You're NEVER too old to benefit from Explosive strength training

Today we're talking about explosive strength training and why it's for everyone, NO MATTER HOW OLD YOU ARE!Approximate read time: 2 min 42 sec

The older we get, the weaker we tend to be. Why?As we age, we experience hormonal changes that make gaining and maintaining muscle more difficult.We also don't recover from physical activity as efficiently as we did when we were younger.AND we become more sedentary as we age which massively accelerates the loss of strength and explosive power. On the surface, those sound like insurmountable obstacles that will eventually doom us to a life of weakness and dependence...Fortunately, that's not true.There's plenty of evidence to support that we can train to get stronger AND more explosive well into our 80s.A fantastic study done in 2007 looked at explosive strength training for women in their 60s, 70s, and 80s and found that not only was it well tolerated, but these women were able to make incredible gains. The study participants were able to improve their unilateral leg extension by 51%, 42%, and 28%, respectively, in 12 weeks! Those are MASSIVE GAINS, especially when considering how important explosive strength is as we age and how old they were when this study happened.

Why explosive strength?

At first glance, explosive strength seems like it's only important for athletes, or maybe law enforcement, firefighters, and the military, but that's not true. Age-related decline in muscle power is a strong predictor of falls, impairment, and disability.Explosive strength is necessary for normal everyday tasks, like walking up the stairs carrying groceries into the house, lifting those groceries up onto the counter, and getting up from the toilet. If you want to live a long independent life filled with confidence rather than a feeling of existential dread, just waiting for the day an injury sidelines you for good, you need to be training explosive strength.

How to train explosive strength at any age?

Great, explosive strength is necessary; that's obvious. What's not obvious is what you should do about it.The study I referenced earlier gives some good guidelines.They were training twice a week using weights up to 75-80% of their one rep max.The movements they used were:

• Knee extension

• Horizontal leg press

• Hamstring curls

• Calf raise

• Incline leg press

They were instructed to move the weight explosively during the concentric phase (lifting portion of the movement) and a slow to moderate pace during the eccentric phase (lowering portion). These women weren't experienced lifters, they were normal everyday ladies, and they experienced huge gains.If you're not a weight person, you can still build explosive strength.You can focus on things like sprinting, jumping, and bodyweight movements where you're focusing on moving explosively.The key is that you're putting maximum effort into each rep or bout.

What about everyone else?

It's great that these elderly ladies got such a big boost, but what about everyone else?EVERYBODY should be training explosive strength!The younger you are, the more explosive strength you can "put in the bank" for later. Physical training compounds, just like interest.A little bit of work NOW will go a long way in the future, AND you'll get to reap the benefits of that fitness today too!

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