A conceptual arrangement which describes well-succeeded aging in the lifespan perspective is the model of strategies called selection, optimization and compensation. Such strategies evoke ways of attaining goals in life and promote personal growing. Compensating and optimizing attitudes through learning processes is the focus of this study, whose purpose is to analyze the athletes' learning processes in years of running practice through a qualitative research of male subjects from different clubs and sporting societies in Brazil. Data collection was made through half-structured interviews and through sociodemographic questionnaires, after a screening involving 83 athletes. The group of 11 athletes interviewed ( = 59.91; DP = ±10.58 age) has shown different kinds of learning processes which provided personal and sporting development, and helped them to cope with daily activities. Moreover, in order to develop these learning processes they used many kinds of spaces and people, what showed their self-government in terms of learning and their search for solving problems.
Behavioral Medicine; Health of the Elderly; Sports Medicine; Aging; Learning; Development phsychology