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Age as a Factor in Recovery from Exercise

Joe,

“How age-dependent is this? Given the huge difference in other areas of healing depending on how old you are, it seems that muscle healing would vary similarly. I could imagine that a healthy 18 year old would be able to repair much more muscle in far less time than a healthy 50 year old. This might lead to the discrepancies in different studies on recovery time (between 2 days and more than 14 days).”

Yes, age does make difference in the requisite time to recover from exercise induced microtrauma (although, I think most of the variability is more related to genotype). In animal models, older rats showed a reduced up-regulated expression of IGF-1 splice variants when compared to younger animals. However, expression was still increased almost 3-fold over untrained conditions.

See the following:
Joe,

“How age-dependent is this? Given the huge difference in other areas of healing depending on how old you are, it seems that muscle healing would vary similarly. I could imagine that a healthy 18 year old would be able to repair much more muscle in far less time than a healthy 50 year old. This might lead to the discrepancies in different studies on recovery time (between 2 days and more than 14 days).”

Yes, age does make difference in the requisite time to recover from exercise induced microtrauma (although, I think most of the variability is more related to genotype). In animal models, older rats showed a reduced up-regulated expression of IGF-1 splice variants when compared to younger animals. However, expression was still increased almost 3-fold over untrained conditions.

See the following:

Age-related loss of skeletal muscle function and the inability to express the autocrine form of insulin-like growth factor-1 (MGF) in response to mechanical overload Vivian Owino, Shi Yu Yang, Geo¡rey Goldspink FEBS Letters 505 (2001) 259-263

Likewise, in human experiments, older subjects showed a greater percentage of damaged fibers (17%) from a standard 3 days per week resistance training program as compared to younger subjects (3%), indicating slower recovery.

See the following:

J Appl Physiol 88: 1112-1118, 2000; High-volume, heavy-resistance strength training and muscle damage in young and older women.
Stephen M. Roth, Gregory F. Martel, Frederick M. Ivey, Jeffrey T. Lemmer, E. Jeffrey Metter, Ben F. Hurley, and Marc A. Rogers
There are many other references, but this should give you a start. These studies were discussed, along with many others, during my 2005 Sarcopenia lecture. You can find the lecture on my website, www.exercisesciencellc.com




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