People over 70 who have been exercising for 50 years show a physical condition comparable to that of a healthy person in their 40s.
The muscles of women and men over 70 who have exercised regularly for three decades are just as strong and healthy as those of 25-year-olds.
A study, conducted by researchers at Ball State University, in Indiana (United States), concludes that these people also possess much higher aerobic capacities than most people their age, which makes them biologically about 30 years younger.
WITH 70 YEARS AS IF THEY WERE 40
Other studies have found that older people who play sports have healthier muscles, brains, immune systems and hearts than people of the same age who are sedentary.
The idea we have of old age as a state of fragility, disease and dependence is given by the observation of what happens in the average of the population.
In addition, our gaze is always directed towards what represents a threat to our well-being. The elderly and healthy people go unnoticed more than the sick.
THEY STARTED DOING SPORTS WITH THE JOGGING BOOM
Dr. Scott Trappe studied the current physical state of people who began exercising in the 1970s with the jogging boom. These people maintained hobbies such as running, cycling, swimming or doing other types of exercise for the past 50 years.
Trappe selected 28 people, 7 of them women, and compared them with another group of people their age who had not exercised and with a group of active twenty-somethings. The researchers took tissue samples and examined their aerobic capacity, among other fitness variables.
MUSCLES AS HEALTHY AS IN 20-YEAR-OLDS
A priori, the scientists expected young people to show more robust muscles and greater aerobic capacity, but they found that the muscles of older athletes resembled those of young athletes, their aerobic capacity was only slightly lower and 40% higher than that of their inactive peers.
In fact, they found that the aerobic capacity of older people corresponded to that of active 40-year-old persnas.
In conclusion, Trappe argues that the physical deterioration we associate with aging is not inevitable.