Tom Brady starts his 23rd NFL season on Sunday. The American football legend is 45, but still one of the best players in the most popular league in the United States. Can athletes today continue to perform well into increasingly older ages?
When Brady made his NFL debut, Bill Clinton was the US president Who Let the Dogs Out of Baha Men at the top of the charts and was Charlie’s Angels the most popular movie in the cinema.
22 years and seven Super Bowl wins later, Brady still plays in the NFL. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback is the oldest player in the American football league, but he was also voted the best player by his peers last month.
Last February, Brady’s iconic career seemed to be coming to an end. But a month and a half after he announced his retirement, he announced that he did not want to stop yet. With the Buccaneers, the American will start the new NFL season in the night from Sunday to Monday (Dutch time) with an away game against the Dallas Cowboys.
Despite the sports-aged age of the main player on the Tampa Bay squad, expectations for the Buccaneers are high. Among the bookmakers, the 2003 and 2021 Super Bowl winner is the top favorite for the title after Buffalo Bills.
“I feel like there’s still some left in the tank,” Brady said on his podcast this week Let’s Go!. “The fire is still burning, so I want to try again to have a great season.”
Tom Brady continues to train hard, even in his 23rd season.
Tom Brady continues to train hard, even in his 23rd season.
Photo: Getty Images
Smarter training methods provide for older athletes
A top athlete irrevocably deteriorates physically when he is over thirty, including Brady. Above that age limit, the body finds it more difficult to recover and loses strength. “Your performance optimum is between twenty and thirty years,” says sports doctor, trainer and exercise physiologist Guido Vroemen in conversation with NU.nl. “After that, it all decreases physically. But if you keep training well, the decline will not go so quickly.”
The knowledge of trainers and exercise physiologists has progressed considerably this century, which means that the physical decline of ‘old’ top athletes can be increasingly slowed down. “The training methods have become smarter,” explains Vroemen. “We now know that training with a higher intensity and a longer recovery time has more effect. Moreover, the role of strength training has become much greater.”
In addition, all kinds of technological aids have ensured that the physical state of athletes can be monitored much more accurately. Vroemen can see very precisely what the effects of a training are in the athletes he trains through so-called wearables (such as a portable power meter). And above all, whether you might need more rest.
“By monitoring more and better, I can detect certain alarm signals much earlier,” says Vroemen. “And then intervene earlier by letting the athlete slow down. That helps a lot, especially with older athletes.”
Tom Brady
- Born: August 3, 1977
- Clubs: New England Patriots (2000-2019), Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2019-heden)
- Super Bowl wins: 2002, 2004, 2005, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2020
- NFL’s Most Valuable Player: 2007, 2010, 2017
Experienced athletes also have an advantage
In addition to Brady, big names such as tennis star Serena Williams, footballers Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Gianluigi Buffon and cyclist Alejandro Valverde prove that athletes can still perform after the age of 40. “I can imagine that it will become increasingly common for older athletes, aged over 35 or even 40, to remain at the top,” says Vroemen. “The smarter training methods will allow them to maintain a good level and therefore remain motivated to continue.”
It goes without saying that it differs considerably per sport whether people in their late thirties and forties can still excel. In endurance sports (eg cycling) and explosive sports (eg 100 meter athletics) the physical component is so important that it is very difficult to neutralize the negative effects of aging.
In team sports such as American football, fitness is less important and technique and tactics play a major role. And experience has a positive effect on tactical insight. “Someone like Brady must of course have a certain basic condition to be able to participate at the highest level. He has to train hard for that,” says Vroemen. “But in terms of tactical insight and decision-making, he has such a big advantage over younger footballers that he can be a bit less conditionally.”
In 2017, shortly after winning the Super Bowl for the fifth time at age 39, Brady explained in an interview with Sports Illustrated already figured out why his age is an advantage. “Defenders can no longer surprise me. Because I’ve seen everything. There was a time when playing quarterback was very difficult for me, because I didn’t know what to do. Because of my experience, it is no longer as difficult as it used to be . I now know exactly what to do, so I don’t want to stop.”
