I think it was Michael Jordan who said he was at his physical best at 25 but 35 was when he was playing his best basketball. Though he declined physically, he made up for it with his knowledge of the game and experience.
Though at 55, you are not at your intellectual peak of the your 20s, you have gained knowledge and experience that can more than compensate for loss of brain power.
I like to think of it in terms of hardware and software. While the hardware may stagnate and decline, you can always update the software to get improved performance.
From a narrow physical aspect, pretty much everyone peaks sometime in their 20s. Your brain is a physical organ and it declines along with the rest of your body. Like your eyesight, endurance, strength, etc. It's the inevitable biological aspect of aging.
But from a holistic wider view, you don't necessarily peak in your 20s as your gains in knowledge, experience and wisdom compensates for the decline in pure physical performance.
One thing should be clarified... Everyone is not at their physical best around 25. They may, on average, have the -potential- to be at their physical best around age 25, but excercise and training has a lot to do with it.
35 year old me could beat 25 year old me in almost any physical contest. Because I am in much, much better shape now. I do regular cardio and I train and lift weights. I was chubby and out of shape at 25.
I suspect the same could easily be true for mental prowess.
That's true. However, if we look at one's peak, your 25 yr old self had a higher peak than your 35 yr self. If you had exercised as a 25 yr old self and reached your potential, you would be physically better than your 35 yr old self.
It's like driving 25 mph in a porsche vs 50 mph in a SUV. In this instance, the SUV is faster because you chose to go 25 mph in a porsche. You didn't fully explore the full potential of the porsch.
Your physical peak could be at 25, but you also could choose not to exploit it fully.
That's the "natural potential plateau" question - if we are to believe this theory, then it means that you can reach your absolute maximum potential in 10-15 years.
I am not so sure - I wonder if there are ways, in some fields, to keep getting better well into your 50s. For example, I don't really know of the ability to gain strength decreasing. So it seems like you could lift well into your 50s and end up stronger than a peak 25 year old.
I.e. an elite 25 year old wouldn't drop off in strength.
Seems like 35 is where Olympic weight lifters stop winning medals. There is also this: "Harvard University says the average man loses up to 5 percent of muscle mass every decade, starting at age 30; most men lose about 30 percent of muscle mass as they age."
Well, I guess I am going to have to stick with the guy who posted "older people just stop giving a " to comfort myself about getting old.
Though at 55, you are not at your intellectual peak of the your 20s, you have gained knowledge and experience that can more than compensate for loss of brain power.
I like to think of it in terms of hardware and software. While the hardware may stagnate and decline, you can always update the software to get improved performance.