Maintaining power as you age helps support muscle and metabolic health.francescoridolfi.com/iStockPhoto / Getty Images
A while back, I thought I’d show off for my son by performing a kip-up, springing neatly to my feet from my back in one powerful motion. I hadn’t attempted this in 20 years but somehow expected to pull it off. He watched as I kicked off explosively and caught about an inch of air before falling back to earth with a thud. “What was that?” he asked. Other than a near concussion?
Our sense of aging doesn’t progress smoothly over time; we piece it together through moments such as these. And there is a fairly predictable list of physical changes that take place as we get older. But what goes first? Is it your metabolism? Your bone density? Your can-do attitude?
One of the steepest drop-offs is how fast you can move something, whether it’s your own body or a weighted implement. The term is muscle power (work divided by time) and it can be conspicuous in its absence.
Is it a myth that seniors need to slow down their fitness routines?
When you look for physically fit people over 40, you’ll find plenty of endurance athletes and yoga practitioners. You’ll see weightlifters and rock climbers too. Most of these athletes move slowly. Deliberately. Between 0.4 and 2.5 metres a second, if you’re tracking. Speed and power athletes – the kind you’d see in a decathlon event – are far rarer in that age group. This is because the fast-twitch muscle fibres responsible for generating powerful, high-velocity contractions atrophy earlier than slow-twitch fibres.
Your muscles don’t exist in isolation. If they are the hardware, your nervous system is the operating system.
“When we talk about the factors going into muscle power, we have to consider the features of the muscle tissue itself and neural input. … With aging, both of these systems are going to be deteriorating,” says Michael Paris, a researcher at York University who studies the relationship between muscle and aging.
“Within the nervous system, the brain and spinal cord of older adults may have a reduced and more inconsistent ability to activate the muscle in a co-ordinated manner, especially during fast or forceful contractions, which again will contribute to the loss of muscle power with aging.”
But do these physical changes come because we stop moving fast? Or do we stop moving fast because of these physical changes? It’s a chicken-or-the-egg kind of situation, Paris says.
To get some insight on the athletic side of things, I reached out to coach Derek Evely, whose athletes, including Canadian Olympian Dylan Armstrong, have earned more than 70 national and international medals in throwing events. His experience syncs up with Paris’s research – that power decreases with age – but he’s also worked with people who challenge these norms.
“Throwers probably are able to sustain performance later in terms of their age relative to the other event groups. … They can peak in the early 30s. And so you have people that, you know, are technically masters at 35, but could still be world-class athletes.”
What makes throwers different?
Throwing sports – such as shot put and hammer throw – have the highest technical demands of all track and field activities, Evely explained. Technique takes time, and skill can be the bottleneck in expressing power, not raw horsepower. “That’s why throwers can compete at a higher level so much longer than everybody else. It’s really interesting. And kind of compelling.”
For aging and fitness, community is the most important part
Do you need to hurl iron spheres at 12.5 to 14.5 metres a second to age gracefully? Probably not. Aging well has more to do with functional abilities, such as getting up from the floor (albeit not with a kip-up). However, maintaining power supports muscle and metabolic health.
“Muscle power – the ability to generate force or contract in a quick and forceful manner – is really important for older adults and their ability to move around the world,” Paris says.
And there’s no point where hope is truly lost, he adds. Older adults who stay in motion lose power at a slower rate than their counterparts; even 100-year-olds can improve their muscle power with dedicated exercise.
Movements that work on muscle power, like jumping, are great to incorporate into your regular exercise routine.bernardbodo/Getty Images
How to build up your power
Jumping: Paris recommends targeting the quads and front abdominal muscles in particular. Working up to five minutes of daily jumping is one evidence-based option.
“Start easier than you think. There’s no rush,” says Greg Lehman, a pain and rehab expert. Five sets of 10 jumps can work when performed near daily. “With age, the stiffness and strength of our Achilles and calves decreases. You could argue this is a pretty good intervention.”
Resistance: Lehman recommends a simple protocol of two resistance workouts a week, the first done with moderately heavy weights at a slower tempo. The second should feature the same exercises, but done with less weight and at a faster speed. Try a controlled lowering motion followed by an explosive lifting (concentric) motion.
Start slow: You should build a base of strength for six to eight weeks before adding fast movements, Lehman says.
Paris suggests going beyond your body weight for explosive movements and adding weight, in the ballpark of 60 to 70 per cent of your one-rep max (the most weight you can move once). Training for power also means terminating the set before movement slows down – something that happens before you even register feeling tired. Specificity is key, and training for power doesn’t mix well with fatigue.
