Old and furious: are we still able to perform?

Abstract

Introduction: Human aging directly interferes with the performance of the master athlete, therefore, knowing when this performance decline occurs becomes essential for the optimization of the master sport. Objective: The aim of the study was to analyze the decline rate of swimmer’s performances in different age groups, from 25 years old to 99 years old, at freestyle events. Methodology: Data from up to the first eight places were collected in the 50 and 800 meters freestyle from each participating group from the 2019 Brazilian Master Championship, for a total of 281 entries into the water. Descriptive and inferential analysis were performed. Results and discussion: The 50 freestyle was the event with the highest number of entries; it was observed in the comparison of age group records vs. national records that the greatest percentage differences occurred, in general, from the age of 60 years old. This result is similar to the comparison of the entry averages of each test vs.  age group record. Also, when comparing the average of entries vs. 25-9 years old, significant differences were observed in males, and females, from 65-9 years old to 85-9 years old. In the 800 freestyle, higher percentage differences were also observed from the age of 60 years old from age group records vs. national records. However, when analyzing the averages of the entries of each test vs. records of each group and when comparing the averages of entries vs. 25-9 years, there were no significant differences for females, while for males, this difference occurred from the 60-4 years old. Conclusion: It was concluded that the performance drop in the analyzed master swimming tests is influenced, in part, by the aging process, sex and the reference competition.