Performance and Recovery for 50+ Athletes

I just read the article Training Model for Extended Career Athletes: A Narrative Review so you don’t have to. Below are my thoughts as both a student and a coach for this community.

First, while it’s always worthwhile to read both the abstract and conclusions for research that you don’t intend to pore over in detail, it’s worth parsing out the broad areas (key themes as described by the article) that were covered in the review:

1.    expertise, biological maturation, and specificity

2.    epidemiology and health (physical and mental)

3.    athlete monitoring

4.    strength training

5.    load management and detraining

6.    success management

Here is a Training Graphic that summarizes the areas of focus in the article.

I would further narrow the focus to include only the non-coaching elements (excluding athlete monitoring and success management), since those factors do not weigh as heavily in our community’s priorities as sustained participation, enjoyment, injury risk minimization, and general health/longevity promotion do.

Based on these elements, and including my own relevant insights, here are actionable takeaways for you in this community of over-50 hybrid athletes:

Start with an objective assessment of what your current program should prioritize based on your present conditioning profile and your ambitions. This requires both an educated eye and a neutral judgment position (either of which may disqualify a sports-specific coach). If you haven’t had that recently, it should be your top priority for both reduced injury risk and optimal performance.

The most common athletic injuries are to the knee, back, and shoulder. This is not a coincidence and is rarely a single-stress event result. It is almost always preceded by reduced range-of-motion (ROM) of increasing severity, progressive compensating dysfunctional movement patterns, and nagging, worsening pain. It’s exacerbated by our habitually ignoring that pain until it becomes an immovable object or catastrophic injury. Increased tissue rigidity for older athletes and chronic overtraining accelerates the process.

Three factors heighten the importance and urgency of adapting a program to the conditioning shortfalls common among older athletes (as well as equally prevalent inadequate fueling and recovery practices), and to the individual, become increasingly important with:

·       Age

·       Time training (both accumulated time and time devoted weekly)

·       Injury (and predisposition for injury) profile

If you’re not integrating both expert and objective assessment and established protocols to improve and balance strength and ROM, and manage overall training loads appropriately, you’re leaving critically useful value on the table. The 50+ Hybrid Athlete subscription program addresses each of these elements in detail.

See the blueprint for additional guidance if you are not currently a subscriber.

Subscribers – Please share this blog post with your fellow over-50 athletes and let them know that they can find two cool free giveaways – Top 10 Questions Asked By Older Athletes video series and Six Fixes for Older Athletes (three fueling; three training) pdf with links to deep-dive guidance on each at the bottom of the blueprint.