This archive report was first published on 18 September 2019.
Published on September 18, 2019, a study in Frontiers in Physiology found that older runners who started training after age 50 were just as fast and lean as their peers who had been running for their whole lives.
Researchers compared 150 older endurance runners, divided into 'early starters' who had trained most of their lives and 'late starters' who began running around age 50. They also looked at a group of 59 non-exercisers with an average age of 73.
Despite starting later in life, the late starters had similar body fat percentages and muscle mass in their legs compared to the early starters. Moreover, their athletic performance was comparable, meaning that it's not too late to start training and still beat your high school rivals.
These runners, mostly men, trained intensely for five to six days a week, which is a testament to the benefits of regular exercise.
One notable example is Roy Englert, who reportedly started running in his 60s and broke the 5K world record at the USATF Masters Outdoor Championships at age 96, finishing in 42:30:23.
While this study suggests that it's not too late to start, it's essential to remember that regular exercise is crucial to maintaining muscle mass and overall health. Without exercise, leg skeletal muscle mass declines about eight to ten percent a decade starting at age 30.
