news is that it’s not all bad news. The sports science gurus have done all manner of study on people from their 20s on up. They’ve even looked at people in their 90s. Here’s a list of just some of what we’re all in for: Changes in the intervertebral discs may be seen at age 20. For some of us, this will cause problems, but for most of us it won’t. Lots of people have slightly herniated discs and don’t experience any back problems. Changes in the meniscus are seen by age 30. The meniscus is a cartilage disk that acts as a cushion between the ends of the bones that meet in a joint. When people talk about the meniscus, they’re usually talking about the knee. There is a decrease in tensile strength of the meniscus. This helps to explain why older individuals tend to tear the meniscus more frequently than younger people do. There is a decrease in the overall water content, a decrease in the matrix proteins and cellularity, and certainly a decrease in the vascular supply. Changes in the anterior cruciate ligamentstart between 25 and 30 years of age. These are ligaments that run crisscross under the knee. The tensile properties of the ACL decrease by 65 percent from age 25 to age 70. That is onacontinuum so that as athletes age, there’s a greater propensity to tear the anterior cruciate ligament. VO,max begins to decline at age 25 (10 percent per decade). A9 to 10 percent per decade loss of VO,max has been suggested from studies of untrained healthy men