Originally Posted by
88ss
. That is because between the age of 45 and 80, athletes lose half their capacity to extract oxygen from breathing, and nothing is going to make up for that. ...
Athletes who continue to train consistently throughout their 50s and 60s barely see any drop at all in their VO2 max. Same goes for their maximal HR. Inevitably there will be a decline at some point, but the decline can certainly be slowed down, which will be proven by the next generation of older athletes.
At 55 I’m not expecting to beat competitive 25 year olds that are training seriously, but I am faster than I was in my 40s and my VO2 max has been stable for the last 5 years. My max HR has also remained the same and has only dropped about 10 bpm from my mid 20s.