The results suggest that he is in many ways a paragon of healthy, healthy aging – a 90-something whose heart, muscles and lungs are less than half his age. There is. But in other ways, he’s ordinary. A former baker and knee-squeaking battery manufacturer, he didn’t take regular exercise until well into his 70s and still mostly trains in a shed in his backyard.
Despite starting his fitness routine late in life, he has now rowed the equivalent of almost 10 laps around the world and won four world championships. So what did his late-life exercise do to his aging body, the researchers wondered?
Lessons about aging from active older adults
“If we want to understand aging, we need to focus on very active older people,” says Bas van Huuren, a postdoctoral researcher at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and one of the study authors.
The biology of aging and whether the physical decline and loss of muscle mass that commonly occurs with aging are normal and inevitable, or whether they are at least partially due to lack of physical activity. Many questions regarding science remain unanswered.
If some people can stay strong and enjoy their golden years, that means many others might be able to do the same, he said.
It helped that his colleague Lorcan Daly, an assistant lecturer in exercise science at Ireland’s Shannon Institute of Technology, was familiar with successful aging practices. His grandfather is Morgan, the 2022 Indoor Rowing World Champion in the 90-94 lightweight division.
What made Morgan particularly interesting to researchers was that he didn’t start playing sports or athletic training until he was 73 years old. Although he was retired at the time and was somewhat out of pocket, he attended rowing practice with one of his other grandchildren, a competitive college rower. . The coach encouraged him to use his one of the machines.
“He never looked back,” Daly said.
Highest heart rate ever
They invited Morgan, then 92, to a physiology lab at the University of Limerick in Ireland, where they measured his height, weight and body composition, and collected details about his diet. They also tested his metabolism and heart and lung function.
They then asked them to simulate a 2,000-meter time trial race on a rowing machine while monitoring their heart, lungs, and muscles.
“It was one of the most exciting days I have ever spent in a lab,” said Philip Jakeman, Professor of Healthy Aging, Physical Performance and Nutrition at the University of Limerick and lead author of the study. said.
Morgan has proven to be a powerful athlete in his 90s, and his lean 165-pound weight is made up of about 80 percent muscle and only 15 percent fat, healthy for a man decades younger. The body composition was considered to be.
During the time trial, his heart rate reached 153 beats per minute, far exceeding the expected maximum heart rate for his age and one of the highest heart rates ever recorded for a person in his 90s. , which researchers believe indicates a very strong heart.
His heart rate also reached this peak very quickly. This means his heart can quickly deliver oxygen and fuel to his working muscles. These “oxygen uptake kinetics,” an important indicator of cardiovascular health, proved to be comparable to that of a typical healthy 30- to 40-year-old, Daly said.
exercise for 40 minutes a day
Perhaps most impressively, the researchers noted, he developed this fitness with a simple and relatively shortened exercise routine.
- Consistency: He rows about 30 kilometers (about 18.5 miles) every week and averages about 40 minutes a day.
- A combination of easy, moderate and intense training: About 70% of these workouts were easy and gave Morgan little difficulty. The rest of his 20 percent is a difficult but bearable pace, and his last 10 percent is a barely sustainable pace at full strength.
- Weight training: He also does weight training two to three times a week, doing about three sets of lunges and curls with adjustable dumbbells, repeating each movement until his muscles become too fatigued to continue.
- High protein diet: He has a high intake of protein, and his daily intake regularly exceeds the normal dietary recommendation for a person of his weight, which is about 60 grams of protein.
How exercise affects aging
“This is an interesting case study that illuminates our understanding of adaptations to exercise across the lifespan,” said Scott Trapp, director of the Human Performance Institute at Ball State University in Indiana. He has studied many older athletes but was not involved in the new study.
“We are still learning about starting exercise programs late in life. However, the evidence is very clear that the human body maintains the ability to adapt to exercise at any age.” he added.
In fact, 93-year-old Morgan’s fitness and strength suggest that he “doesn’t need to lose” much muscle or aerobic capacity as he ages, Jakeman said. Exercise can help build and maintain a strong and capable body, regardless of age, he said.
Of course, scientists say Morgan probably had some genetic advantages. It seems that rowing skills run in the family.
And his racing performance in recent years has been slower than it was 15, 10 or even five years ago. Even if he exercises, the effects of aging will not go away. But it can slow down the loss of our bodies, Morgan’s example seems to tell us. The range of decline may flatten.
It also provides other, less material rewards. “There’s a certain joy in achieving world championships,” Morgan told me through his grandson, with almost comical matter-of-factness.
“I started with nothing, and suddenly I realized there was a lot of joy in doing this,” he said.
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