Older Athletes\u27 Perceived Benefits of Competition

Intense sport competition is typically associated with young people. Also, much of the literature on exercise for older adults focuses on benefits derived from regular physical activity, such as walking, dancing and fitness classes, and suggests that one should avoid extremely strenuous exercise. The rising phenomenon of older people competing in sport presents a challenge to these assumptions. In 2009, approximately 28,000 athletes from 95 countries gathered in Sydney, Australia to compete across 28 different sports at the World Masters Games. We interviewed 44 competitors (23 females, 21 males; aged 56-90 years; M=72) about what they gained from competing in sport that extended beyond non-competitive physical activity outcomes. Five key themes emerged from the data. The first theme, “I like a challenge”, depicts Masters sport as an ideal context to test one’s abilities. In particular, lifelong athletes (or those who had returned to sport after a long break) enjoyed the satisfaction of knowing they “can still do it”! On the other hand, Masters competitions provide space for older people to begin sport in later life, as the second theme highlights, “I discovered that at this age group I could win things”! Theme three, “I’m more motivated to work harder”, describes how regular competitions provided goals for participants which structured their training. Also, the act of competing brought out their best performances. The fourth theme, “You know where you stand”, shows how participants liked that competition enabled them to compare themselves with others of their own age cohort. The final theme, “Travel” and “companionship”, explains how the organized, competitive structure of Masters sport and its club system allowed for regular travel, the establishment of ongoing friendships and weekly social interaction. Our data suggest that sport provides unique benefits to participants above and beyond those gained from general physical activity

Testing a model of successful aging in a cohort of masters swimmers

Geard, DE ORCiD: 0000-0002-4292-9278; Rebar, A ORCiD: 0000-0003-3164-993XDue to their high physical functioning, masters athletes are regularly proposed to exemplify successful aging. However, successful aging research on masters athletes has never been undertaken using a multidimensional successful aging model. To determine the best model for future successful aging research on masters athletes, we had masters swimmers (N = 169, M age = 57.4 years, 61% women) self-report subjective successful aging, and physical, psychological, cognitive, and social functioning. Using this data we tested one hypothesized and three alternative successful aging models. The hypothesized model fit the data best (-2LL = 2052.32, AIC = 1717) with physical (β = 0.31, SE = 0.11), psychological (β = 0.25, SE = 0.11), and social (β = 1.20, SE = 0.63) functioning factors significantly loading onto a higher order successful aging latent factor. Successful aging should be conceptualized as a multidimensional phenomenon in future masters athlete research. © 2018 Human Kinetics, Inc

Effects of a 12-Week Cycling Intervention on Successful Aging Measures in Mid-Aged Adults

Purpose: To compare the effect of 12-weeks of cycling training and competition versus recreational cycling on successful aging across physical, psychological, cognitive, and social functioning domains in mid-aged adults. Methods: Recreational cyclists were randomly assigned to an intervention (n = 13, M age = 47.18 years) and comparison (n = 13, M age = 46.91 years) group. Analysis of Covariance was used on self-reported pre-post data to determine changes across time and differences between groups on outcomes. Results: The intervention group scored higher on the role limitation due to physical problems measure of physical functioning (p = .045) and the social activity measure of social functioning (p = .008) with large effect sizes (ηp2 > .14). The remaining physical, psychological, cognitive, and social functioning measures were not significantly different (p > .05) between groups with small to medium effect sizes (ηp2 > .01 to ≤ .06). Conclusion: Cycling training and competition promotes better physical and social functioning than recreational cycling. This finding indicates that an intervention that incorporates the training and competition aspects of sport may promote positive outcomes that are above and beyond those that can be gained from participation in recreational physical activity. Objective measurements on larger samples across a broader range of sports are required to confirm and extend these findings

Sport for All Ages? Weighing the Evidence

This chapter introduces the scope, focus and content of our edited book. Our book critically examines Sport for All in the context of life stages and intersecting factor/s, such as gender, class, race and ability by discussing the implications of this policy agenda for individuals and society. While it is recognised that grass-roots sport participation has many benefits for individuals and society, in reality: sport is not accessible to everyone (and never will be) for many reasons, which vary according to age; sport is not the interest of many people who have access to it; they choose to do other things at various life points; current attempts to promote mass sport participation and increase physical activity levels across the lifespan have not proven to be successful, at any age; the “Sport for All across the lifespan” ideal is being exploited and taken up by different groups in different ways. The authors of each chapter handle this critique of Sport for All in different ways, as articulated below: Argument 1: “Sport for All ages” is a laudable goal because of the benefits it can offer individuals and society, but systemic changes are necessary to make sport more accessible and inclusive to all. Argument 2: “Sport for All ages” is being used as a strategy for marketing and/or regulating certain groups of the population, such as at-risk youth, inactive children and active, financially comfortable retirees. Argument 3: Regardless of sport’s benefits and how sport is promoted, it is often a place where like-minded, middle-class, already-active people gather. Argument 4: Sport is not a desire for all, so why should sport be positioned as an imperative for all age groups? For example, some people and groups actively resist the Sport for All ideal. Therefore, as a whole, this collection asks readers to weigh the evidence and consider: What kinds of other ideas does Sport for All allow us to entertain and think in relation to age groups? What kinds of questionable practices does the presumption of Sport for All across the lifespan help to facilitate? What are some unintended and perhaps unforeseen consequences of Sport for All

The world turned upside down: sport, policy and ageing

Sport as social policy has reached a peculiar and somewhat paradoxical crossroads. Historically, sport has generally been seen as healthy for young people but ill-advised for older people. However, in the context of the twenty-first century’s ‘obesity epidemic’, the rising ‘risk’ of lifestyle diseases and ageing populations, some scholars suggest that competitive and vigorous sports may not be the right kind of physical activity for young people because, they argue, it is not something they will be able to keep doing in later life. As a result, they argue that young people should be introduced to moderate intensity ‘lifestyle’ activities like walking and going to the gym which will hopefully improve their health and protect them from weight gain and ill-health as they age. At the same time, enthusiasm for sport participation as a policy setting to help older people maintain their independence and improve their general quality of life is growing. Sport participation also appears to be on the rise among older people and, as our research suggests, is becoming understood as a more ‘normal’ part of the ageing process in Western countries. In this article, we offer examples of these rhetorical shifts and argue that, as ever, sport emerges as an endlessly flexible discursive policy resource

Examining layers of community in leisure contexts: a case analysis of older adults in an exercise intervention

This paper explores the dimensions of community that feature in the lives of older people involved in an exercise intervention. It uses McMillan and Chavis' (1986) theory of psychological sense of community as a sensitizing construct (Ragin, 1994). The results show that participants experienced a sense of community on different levels. They felt a sense of belonging and emotional connection to the gym environment, the University (including the researchers and students), and the broader community of 'active' older people. Influence and fulfilment of needs were not explicitly experienced in the exercise context, but on a broader community level. Therefore, the exercise context was a medium through which 'active' older people could feel a psychological sense of community within a 'healthy aging' culture

The normalization of sport for older people?

Opportunities for older adults in Western countries, particularly women, to participate in physically demanding, competitive sports have increased since the 1960s. Now, coinciding with the neoliberal shift in social policy, older adults live at a time when physical activity is highly encouraged through ‘healthy or active ageing’ discourses in media, policy policies and the sport/exercise sciences. This study sought to understand how 63 Masters athletes (aged 60 and over) explain their participation in sport and, in particular, the extent to which they use neoliberal language of personal moral responsibility and economic efficiency to explain their own participation and the non-participation of older adults in sport. While degrees of moral talk were evident in the older athlete responses, in almost all cases, non-participation in sport was seen as irrational and in need of explanation. Overall, our findings suggest that older people’s participation in sport has been, or at least is in the process of being, normalized among participants in Masters sport. We discuss how this changing idea about sport and ageing might reshape social policy, as well as social relationships, between older people and the state and between different groups of older people