Venus Williams, LeBron James, Cristiano Ronaldo – elite athletes are extending their careers into their 40s. How? | Health & wellbeing

AT US Open of this year, when the Grande Venus Williams, 45, went up to the field to play double, it was alongside a teammate who was not even born when Williams won gold in simple at the Sydney Olympic Games.

Given that the age of advanced performance for a tennis player has traditionally been considered to be around the mid -1920s, it was an extraordinary feat to participate in a major, but the exceptional extension of Williams of his sports career is increasingly common.

The basketball superstar LeBron James marked this year in history by being the first NBA player to have played in the League of her teenagers in their forties, while last year, Australian basketball player Lauren Jackson challenged the chances by participating in her fifth Olympic Games at the age of 43.

The 50 -year -old Ouzbek gymnast Oksana Chusovitina aims at her ninth Olympic Games, and in Japan, Kazuyoshi Miura broke records while continuing to play elite football – at 58.

These achievements are astounding because at an age when most ordinary mortals begin to feel the effects of the decline in muscle mass, reaction times, cognition and endurance, these elite athletes always perform extraordinary physical exploits which exert incredible pressure and stress on their aging bodies. In addition, they do it in a sporting environment which continued to push the limits of what the unlikely body can achieve, far beyond what was possible, or even sure, a few decades ago.

So what is it necessary to continue to jump in a court or to charge a field at an age when many other elite athletes called it one day and when most non-athletes are happy if they do not slip in the shower?

The extraordinary longevity of these elite athletes is at the Duce to a mixture of genetics, environment and lifestyle, according to the partner, Professor Christina Ekegren, physiotherapist and researcher at Monash University in Melbourne.

The Williams sisters, for example, undoubtedly have large genes, but they also took advantage of them. “The thing about Venus and Serena is that they trained at a very high level from an early age, so they start at a very high basic level,” explains Ekegren. The youngest of the two sisters retired at 40 after a stellar career that lasted decades, but his older sister Venus still becomes strong, becoming the oldest competitor to play in single at the US Open this year.

“What differentiates some of the athletes you are talking about is that they are very intelligent in their approach to healthy aging as an athlete,” explains the physiotherapist of sports and the Bende exercise to the physiotherapy of the great slam in Melbourne.

One of the normal processes of aging is sarcopenia or progressive loss of muscle mass. This occurs as a result of changes in hormones, in activity levels, in nutrition and in the muscle structure itself. But it is not necessarily inevitable, and Harde says the accent is increasingly on force training for older athletes, in particular to fight against this decrease. “If you compare this to someone who does not train in relation to training, just that the increase in muscle mass will obviously not only give an increased power and function, but that will compensate for the loads that go through cartilage and bones and even neural structures,” he said.

Like most age -related things, it’s about “using or losing it,” said Harden. Elite older athletes are able to continue to do what they do because they do not stop and let themselves be declined.

Athletes who compete for decades also adapt to their changing bodies. They can be more selective as to the competitions they participate, or play a different position on the ground which exposes them to less risk of damage or to require less physically. “If you look at him like Australian football with the rules, they could have been a really dynamic and hard midfielder, then as they age, they will put themselves in the line before where there is less race,” said Harden.

But older athletes are not invincible. Despite their strength, agility, body state and carefully maintained skills, they inevitably make a higher risk of injury as they age and, like the rest of us, these injuries take longer to heal. Part of staying at the more advanced elite level is to take longer to allow an appropriate recovery both of an injury and normal training, explains Professor Jeremiah Peiffer, professor of science of exercise at Murdoch University in Perth.

“A large part of this longevity in sport is that people can give the time necessary for recovery,” explains Peiffer. “The more you can give recovery time, the more time you run by doing other things, the more your body will adapt appropriately.” For example, the football star Cristiano Ronaldo, who still plays at 40, attributes in particular the programmed recovery sessions as the key to his longevity and his success, according to Men’s Health.

While the older athletes Elite do all the things that the others regularly hear from our doctors and physios – eat well, remain active – they pay a price for having taken this healthy advice to the extreme.

“The paradox to this is that there are a number of things that come with prolonged lifelong training at high volume which can also be a little detrimental,” explains Peiffer. Elite athletes, in particular those participating in endurance sports, have a significantly higher risk of irregular heart rhythms at the average age. And there are increased risks of musculoskeletal conditions such as osteoarthritis, especially in athletes who have undergone knee injuries.

Despite the risks and challenges, said Ekegren, it is important to see elderly people always excel in the field of sport and to inspire the rest of us to make a little more effort to maintain our physical activity.

“We have this stigma in society that we cannot achieve to the same extent as we age,” she says. “But I think it’s really false, and I think everything really comes down to what you do in your daily life.”