You may be losing power right now, at least in your muscles.
That’s because our muscles begin shedding power as we age, a process that typically begins in our 40s and accelerates in later decades.
Many of us may not realize we have muscular power to lose, though.
“It’s not a metric that’s discussed much, and it should be,” said Brad Schoenfeld, 64, a professor of exercise science and graduate director of the human performance and fitness program at Lehman College in the Bronx. A former bodybuilder, he’s been studying and practicing resistance exercise for decades.
“People know about strength,” he said. “It’s the ability to produce force.
“Power,” he continued, “is the ability to produce that force quickly. It’s force over time. So, you can be strong. But if it takes you time to produce force, you’re going to have less power than someone who can produce that same force more quickly.”
In practice, muscle power helps us right ourselves rapidly when we trip, he said, or pull ourselves back if we step off a curb as a car appears. It helps us swing a toddler or out-stroke our spouse at the pool.
It also could indicate how long and well we’ll live. In a 2025 study of 3,889 men and women, those with low muscular power, as measured by a rowing test, had a higher risk of premature death than those with low muscular strength.
Similarly, in a recent scientific review co-written by Schoenfeld, older people who started weight-training programs focused on power tended to be able to get up from chairs, walk rapidly across a room and otherwise function better afterward than older people whose training focused only on strength.
“Power is a key part of aging well,” he said.
But few of us may understand how to gain it. So I caught up with Schoenfeld to talk muscle power: how to build it, why we lose it, what special equipment or expertise we may need (hardly any), and how he’s maintained his own power for so many years.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
First, why do we need muscular power?
I think one of the most important factors from the standpoint of aging is reducing the risk of falls. If you start to lose balance, reversing that fall requires you to quickly use your strength. You need the speed as well as the strength. Power also helps you to get back up. I remember when my own father was 80 and in the hospital. He got off of his bed, started to fall and didn’t have the strength and power to stop himself. He fell and broke a hip. It was so sad. The importance of power really hit home with me then.
Why do we lose power with age? Does it fade faster than strength and muscle mass?
Yes, muscular power usually declines earlier and more precipitously. It’s generally thought that’s because there’s a disproportionate loss of certain muscle fibers with age, and those are the fibers that produce the most force. Plus, the normal coordination between nerves and muscles can become dysregulated with age. So it becomes harder to produce force quickly.
Can we rebuild or add to our muscular power?
You can build power at any age.
How?
There are options like heavy Olympic lifts [the snatch, and the clean and jerk, which are the two weightlifting events at the Olympics] or plyometrics [box jumps and other high-speed, explosive exercises]. But for most people, the best approach is to do traditional weight training, but when you lift the weight, moving it against gravity, do it as fast as possible. Then when you lower the weight, returning it to the starting position, do it more slowly, under control, for something like two to three seconds.
So, if you’re doing a biceps curl, you’d raise the dumbbell as rapidly as you can, then lower it more slowly for several seconds?
Yes. Aim for about 8 to 10 repetitions of each exercise, so it feels challenging by the end, but you could probably manage another rep or two.
What you’re saying is that if we’re already going to the gym, we can tweak the exercises we’re already doing and make them power-training exercises?
Yes. You can do power training with machines, free weights, body weight, exercise bands or whatever you prefer. Just lift the weight at speed. Lower it under control. You’ll probably need to reduce your usual weight at first. And this doesn’t need to be an all-or-nothing decision. Do one day a week of traditional weight training — both lifting and lowering the weight relatively slowly, for several seconds each way — and another day training for power. Or do some exercises for power and others not in the same session. Even a little training can show benefits.
What about for people completely new to weight training?
I wouldn’t have them doing power training right away. Learn proper form first. Get the movement patterns dialed in by moving through them more slowly, then after a few weeks or months of practice, you could start adding some power training.
Is power training dangerous? Are you more likely to get injured than with traditional lifting?
In our review, there were very few adverse events during resistance training, whether people were doing traditional or power lifting. In general, resistance training with proper form has a very low incidence of injuries.
Is it ever too early or late to start power training?
If you’re 50 years old and you’ve never done any resistance training, I can pretty much guarantee that you’ve lost physical function and muscle mass, which has compromised your muscle power, and you need to address that — the sooner the better. For younger people, power training is also good, because you build up a muscle bank that you can draw on as you get older. If you start to lose power later, you’re still at a higher level than people who never trained.
Do you power train?
I’ve been lifting weights since I was in my early 20s. So in my 60s, I have much more muscle mass than I did when I was 20, probably 40 pounds of it, and strength. I haven’t lost physical function. So I don’t need to focus too much on power, because it’s still there. That’s what I mean by a muscle bank. I’ve built up reserves. I do throw in plyometrics sometimes for fun.
But if we didn’t start lifting in our 20s, we can still get more powerful, whatever our age?
It’s never too late to start training. We’ve done research on people 75 years and older who’ve made substantive gains in strength and power in 8 to 10 weeks’ time. And it doesn’t require a lot of time. A couple of half-hour to 45-minute sessions per week is all you need. Even that small investment of time can have profound effects on your health and quality of life. That’s a powerful message, I think.
Do you have a fitness question? Email [email protected] and we may answer your question in a future column.
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