2024-01-26 08:15:00
Irishman Richard Morgan, aged 93, is a four-time indoor rowing champion and displays performances worthy of a forty-year-old. Researchers from the universities of Limerick and Maastricht wanted to understand the secret of its shape. They invited the senior to their laboratory to examine his physical abilities, his training program and his diet under a magnifying glass.
Their analysis was published in the journal Journal of Applied Physiology last month, and was the subject of an article in the Washington Post.
Athlete at 93: similar performances to a man aged 30 to 40
It’s never too late to start exercising and reap the benefits. Richard Morgan is proof of this. He started rowing indoors at age 73. He told the American daily: “I started from nowhere and suddenly realized that there was a lot of fun in doing this”. And the results impressed scientists.
During the 2km run they asked him to do, his heart rate peaked at 153 beats per minute. An ability well above the expected standards for his age. Furthermore, the man’s 76 kg consisted of approximately 80% muscle and barely 15% fat. They say this is a body composition that would be considered healthy for a man several decades younger.
“This 92-year-old athlete demonstrated remarkably rapid oxygen consumption kinetics, similar to the values of a healthy young adult, indicating well-developed and/or maintained cardiopulmonary function”they write in their study.
Also interviewed by the Washington Post, Philip Jakeman, professor at the University of Limerick and lead author of the work, admitted that his day with Richard was one “of the most inspiring days I have ever spent in the laboratory”. The scientist and his team assessed that the physical performance of the nonagenarian was comparable to that of a healthy 30 or 40 year old.
Aging well: the 4 secrets of fitness by Richard Morgan
During the study, researchers wanted to understand the secrets of Richard Morgan’s shape. They identified four interesting elements in the lifestyle of senior athletes:
- Consistency: Every week, the 93-year-old always does the same thing. He rows about 30 km, on average about 40 minutes a day.
- Alternation in training difficulty: approximately 70% of his workouts are “easy”. 20% require moderate effort, but still tolerable for the body, while the remaining 10% require intense effort and put the body to the test.
- Strength training: Two or three times a week, Richard Morgan lifts weights until his muscles are too tired to continue.
- A high-protein diet: the nonagenarian athlete adopted a diet rich in proteins. His daily intake regularly exceeds the usual nutritional recommendation of around 60g of protein for a person of his weight and age.
“We need to look at very active older people if we want to understand aging“, added Bas Van Hooren, doctoral researcher at Maastricht University who also participated in the study.
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