Although physical exercise is widely recognized as beneficial for older adults’ health1, uncertainty remains regarding the optimal intensity to maximize these benefits without compromising participant safety. In order to response to the aging society and achieve sports’ health function for elderly participants, this research aim to clarify the elderly sport participants’ characters and their potential influencing factors. These factors would illustrate patterns of sports participation intensity prevail among the elderly population in China. Moreover, it would clarify the relationship between demographic factors and different levels of intensity.
Caused by decline in physical function, elderly individuals can’t join high intensity sports like teenagers. The other side of the coin is that elderly individuals require exercise in certain level of intensity to reap health benefits. They often have to balance exercise intensity for health effects and physical abilities of elderly individuals. High-intensity exercise may raise injured risk for elderly individuals, while elderly individuals can’t benefit from too light exercise physically. This contrary poses a significant challenge for suppliers of elderly sports services2.
Based on these insights, elderly sports researches need to ensure the appropriate provision of sports services tailored to the demographic characteristics, health status, and active abilities of participating groups, thereby maximizing the health, economic, and social functions of elderly sports. This research is illustrated by two key aspects: intensity and category. By addressing these dimensions, the research could contribute to the development of more effective and inclusive sports services for the elderly.
Subgroup differences
An increasing number of researches underscored the importance of adapting exercise to the aging individuals needs of health benefit and participation safety3. The contrary (between exercise intensity for health effects and physical abilities of elderly individuals) mentioned above comes from aging. Aging is a multidimensional process involving biological, psychological, and social changes4. For elderly sports participants, regular physical activity mitigates age-related decline by improving cardiovascular health, muscle strength, and cognitive function5. Studies suggest that exercise delays cellular aging by enhancing telomerase activity6 and reduces frailty risk 7. However, individual variability in aging necessitates tailored exercise programs to improve quality of life8. Quality of life in elderly sports participants encompasses physical, psychological, and social well-being. WHO confirmed that regular physical activity enhances mobility, reduces chronic disease risks, and improves mental health by alleviating depression and anxiety9. Structured exercise programs, such as tai chi and walking groups, show significant quality of life improvements by promoting functional independence10. Thus, sports participation is a key determinant of successful aging. Strength training emerges as a key strategy for healthy aging, as it not only prevents frailty and falls, but also improves quality of life in older adults. Muscle strengthening, especially in the lower limbs, reduces short-term fall risk and contributes to balance and functional autonomy, ultimately enhancing quality of life in older adults11. Common influencing factors include demographic factors, social capital, motivation and demand factors and so on12,13,14. However, lots of researches15 focused on the general demands of elderly sports rather than addressing intensity-related topics and the associated factors with intensity, particularly in regions undergoing rapid changes in social background and urban–rural structure, such as China.
Intensity of elderly sports participation
In the context of the decline in physical function among the elderly, their adaptation to exercise intensity is pivotal to the effectiveness of sports participation. The perspective of aging sports researches focus on intensity, duration, and frequency. Some researches16,17 explored their interaction. Light intensity usually related to long duration. For example, light-intensity sports, such as walking for long duration, are the most popular among elderly individuals. Elderly individuals could reap more health benefit from that. However, other researches believe moderate intensity sports related more to reasonable duration and frequency. Scanlon18 found that elderly individuals who consistently engaged in moderate-intensity exercise for more than 20 min per session, more than three times a week, over a six-month period experienced significant improvements in their quality of life.
No matter on which side, it had been admitted that most types of exercise offer health benefits, even at low intensities19. The core problem of elderly sports is to find proper intensity combined with suitable duration and frequency. In another word, public policy makers, suppliers of elderly sports service need to know different patterns of elderly sports participation. Based on this, they can provide age-appropriate sports service to realize the health function of sports. While researches indeed divided elderly sports participants into several categories by intensity, duration, frequency and other related factors20,21, they didn’t figure out the intensity patterns and their potential influencing factors. These are the objectives of this research.
Overall, these studies highlight the importance of considering exercise intensity, frequency, and duration in designing sports programs for the elderly. By doing so, we can better meet their unique needs and promote their overall well-being through tailored sports activities.
Categorization approaches
Clustering analysis, provides valuable insights into both the group and personalized demands of elderly sports participants. It is important to address the types of physical activity and sports, as they are key in dimensions of quality of life during aging. Specific examples such as aquatic activities, which support mental health, and general gymnastics, which enhance social integration, show that not only physical activity but also its specific modality can influence the well-being of older adults and foster active and healthy aging. This highlights the importance of incorporating psychosocial components into public health policies for older adults22. Based on this logic, some researches category elderly sports participants with health state, demographic variables, daily habits and social networks23,24,25. However, these researches usually category with certain aspect factors. Although these factors were regarded as vital influence on elderly sports participants, the illustration of each category are not enough. Additionally, sometimes the similar concept is vague, especially the difference between elderly sports participants influencing factors and elderly sports participants category influencing factors. The later one is usually ignored, causing unsystematic research on elderly sports.
Given that the elderly population is highly heterogeneous in terms of physical and social conditions, cluster analysis enables the identification of empirically-based sports participation profiles. These clustering analyses offer a comprehensive view of the diverse categories of elderly sports participation, based on demographic, social, and exercise-related factors. These insights are crucial for designing sports programs and services that cater to the unique needs and preferences of elderly individuals, fostering their active engagement and well-being.
The present study
Study justification
Based on a comprehensive literature review, the specific purpose of elderly sports is to enhance the adaptability of content, organizational form, and value concepts to the physical function of elderly participants. The whole purpose is to realize health function. On this perspective , each intensity class’s frequency and duration of exercise are the most crucial attributes for assessing adaptability. So they are standards of cluster analysis in this study. Specifically, this study aims to identify contradictions and differences of elderly sports participation. The primary contradiction lies on the logical discrepancy between the decline in elderly physical function and the vigorous intensity of traditional sports, particularly in the context of elderly health needs for disease prevention and chronic disease intervention. Based on this contradiction, this paper delves into the variations in domestic factors, physical activity ability factors and chronic disease factors as the potential associated factors of Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA).
Objectives and hypotheses
In order to response to the aging society and achieve sports’ health function for elderly participants, this research aim to clarify the elderly sport participants’ characters and their potential influencing factors. Based on these, we make the below hypotheses. Firstly, elderly sports participants could be classified with intensity of sports participation. Secondly, each cluster have several characteristics. Thirdly, these characteristics associated with aspects of demographic, physical activity ability and chronic disease.
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