Does lifelong aerobic exercise improve maximum oxygen consumption and skeletal muscle metabolic fitness in older adults compared to nonexercisers?
Lifelong aerobic exercise preserves skeletal muscle metabolic fitness to levels comparable to young exercisers and provides substantial benefits to maximal oxygen consumption in both men and women.
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of aerobic lifelong exercise (LLE) on maximum oxygen consumption (V̇o 2max ) and skeletal muscle metabolic fitness in trained women ( n = 7, 72 ± 2 yr) and men ( n = 21, 74 ± 1 yr) and compare them to old, healthy nonexercisers (OH; women: n = 10, 75 ± 1 yr; men: n = 10, 75 ± 1 yr) and young exercisers (YE; women: n = 10, 25 ± 1 yr; men: n = 10, 25 ± 1 yr). LLE men were further subdivided based on intensity of lifelong exercise and competitive status into performance (LLE-P, n = 14) and fitness (LLE-F, n = 7). On average, LLE exercised 5 day/wk for 7 h/wk over the past 52 ± 1 yr. Each subject performed a maximal cycle test to assess V̇o 2max and had a vastus lateralis muscle biopsy to examine capillarization and metabolic enzymes citrate synthase, β-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase (β-HAD), and glycogen phosphorylase. V̇o 2max had a hierarchical pattern (YE > LLE > OH, P 26 ± 2 > 18 ± 1 ml·kg −1 ·min −1 ) and men (53 ± 3 > 34 ± 1 > 22 ± 1 ml·kg −1 ·min −1 ) and was greater ( P 70 yr), and similar to men, revealed a preserved metabolic phenotype comparable to young exercisers.
Gries et al. (Thu,) studied this question.