Muscular power: It's not just for athletes

Sawyer Paull-Baird

Hello everyone-

I wanted to share a great article that @Mike Stack emailed to a few of us today on the benefits of training for muscular power for aging populations.

Most people think of muscular power as something athletes work on, however research has identified power as a highly important variable for those above the age of 65 as well.

I am going to summarize some key points, but also encourage you to read the full article below (it's a short 5 minute read).

1) Muscular power, in it's simplest form, "boils down to how quickly someone can exert their muscular strength (this is a very rudimentary explanation). In other words, muscular power is the ability to produce maximum muscular force as fast as possible."

2) Muscular power is crucial not just for athletic movements, but also every day scenarios such as catching yourself after you trip over your rug, or stumble on an icy patch of sidewalk. Thus, muscular power is vital in preventing falls, a leading cause of injury in older adults.

3) Training for muscular power is quite safe even in aging populations with rates of injury shown to be between 1 in every 658 tests and 1 in every 144 tests.

4) Muscular power can be trained simply and easily by taking a normal exercise, such as a squat, reducing the weight lifted, and increasing the speed at which the exercise is performed.

Anyways, take a read for yourself here. Feel free to comment below if you have any questions about how you can incorporate power into your own workout routine (disclaimer: if you take FS or SS class, we work these things in for you periodically already 😉)

Sawyer