ABSTRACT
Clear articulation of human characteristics, capabilities, behavior, and performance limitations due to aging is confounded by individual differences, which may be very large. In this paper, the authors chose to study athletics records in their research approach to aging as it is not confounded by disease, disuse and disinterest. These age-based data from standardized tests are obtained from the World Masters Athletics organization website.
The records of each 5 year age group are represented as a percentage, with the 35 - 39 year old age group as the baseline. These percentages are then modeled with a parametric function and analyzed for each individual event as well as the event categories (race walks, sprints, distance, marathons and jumps), and with the men’s and women’s records analyzed separately. Overall, it was observed that the records for jump events declined faster than marathons and distance events, followed by walk and sprint events. Also, for all event categories, women’s records declined faster than men’s. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) is used to study the differences in the events.
This study reports an analysis of age-based athletic records and demonstrates the boundaries of human physical performance as affected by age, without the confounding effects of disease, disuse and disinterest.
