17 Dec Mário Marques – Researcher interviewed at 90 Seconds of Science
Professor Mário Marques, professor at the University of Beira Interior and researcher at Cidesd – Research Center for Sport, Health and Human Development was interviewed for the program “90 Seconds of Science” about his research “STOP-AGEING PROJECT PROMOTES HEALTH IN THE ELDERLY THROUGH EXERCISE”.
Preliminary results demonstrate that this training program is capable of recovering up to 20 years in the quality of health of elderly people.
Mário Marques, professor at the Department of Sport Sciences at the University of Beira Interior (UBI) and researcher at the Center for Research in Sport, Health and Human Development (CIDESD), is developing the STOP-AGEING project, a training program that has with the objective of improving the quality of life of the elderly population.
STOP-AGEING is a community intervention that applies new technologies related to strength training in elderly people with certain pathologies but who are able to carry out tasks with some ease in their day-to-day lives.
This project implements knowledge and technologies that have been investigated in recent years by Mário Marques’ team, more specifically in terms of prescribing strength training with speed control.
According to the researcher, speed control involves understanding the real degree of effort of each individual through movement speed and thus being able to predict not only effort but also individual fatigue for each movement.
“The goal of any training is to achieve adaptations. And that is only achieved through fatigue. If we know with some rigor and in a constant way to understand what the fatigue is in each training session, that is, either in the short term in an acute way, or in the long term in a chronic way, we will surely have much more scientific data and much more safer to prescribe training”, he explains.
STOP-AGEING thus aims to provide a better quality of life for the elderly through personalized speed control strength training based on accurate information about their physical and health status.
Preliminary data has even shown that this training program is capable of reversing isoso’s fitness levels in about 20 years.
“In a 90-year-old man who almost never exercises, but who still has some health, it is possible to do this type of program and manage to reverse his physical condition in almost 20 years. These data are really important for the clinical health of the individual”, he reinforces.
The STOP-AGEING project is funded by the EEA Grants Bilateral Relations Fund.
You can access the interview at the link