in the high hundreds... that requires great aerobic conditioning... you can do a couple of quick things to find out how good you are, like sprint 100 meters, do 20 pushups, then hold your breath, see how long you can last... repeat, see how it degrades... the first thing to go is your focus, and you miss your breaking points as a result, which immediately affects lap times... as the break pedal is the most important "go-fast" mechanism around a track...

 

How many laps down? My point was the effort was to win overall. Mario wanted the overall win to cap his career, but couldn't get there.

Art

 

I haven't read entire thread but from personal experience , performance drops off at different ages . I was late bloomer

At 40 I Ran 10:22 100 metre . I couldn't run near that at 18. After 43 is when I started to drop off .

I also discovered that those who always train and never take time off maintain high levels longer than their peers, i.e jerry Rice , Hershel Walker Benard Hopkins

Also as we age we get smarter which can help us compensate for decline in physical abilities

 

Record was 7x in one night at age 22, well the 7th was debatable. Now its a rare year when I go 3x in one night.
On the other hand, the various inspirations you have acess to at age 22 is far greater than at age 51 so that may explain some dropoff.

Still there is a quite a measuable decline in that dept and I am sure there is a corelation to dropoff elsewhere even if its not direct.

Since I didnt have the car, the time or acess for driving on track at age 22, my guess is best laptimes may be still to come especialy as I work harder at being fitter and am still learning.

Still ultimate potential decreases with age. At some point the line of your best laptime and ultimate potential intersect, and after that its a measurable decline.

Fortunatly or unfortunatly in the drivign department, despite my somewhat advanced age, my current low skill means I probably have a way to go before hitting the potential line best laptime/dropoff intersect. Lots to learn then, and little time to do it..

 

Paul Newman was no slouch. I'm 59 and still ride motocross and keep up with guys in their 30s. My buddy is 58 and still races and wins in the over 30 and over 40 pro MX classes.
Of course you have a better chance of being faster when you're young, but wisdom counts for something and if you still have the passion and competitive spirit… just keep going.

 

Sports physiology and driving is a big interest of mine (I am actually trying to write a book on training for racing drivers, as there is not much out there).

There is good data that many things physical drop off starting in the mid 20s. VO2 max, power, speed, reflexes. I think this is why the driving/racing that absolutely maxes those needs is topped by people in that age bracket (F1). Actual driving skill - maximizing grip around a track at full attack - takes time to develop, but that development often starts at a very very young age.

But there are two things that aren't learned as easily as a youngster: efficiency, and experience.

When I say efficiency, I mean efficiency of physical motion. For example: a am 46. I have been a cyclist for probably 30 years. I am not as powerful, nor do I have the VO2 max I had at 25. But I am faster now over the same course than I used to be in many cases (not in say, a pure hill climb that tests that VO2 and power only). Why? Because my pedal stroke is more efficient, and my application of power is more efficient. A better example may be swimming. I have been swimming since I was 7, but I stopped in high school and college. I am MUCH faster now than I was as a teenager. Because my strokes are much more efficient. In both situations, I get more out of what I have than I ever did before. I now focus on developing physical efficiency when I am in the car, especially at very physical tracks, like MoSport for example. Or North Course VIR, which is really taxing.

As for experience, if you look at the racing that really requires the boat loads of race seat time - not just seat time, but multiclass race seat time - it's endurance sports car racing (Le Mans). Here, speed is not just you against the track, or even you against a similar paced car. It's you against traffic, turn after turn after turn. And that judgement takes enormous time to develop. Is it faster to pass that car from this entry point or that? How do I maximize this exit so that he can pass but I can get the best exit? It's very much like basketball or soccer, there is just a huge amount of cognitive processing going on, and it must be wired. The car control is not enough, it's the relative positioning. I think that is why the fast guys - think Webber - do not necessarily hop into a race like Le Mans and out perform more experienced teammates. Data suggests 10 years to master a skill. I think you can almost add that on to the time needed for a fantastic single class racer to become a really top multiclass endurance racer.

Though your reflex time may decline with age, most of us can improve on our real world reflexes through experience. Because reflexes are a fixed time: stimulus triggers response. A true reflex never makes it to conscious thought (like a tap to your knee and the reflex kick). So how do you improve that response? By recognizing the stimulus earlier. That means noting the rotation of the car sooner. Noting impending lock up sooner. Recognizing the subtle signs that the other guy is going to try the move earlier. That is how experience improves reflexes. Though the reflex itself cannot be improved - it is physiologically set - recognizing the appropriate stimulus can absolutely be trained.

The point of this is that unless you are trying to be an F1 world champ, I don't care how old you are, you are not going to be physically limited driving. You need to be as fit as you can be (and there are tricks), and you also need to develop efficiency in the car (and there are tricks), and experience on track in whatever style of racing you are hoping to enjoy (and again, there are tricks). And unless it's your livelihood, it should always be about enjoyment and personal development.

That's my 2 cents, and for free!

 

Different sport, but Boston Marathon qualifying times are one metric of the performance versus age relationship.

"Younger Next Year" gives you another perspective.

My own sense is the fast twitch muscles decline in your mid-40s (well, this is where I noticed it) so sprints, 100-yard intervals etc much harder to do. And keeping a general level of fitness into my 50s seems to get tougher each year.

I have not raced extensively as others have. I have raced in vintage for a few years and won a couple of races here and there. It does help to have great aerobic conditioning, for sure.

Philip

 

Agreed. Great post!

 

Marathon times make an interesting discussion, because similar rules apply, despite it being such a very different sport. It's an endurance event, and endurance seems to be the one thing that doesn't decline over time; many older athletes can perform sub-threshold activity for the same if not longer times than as a youth. But with age comes efficiency and experience: efficiency in your stride (though most probably don't get much improvement running over time, nothing like swimming) but also efficiency in application. Efficiency in application is knowing how to pace yourself. Knowing how to do what you need to do, despite those around you. Knowing exactly how much energy to exert going up a hill, when to hold back, when to build pace. Experience counts for things that can make or break you: food, rest, clothing, shoes, strategy, etc. And the mental side. You cannot ignore the importance of the mental piece that comes from experience. The same rules apply to everything we do.

All that being said, there are differences in the way adults should train and what they should pay attention to in order to get the most from themselves. There is a lot written about differences in potential, but little advice on how to adjust to the changes. We tend to just look at whatever the top guy in whatever sport does, and that must be the path to greatness. If they eat a mixture of spotted owl and baby seal for breakfast before wrestling bears as a workout, then anything less is just spinning wheels. And if you are just not able to do what you could do before, well you simply aren't going to improve, so what's the point. I don't subscribe to that philosophy at all. I think as you get older you can train smarter and get more out of less than a younger person can.

 

Which ones though first? : )

For instance, most boxers can maintain great hand speed into their late 30s, but their legs tend to go before then.

Very interesting discussion.

 

I'd be interested in such a book. I trained for contact, team sports my whole life predominantly. I've pieced together a proper workout now for motorsports, but would definitely be interested to read a book discussing these principles. Good luck with it - very interesting topic.

Very much agree on the efficiency and experience...learning first hand right now how important they are as I make progress...and mistakes ; )

 

Fantastic post, thanks.

 

Of course not! I didn't mean to imply that, my mistake. But many regular people will set their PRs at a later age, despite the peak in strictly physiologic performance. And why is that...? I mean it's just running, right? If anything is purely physiologic ability, it's running. But there is a lot of preparation and tuning that goes into that performance. So, even runners can benefit from applying efficiency and experience (many probably don't even think of it that way, they just learn what "works" for them).

All I am saying is that, despite the drop off of pure physiologic ability, individual performance can be improved almost throughout ones life, particularly in a new endeavor. But even if you have already been involved in it - like I have been in both cycling and swimming - you can still improve significantly, if you know where to work.

Without question, those at the pinnacle of almost any endeavor are going to peak in the 20-35 year old time frame, depending on how much is pure physical and how much experience plays a part. Dara Torres (Olympic swimmer) is a great example, as she was setting records in her early 40s. Her physiology was declining for sure, yet she was able to not only improve her own times, but to best a generation of younger swimmers. That's down to efficiency and experience.

The OP is asking about athletic performance and age, and my point is simply that age does not prevent (most of) us from significant improvement, and even exceeding what we did when we were younger. And I think that is particularly true for driving.

 

A good resource now is a book by Dr. Jutley and Andy Blow (Votwo - maximizing human performance and runs the Porsche Human Performance Center at Silverstone Circuit), Motorsports Fitness Manual.

Pretty comprehensive. And filled with references to other good resources.

 

That's the first reference I have seen so far! Of course I am going to have a different approach lol

 

Great topic. I think all of us are interested in trying to maintain optimal performance into our later lives. I recall that the woman who swam the 110 miles from Cuba to Miami, Diana Nyad, was 58. Also, I believe it was her 3rd attempt, 25 years after her first...

 

Would love to hear more about what we might do to acheive best personal peak performance in a car(besides driving skill).

 

I have been working on a book for better part of a year. My motivation waivers dramatically. But if there is any area that has more misinformation than politics, it's sports physiology. Most just want to sell you their "secret", whether it is a diet supplement or training tool or coaching advice, and that is true in every sport. But more than anything, there is just a lack of sound science, and to be honest that is in part due to the fact that it is soooo hard to test.

But here is an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R42rz4DlYDA

This video shows tricks to improve reaction time. There is absolutely no data to show any of these will actually help your driving. Furthermore, the logic behind it is "reaction times are important, so if you improve reaction times HERE, it will improve your reaction times elsewhere, and thus you will be a better driver."

That doesn't follow if you understand what a reaction is: it is a response to a stimulus. In this particular video, training all of the Andretti autosport drivers with this technique is going to create a team of drivers that are really good at catching tennis balls that are being bounced or dropped. I would argue that it will do absolutely nothing for anything related to driving.

The flaw in the logic is that ANY improvement in reaction time carries over to improvements in other reaction times. And that's a false premise.

So continuing this, how do you as a driver improve reaction time? You train yourself to recognize the stimulus earlier. The easiest way to do that outside the car is with a simulator like iRacing. With a simulator, you can do specific drills, like a swimmer would do, to improve technique. An example would be turning off all force-feedback, so that your only input stimulus is visual, and then you will train yourself to use your eyes to look ahead more consistently, and recognize changes in attitude of the "car". Remember, you cannot modify how fast the signal travels, but you can change how long it takes you to "see" a change. This is not easy (nor are most drills!)

Of course that does nothing for your physical fitness, which is sorta where this started. So here is another example, one that almost every trainer misses, even in motorsports related training: What is the basis for almost every exercise program right now? Your CORE. You almost can't say anything about fitness without talking about working your core. Every motion, every exercise, it's all better if it involves your core, and it's sorta pointless if not.

What's the first thing you do when you strap yourself into a race car? Tighten everything down so that you are fixed in your seat as well as possible. And in doing so, you completely eliminate the ability for you to use your core.

Hmmmm.... Maybe drivers should be doing something a bit different?