Maintain Your Power

As anyone over 40 can attest, stuff starts changing as you age. One very noticeable difference is your ability to move quickly and powerfully.

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Many of us fighting the aging process focus on strength, mobility and aerobic capacity, but POWER is also important. And, if you don’t use it, you lose it. In fact, power can decrease four times the rate the muscle does. Scientists believe this is because our fast-twitch muscle fibers decline more rapidly than slow-twitch.

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Power is defined as how much force you can create and how quickly. And it’s key to maintaining strength and quality of life as you age.

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So, how do you improve power? Here are three ways:  

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Explosive movements: things like box jumps and sprinting are great. I’ve seen our clients in their 60s unable to jump when they started our program and can now jump onto a 20-inch (or even higher) box. It’s awesome! Our current training phase has introduced lots of explosive movements like jumping and dynamic med ball passes. Give full effort to these skills.  

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Go heavy: heavy weight recruits more fast-twitch muscle fibers than light.

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Lift fast: Olympic lifting, which we use to develop speed and timing, is effective for maintaining power. Research suggests you can build peak power using approximately 30 to 60 percent of your 1-rep max and performing explosive reps.

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A note regarding developing power: like all athletic endeavors, you want to ramp up slowly. Practice the movements as a skill. For instance, instead of taking off on an all-out sprint, first practice the mechanics of sprinting and work your way up. Instead of repping out as many box jumps as possible, work on jumping as a skill and recover between each effort.

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Aging isn't an excuse to lose power and strength. Yes, physical abilities may decline with age, but the worst thing you can do is become inactive. Use those magical bodies!