Cardiovascular and neuromuscular responses to exercise throughout the adult lifespan

Context:
With advancing age, there is a decrease in cardiovascular and neuromuscular function, which leads to reduced performance and increases the likelihood that older people will lose their independence. Physical training is a cost-effective intervention that provides health benefits and prevents and treats cardiovascular and neuromuscular disease. Indeed, recent data support the idea that it is fitness, not age, that explains physiological responses to exercise. However, little is known yet about how quickly cardiovascular and neuromuscular functions decline throughout life, and to what extent exercise training can help mitigate the loss of these functions. In addition, most of the current knowledge relating cardiovascular and neuromuscular functions, aging and physical condition is based on comparisons between people generally aged 65 to 75 and young people but the responses of very old people (> 75 years old) are unknown. Studying the effects of lifelong training on health will provide important information regarding the usefulness of physical training as a critical means of preventing loss of independence in older populations.