Short Editorial: Aerobic Exercise Effects on the Functional Capacity of the Aged.

Abstract

This short editorial reviews how aging affects functional capacity and how aerobic exercise can modify these effects in older adults. It describes aging as a multi-factorial process that reduces physiological functioning, health-span, quality of life and independence through changes in the heart, lungs and skeletal muscles. In sedentary adults, maximum heart rate, stroke volume and myocardial contractility decline and peripheral vascular resistance rises, leading to a fall in maximal oxygen uptake, the best single indicator of physical working capacity, estimated at up to 20% per decade in older sedentary adults. Lower leg blood flow, lower mitochondrial density, muscle atrophy and a reduced arterio-venous oxygen difference are discussed as peripheral contributors. The editorial then summarises evidence that endurance training attenuates the age-related decline in maximal oxygen uptake: in the elderly it lowers resting and submaximal heart rate and blood pressure, may produce eccentric cardiac hypertrophy that increases stroke volume and maximal cardiac output, modestly increases peripheral oxygen extraction through greater capillary density, and improves breathing efficiency. The author concludes that aerobic training produces significant cardiovascular and muscular improvements in the elderly, with smaller pulmonary benefits, and suggests that older people training aerobically work at 60-75% of their maximal reserved training heart rate while following the ACSM safety guidelines.

Abstract prepared by the editorial office from the full text of the article; the authors did not supply one.