After last week's article, a reader asked, "Since that article was about adolescence, is there anything you can tell us about what happens as we age?" Plenty of runners wonder that as the years add up, so this week we look at the other end of the age range.
ARTICLE BELOW:
The Research
A 2022 study measured 75 male runners aged 20 to 80 to see how bone density, strength, and running mechanics change with age. Everyone ran on a treadmill at the same pace, about an 8:39 mile. It's observational, so it shows trends, not cause and effect.
What They Found
The research suggests these are the key takeaways
Strength fell at the hip, knee, and ankle, but the standout was calf and ankle power, which dropped significantly. Ankle range of motion shrank too. The authors suggest the hip and knee lose strength first, then the calf and ankle.
Leg bone density fell with age, but the older runners had about 31% higher density than 2,657 older men from the general population in a different study. Different studies aren't apples to apples, so that's a trend, not proof running protects bone.
At the same treadmill speed, older runners took shorter strides and more of them. The equation for speed is stride length times stride frequency, so if stride length decreases, frequency has to increase to hold the same speed.
Impact measures (ground reaction force, loading rate) did not change with age.
🔴 This is early research and needs more study. It only looked at men, which is one of my biggest gripes with research: it is often just men, and our population is not just men…..come on researchers!
Women and men are different, so take it with a grain of salt, but it helps us see trends. It also didn't measure injuries, so we can't draw injury prevention conclusions.
What This Means For You
What stood out to me: impact didn't change with age. A lot of these ideas of that as you age, you're just applying so much force into your bones, into your joints, that it's really bad for you, wasn't found. What did change was strength, mobility, and power, and as we've seen in other studies and previous articles, those shorter strides are most likely tied to calf power.
That bone density loss is why it's so important at a younger age to build up what we call the “bone bank”, to do jumping activities, to do strength training, so that you start at a higher ceiling. Here's what that means for you: we're most likely not going to eliminate that decline. We just wanna slow the rate of decline
🏆 How To Apply It
This study didn't test a training program, so these are my recommendations, not proven doses:
Keep strength training, jumping, and running in a training program AT ALL AGES, to slow the decline.
Train every joint. Strength dropped at the hip, knee, and ankle, so don't only work your calves.
Train power, not just strength. Power is your force times your velocity of movement: how much force you're producing times how fast you're moving it. Add jumping and speed to your strength training.
Test your ankle mobility with the knee-to-wall test and your calf strength with single-leg calf raises to fatigue, then recheck over time. If you have ankle or calf pain, have a physical therapist assess you before adding jumping.
Running is a long game, and small, consistent actions compound. Our legs will change as we age, but consistency is our best bet for slowing it down. Hit reply and tell me: have you ever tested your ankle mobility or calf strength, and what did you find?
-Keep running happy, healthy, and strong
Spencer
I’m looking to get into some more physical therapy research over the next few weeks, so if you’re dealing with some pain while running CURRENTLY, reply RUN and let me know where you’re having pain.
Know a runner who would love some more evidence based feedback. Share the link HERE. and don’t forget to remind them they might have to double opt in :)
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