It’s fairly well established that strength training is helpful at every age, as well as building muscle, it strengthens tendons and ligaments, increases bone density and seems to have protective effects against everything from osteoporosis to dementia. But a new study based on data collected over two decades in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, suggests that another physical attribute might be just as important – and it’s one that declines even faster than strength as the years go by. The good news? It might also be less uncomfortable, and even slightly safer, to improve. Also, it will probably make you better at table tennis.
Power, in case your physics is a bit rusty, is force multiplied by velocity – or to put it another way, how quickly you can apply the strength you have. Sprinters, high jumpers and hurdlers need huge amounts of power; marathon runners, who prioritise endurance over explosive strength, don’t. Olympic weightlifting, where heavy barbells are thrown overhead in mere milliseconds, is incredibly power-dependent (unlike the confusingly named powerlifting, where grinding a bench press upwards can take several seconds). As for rugby, “If you said to a rugby coach: ‘Would you want a really strong player or a really powerful one?’, they’re going to pick power every time,” says the strength and conditioning coach Joe Lightfoot. But power also plays a pivotal role in day-to-day movement, from running up a flight of stairs to catching yourself when you fall, and it’s here that it becomes most important for quality of life. In a recently completed study that tracked almost 4,000 men and women aged between 46 and 75, power was a stronger predictor of mortality than relative strength – meaning that, everything else being equal, people who can produce force quickly are less likely to die early.
One reason for this might be accident prone-ness. “Power is likely more related to the risk of falls than strength,” says Dr Claudio Gil Araújo, one of the lead authors on the study. “Let’s say you are walking down the street and stumble. To keep your balance and avoid falling, you will have to use your muscles to quickly make compensatory movements – and as we know, a fall, especially for older people, can have serious repercussions on your health. This is where muscle power comes in.”
Part of the problem with this is that power tends to peak in your late 20s and early 30s – this is where elite sprinters typically hit their peak – and declines more quickly than other qualities if you don’t train it. “It’s strongly advisable to include power training in exercise regimes for individuals in their 30s, 40s and 50s,” says Arto Hautala, an associate professor of physiotherapy and rehabilitation at Finland’s University of Jyväskylä. “Consider something as simple as crossing at traffic lights: you need to be quick enough to cross the street within the allotted time, which can be a challenge without power.”
So how do you build it? Well, one way is to just keep doing the same physical things you already do, but a bit faster. “Running upstairs is one of the simplest ways to incorporate power training into your daily routine, and it also incorporates the elements of coordination and balance we need as we age,” says Lightfoot. “You could also try hill sprints or even regular sprints – though for the latter, you need to be more careful and warm up properly.”
Jumping movements (often known as plyometrics) are the next level – it’s impossible to do these slowly, so power is a prerequisite. Here, though, it’s crucial to build up to the harder stuff properly, and minimise your risk of injury. (This is particularly true if you have osteoporosis. “While moderate-impact exercise – such as running or racket sports – is generally safe for people with osteoporosis, we recommend that people who have suffered spinal fractures, or multiple broken bones as the result of osteoporosis, stick to low-impact exercises such as walking or stair climbing,” says Kirsty Carne, a senior osteoporosis specialist nurse at the Royal Osteoporosis Society.)
“There’s a great set of movements that athletics coaches use known as the ‘rudiment hop’ series,” says Lightfoot. “They are very simple – just low-amplitude jumps done forward, backward, sideways or in place – and much safer than more high-speed moves, but you can start with a handful and build up to a solid volume of them.”
Skipping does something similar, encouraging you to keep your jumps low and challenging your coordination: if you have never mastered it, there’s never been a better time to start. Once you’ve got the hang of small hops, you can move up to jumps for height, or for distance: the “broad jump”, where you take off and land on both feet at once, is a great test of explosiveness, and relatively safe. You can also try rebound jumps, where you’ll step, or lightly hop, off a box, and then explode into another jump, though that’s slightly more advanced. Don’t do more than a few of these at a time, though, and stop well before your legs get tired: you’re trying to build explosiveness, not endurance.
If you’re going to the gym, you can still do a lot of the same movements you are already doing – but just make a few tweaks to the way you do them. “When we talk about power training, what we typically mean is using high velocity or speed of execution in the concentric, or ‘raising’, phase of the movement,” says Araújo. “This is often represented by the simple expression ‘as fast as possible’.” In other words, if you’re doing a press-up or squat, you’ll do the downward, or eccentric, part of the movement slowly and under control, then explode upwards for the concentric part.
If you’re using free weights or weight-training machines, it’s a good idea to do this with 50-70% of the weight you could lift for a single rep – or about the same weight as you’d lift for 10-15 reps of a slower, more traditional movement. “You should aim for a weight where you can complete six to eight repetitions without the last reps decreasing in speed, resting for one or two minutes between sets,” says Araújo. “If you can reach more reps, increase the weight.”
One little-considered benefit of training like this is that it’s often a lot more pleasant than many traditional styles of training. If you’re doing six to eight reps with maximum speed and stopping when you slow down, there’s no need to go to failure – you’re teaching your muscle fibres to fire together, rather than forcing them to work to their limit. But it might also be a safer way to train for people as they age. “Arterial blood pressure, or BP, dramatically increases during heavy resistance training,” says Araújo, referencing studies showing that BP also increases dramatically with each rep, especially as a lifter approaches failure. “Thus, the maximal BP tends to be lower at the end of six to eight than with 10-15 high-intensity reps. ”
Finally, of course, you could just get into a sport. Almost any athletic endeavour includes some sort of power component – and generally speaking, the shorter each individual “effort”, the more power-intensive it is. But whether you’re hurling a barbell overhead, or practising your push-block in table tennis, the important thing is to start building power before it’s too late. Because power isn’t just for elite athletes – it’s essential for maintaining speed, coordination and resilience as you age. Developing it now might mean staying agile, capable and confident in your movements for the rest of your life.
