ArticleAge (Dordrecht, Netherlands)2012
Exponential growth combined with exponential decline explains lifetime performance evolution in individual and human species.
Article in Age (Dordrecht, Netherlands), 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 59 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
59 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Age of Peak Competitive Performance of Elite Athletes: A Systematic Review.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2015Pooled it
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- Longitudinal Analysis and Predictive Modeling of Sprint Performance (1976-2035): Trends, Seasonality, and Prediction Approaches.Journal of human kinetics · 2025Article
- Peak performance characteristics and key competition factors of elite speed skaters based on longitudinal data.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Talent Identification: Time to Move Forward on Estimation of Potentials? Proposed Explanations and Promising Methods.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2025Review
- Skateboarding's Olympic journey: do the performance profiles of top athletes remain consistent?Frontiers in physiology · 2025Article
- Analysis of the 10-day ultra-marathon using a predictive XG boost model.BMC research notes · 2024Article
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- Decrements of mobility and power in recreationally active septuagenarians is related to loss of force, but not slowing of the muscle: a 5-year longitudinal study.European journal of applied physiology · 2023Article
- Corrective adjustment methods for relative age effects on French young swimmers' performances.PloS one · 2023Article
- Initial Severity of Injury Has Little Effect on the Temporal Profile of Long-Term Deficits in Locomotion, Anxiety, and Cognitive Function After Diffuse Traumatic Brain Injury.Neurotrauma reports · 2023Article
- Potential estimation model in French alpine skiing - Individual evolution curve and progression typology.Frontiers in physiology · 2022Article
- Relative age effects in track-and-field: Identification and performance rebalancing.Frontiers in physiology · 2022Article
- Pandemic-Induced Reductions on Swim Training Volume and Performance in Collegiate Swimmers.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Older or Wiser? Age and Experience Trends in 20 Years of Olympic and World Swimming Championships Open Water 10-km Races.Journal of functional morphology and kinesiology · 2021Article
- Crossing the Golden Training Divide: The Science and Practice of Training World-Class 800- and 1500-m Runners.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2021Review
- No Trends in the Age of Peak Performance among the Best Half-Marathoners and Marathoners in the World between 1997-2020.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2021Article
- Age at Nomination Among Soccer Players Nominated for Major International Individual Awards: A Better Proxy for the Age of Peak Individual Soccer Performance?Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Acceleration of Longitudinal Track and Field Performance Declines in Athletes Who Still Compete at the Age of 100 Years.Frontiers in physiology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The physiological parameters characterizing human capacities (the ability to move, reproduce or perform tasks) evolve with ageing: performance is limited at birth, increases to a maximum and then decreases back to zero at the day of death. Physical and intellectual skills follow such a pattern. Here, we investigate the development of sport and chess performances during the lifetime at two different scales: the individual athletes' careers and the world record by age class in 25 Olympic sports events and in grandmaster chess players. For all data sets, a biphasic development of growth and decline is described by a simple model that accounts for 91.7% of the variance at the individual level and 98.5% of the variance at the species one. The age of performance peak is computed at 26.1 years old for the events studied (26.0 years old for track and field, 21.0 years old for swimming and 31.4 years old for chess). The two processes (growth and decline) are exponential and start at age zero. Both were previously demonstrated to happen in other human and non-human biological functions that evolve with age. They occur at the individual and species levels with a similar pattern, suggesting a scale invariance property.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.