Age

Age is another major factor. For example, children aren’t as strong as adults. From the age of 20 to 30 it’s easier to build up muscle mass. When you hit your late 20s your optimum fitness begins to decline by about 1 to 2% every year.

There are a number of physiological effects that aging has:

• MHR (Maximum Heart Rate) decreases which means that you can’t workout as hard anymore.
• Arteries harden so not as much oxygenated blood can reach your muscles.
• Your stroke volume, vital capacity and cardiac output decrease which means that the amount of oxygen that can be transported around your body in one minute (your VO2) also decreases.
• The body’s suppleness decreases.
• Your reaction time decreases.
• As the body grows weaker and less flexible it’s more prone to injury and takes longer to heal.
• Muscles shrink and their strength decreases. Also, the muscles fibres change from fast twitch to slow twitch.
• Body fat builds up which means that less is available for energy.

Training regularly can help to reduce the effects of aging. However, the decline is inevitable and so cannot be prevented. However, that’s not to say that older people can’t continue to play sport: some sports, like bowls and darts, are popular with older people as they don’t require as much strength, endurance or flexibility.

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Social drugs

There are a number of social drugs, some illegal, some legal and some also banned within sport. The main ones include:

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