Researchers: Matej Vajda, Ľudmila Oreská, Alena Černáčková, Martin Čupka, Veronika Tirpáková, Ján Cvečka, Dušan Hamar, Feliciano Protasi, Nejc Šarabon, Sandra Zampieri, Stefan Löfler, Helmut Kern, Milan Sedliak
Regular physical activity, recommended by the WHO, is crucial in maintaining a good physical fitness level and health status and slows down the effects of aging. However, there is a lack of knowledge of whether lifelong endurance running, with a volume and frequency above the WHO limits, still brings the same benefits, or several negative effects too. The present study aims to examine the protentional benefits and risks of lifelong endurance running training in Master male athletes, as this level of physical activity is above the WHO recommendations. Within the study, four main groups of participants will be included: (1) endurance-trained master athletes, (2) endurance-trained young athletes, (3) young sedentary adults, and (4) elderly sedentary. Both groups of athletes are strictly marathon runners, who are still actively running. The broad spectrum of the diagnostic tests, from the questionnaires, physical fitness testing, and blood sampling to muscle biopsy, will be performed to obtain the possibility of complexly analyzing the effects of lifelong endurance physical activity on the human body and aging. Moreover, the study will try to discover and explain new relationships between endurance running and diagnostic parameters, not only within aging.
References
- Exercise attenuates the major hallmarks of aging.
- Endurance exercise performance in Masters athletes: age-associated changes and underlying physiological mechanisms.
- Linear Decrease in Athletic Performance During the Human Life Span.
- [[31873927|Lifelong Endurance Exercise as a Countermeasure Against Age-Related [Formula: see text] Decline: Physiological Overview and Insights from Masters Athletes.]]
- Age-related changes in skeletal muscle: changes to life-style as a therapy.
- Lifelong exercise is associated with more homogeneous motor unit potential features across deep and superficial areas of vastus lateralis.
- Comparison of Muscle Function, Bone Mineral Density and Body Composition of Early Starting and Later Starting Older Masters Athletes.