Exercise for Healthspan: Power

🏋‍♂️ When you are existing for healthy lifespan (healthspan), how important is it to train for power?

I am running a series of talks focused on exercising for healthspan. It is a favoured topic for Peter Attia and Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. Yet the literature directly addressing it is scarce, since most exercise science is either focused on sports performance OR short-term interventions, often with college age or elderly participants, or people with overweight and obesity.

That also makes it a really interesting question to answer. My approach is to look at the relationships between:

1. Exercise modalities e.g., power-training

2. Exercise outcomes e.g., physical power

3. Relationship between the outcome & some important health markers e.g., all-cause mortality

So using this approach, training for power is exceptionally important AND something even most keen exercisers are not doing.

🔋 Power is force x velocity, meaning the ability to express strength quickly and explosively. It is not the same as strength, which is unconcerned with velocity.

🪫 Power declines more rapidly than strength, or muscle size, as we age. Of course it is not really as "as we age" but rather, as we accumulate years of not training for power.

📉 Loss of power is strongly linked to reduced mobility, reduced walking speed, & increased risk of slips, trips & falls.

👨‍🔬 If one is not already training for power, what is the simplest way to start? First, make it safe, if this is new to you, use a qualified PT.

Exercise Options: Plyometrics like Box Jumps and Split-Squat Jumps, Resisted Sprints, Speed-Strength Training (like Kettlebell Swings), Olympic Lifts (but these are too complex to begin quickly & safely).

Frequency & Volume: Just 1-2 sets performed 2x weekly can be sufficient to at least maintain power, & these can be slotted in after warming up, at the beginning of a regular resistance workout

Intensiveness: 8-10 out of 10, these are very short bursts of near-maximal effort.

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