Masters motives change over time, university pair find
Masters have been guinea pigs for academic and medical researchers for decades, but a study conducted at the 2004 masters nationals in Decatur, Illinois, (and the Canadian counterpart) touches on the heart of what matters: Why do masters run, jump and throw? The answers found in a Canadian research project aren’t surprising: We compete for fitness, medals, PRs, fellowship, etc. But one interesting finding is that our motives change over time. Click here to review a summary of the latest masters research. Click here for a rundown on earlier masters studies.
In addition, you’re weclome to contact the authors of these studies, and even take part in further investigations.
Jennifer Wigglesworth wrote me (but also applies to you):
On behalf of Dr. Bradley Young and Dr. Nikola Medic, I am writing to thank you for your previous participation in their research pertaining to Master Athletes. Your contribution and comments helped facilitate their research at McMaster University between 2003 and 2007.
Although both researchers have changed institutions, they continue to actively research issues relating to physical activity and aging and specifically Masters Sport. As promised some time ago, they would like to provide you with feedback gained from their research. Along with this letter, there are two attached files.
One contains a summary of research to date, including findings for various studies in which you may have participated. The other file contains a brief report that explains some of our findings pertaining to the motivation of Masters Athletes. We invite you to read them and encourage you to contact us if you would like any additional information.
At this time, they would like to invite you to participate again in their ongoing research. The Masters Athlete Research Group at the University of Ottawa continues this line of inquiry with the aid of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Sport Canada.
The purpose of our present research is to examine aspects of social support that are associated with your involvement in Masters Sport. We are interested in understanding your degree of commitment to your sport as well as the different social influences that support or constrain your participation.
Your participation would be extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. If you are interested in participating or finding out more information about the ongoing project, please send a response email to this letter indicating your interest.
Thanks again. Best regards,
Jennifer Wigglesworth
Research Assistant
Masters Athlete Research Group
University of Ottawa
To contact the investigators:
Bradley W. Young, PhD
School of Human Kinetics
University of Ottawa
Ottawa, ON Canada
Email: byoung@uottawa.ca
Nikola Medic, PhD
Centre for the Built Environment & Health
University of Western Australia
Nedlands, WA Australia
Email: nmedic@meddent.uwa.edu.au
7 Responses
Gosh, is this all it takes to get a research grant these days?
So, now we know that the majority of us would stop competing if we either lost interest, got injured or felt we were too old. Thanks Dr Young and Dr Medic (is that a psuedonym?), but a quick scan through the Forum for this web site would tell you that, at no cost.
And most of us like it when we’re doing well, do we? Hardly great insight or revelation there, either, is there?
I can’t get enough British sarcasm…can you?
I disagree with Tom. While the results might seem obvious, it is important to study the motivations of people in our unique subgroup. Over 60 percent of people in many Western countries are obese or overweight. Much of the problem is due to lack of exercise.
Masters T&F athletes go against the grain. We have people in their 70s and even 80s who can beat high school kids. Younger masters athletes compete in the Olympics. Many of us train as hard as we did in college.
Why do a small group of old people train 12 months a year, brave injury and exhaustion, and devote considerable financial resources to competing and training, while other people our age sit in front of the TV and watch Oprah? This is important information— even if the answers seem obvious.
Except for a few breaks, I have competed in track and field since 1963. I feel so fortunate to do the things I did more than 40 years ago.
This spring I competed at a discus meet in Salinas with some of the best throwers in the world (Ralph Fruguglietti and I were the token old guys). Even though I am now slow, weak, and old, throwing in that meet made me feel like I was going to live forever. I love this sport!
Thomas, I certainly don’t disagee with you that we are a group someone needs to study properly. My point was that this latest study seems to offer little but generalizations and platitudes, based on a remarkably small sample and a less than insightful analysis of its results. I just don’t feel the study has advanced the sum of human knowledge. Ought one not to expect more than a catalogue of the obvious or predictable from two PhD’s and a researcher working on a grant-aided project? I believe we could probably have established more of value, at zero cost, through a series of polls on this web site’s forum, for starters.
And “Tony Blair”, your own point was what, exactly?
I agree with Tom Phillips, the data was collected more than a couple of years ago. Why did it take them all this time to come up with the results. And not exactly earth shaking results at that. As for why some of us do this decade after decade – just nuts i guess! Beats bingo at the local senior center that is for sure.
nice work, dude
Dr. Brad Young sends the following reply:
I appreciate the animated discussion regarding the value of our research. I figured I would respond to the above criticisms as I am the principal investigator on some of this research. I am hoping that this response addresses, at least in part, some Masters’ concerns that they feel like guinea pigs for academic researchers.
Speaking solely for Dr. Medic and myself, we are confident that we are doing everything we can to translate the data that Masters (including the original cohort from Decatur Illinois) have given us into meaningful messages for the academic and applied communities.
First, we consider Masters athletes to be an exceptional cohort to study. They defeat aging stereotypes that continue to proliferate in the Western World about what is acceptable for aging individuals – you would be hard pressed to convince the majority of people in our society that it is acceptable and valuable for 70 year olds to be engaging regularly in competitive sport.
Second, there are presumably benefits from continuous involvement in Masters sport across long periods of time. Yet, these benefits (sometimes called outcomes of successful aging) have never been articulated properly, nor have they ever been proven to be greater for sport participants than for individuals who simply go walking, do tai-chi, or are active in touring bike clubs on a regular basis.
From a health promotion perspective, there is a need to establish the exceptional value of Masters sport (at all degrees of competitiveness) if we are going to advocate to increase the capacity of sport systems for our aging society.
Third, we need to understand the factors that motivate individuals to get involved and stay involved in Masters sport. We examine this at both an individual level and from the perspective of the social environment.
For example, we look at who the people are around you who encourage and support your commitment to stay in sport as you age. This is important, because most people drop out of sport by college age and NEVER re-engage in competition at all at later points in their lives, so why and how are successful Masters able to continue in sport or able to re-engage?
We look at these questions from a qualitative (interview) and quantitative (survey) point of view. The above link that one of the previous posters so readily criticized is merely one small qualitative snapshot of more than 10 ongoing research endeavours.
It was provided as a single snap-shot by my student researcher and sent by email to prior participants in our research – most Masters athletes who participate in research never hear a word back from researchers (and are not keen to search the empirical periodicals), so we wanted to give at least something in return.
It should not be construed as representing all of our research or the broader research program. Some evidence of the variety of research is contained within the second link, but even that is portrayed in a nut-shell (or as the previous poster claimed, “generalizations and platitudes”) as it was a brief hand-out at the FINA Masters Swim Chps in Australia in April.
Our sample sizes are in fact sufficient in all of our published works in empirical journals, and we have benefited from the mass participation of Masters at many events and feel very fortunate in this regard.
With respect to timelines for research, it is common for research to take three to four years from initial data collection to publication/dissemination; with this in mind, all of us need to be more patient than we would like to have to be.
If interested, the 2003-2005 participants in our research can now find their data collectively analyzed and published at:
Medic, N. (in press). Enhancing psychosocial well being and performance of older athletes. To appear in Hanrahan, S. & Andersen, M. (Eds.). Handbook of applied sport psychology. Routledge.
Medic, N. (in press). Motivation and sport commitment in masters sport. To appear in Baker, J., Horton, S., & Weir, P. (Eds.). Master athletes: Understanding the role of exercise in optimizing aging. Routledge.
Medic, N., Starkes, J.L., Weir, P.L., Young, B.W., & Grove, J.R. (in press). Relative age effect in Masters sports: Replication and extension. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport.
Medic, N., Starkes, J. L., Weir, P. L., Young, B.W., & Grove, J.R. (accepted). Gender, age, and sport differences in the relative age effect among USA Masters swimming and track and field athletes. Journal of Sports Sciences.
Young, B.W., Medic, N, Weir, P.L., & Starkes, J.L. (2008). Explaining performance in elite middle-aged runners: Contributions from age, ongoing and past training factors. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 30, 1-20.
Young, B.W., Weir, P.L., Starkes, J.L., & Medic, N. (2008). Does lifelong training temper age-related decline in sport performance? Interpreting differences between cross-sectional and longitudinal data. Experimental Aging Research, 34(1), 1-22.
Medic, N., Starkes, J.L., & Young, B.W. (2007). Examining relative age effects on performance achievement and participation rates of Masters athletes. Journal of Sports Sciences, 25(12), 1377-1384.
Young, B.W., & Starkes, J.L. (2005). Career-span analyses of track performance: Longitudinal data present a more optimistic view of age-related performance decline. Experimental Aging Research, 31: 1-22.
Starkes, J.L., Weir, P.L., & Young, B.W. (2003). What does it take for older athletes to continue to excel? In J.L. Starkes & K.A. Ericsson (Eds.), Expert performance in sports: Advances in research on sport expertise (pp.251-272). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
Participants from 2006-2007 are presently part of three manuscripts that are in preparation or under review. Participants from 2008 are presently part of one manuscript in preparation.
Does our research simply point out the obvious to Masters athletes when they read it?
In a select few circumstances, perhaps yes, because you are in and understand your culture. It is not necessarily obvious to those who are outside of your sport culture, including decision-makers who may potentially support Masters activities as broad community-interventions for health promotion.
Our research does also point our discrepancies between young and old and has implications in psychological areas regarding lifespan development, our understanding of age-related processes, as well as individual and social processes related to motivation.
Indeed, Masters should scrutinize researchers when they ask you to participate in a study, but try to keep an open mind, and try to realize that there are sound and broad research endeavours out there that might better inform how we get our society to age more successfully.
For those of you who will be in Lahti Finland for the WMA this August, you may be interested in attending the forum at which all academic information on Masters athletes will be presented, called “Masters and Mentors 2009”. Here is the link:
http://www.lahtisbp.fi/en/conferences_and_seminars/masters_and_mentors_09
My 2 cents, best regards,
Brad Young, PhD (and also a Masters athlete)School of Human Kinetics
University of Ottawa
Leave a Reply