If there’s one activity that slows aging, it’s working your muscles against resistance. By forcing your muscles to contract against a resistance in a controlled manner, your muscle fibers become thicker and your muscles stronger and capable of generating more force. These changes don’t happen overnight, but with consistent training, your muscles will become stronger and grow larger.
Why is building strength so important? You need strong muscles to do the activities you carry out every day, like picking up a child, pushing a heavy cart, and playing sports such as tennis, volleyball, and basketball. Strength helps you stay functional and active too. Don’t underestimate the importance of strength, but there’s another ability that you need, and it’s the ability to generate power.
Power Matters Too
How do strength and power differ? Strength is the ability to generate force, irrespective of the time to produce that force. When you lift a weight slowly with a controlled motion, you use the strength of your muscles to do the work, so you’re harnessing brute strength. Power, in contrast, has a time component; it refers to the ability to generate force quickly. If you can lift a weight fast, you’re more powerful since you can generate force quickly.
Like strength, power is important for being fit and functional. In fact, you must use power to even get up from a chair. When you push yourself out of a chair, your muscles must harness force quickly to thrust your body out of a sitting position. Studies show that people lose power faster than they lose strength, and that makes doing power training important for slowing the aging process and staying functional.
One reason some elderly people become wheelchair-bound is they lose the ability to generate enough power and thrust to rise out of a chair. Their loss of power capabilities limits their ability to get around and do the things they need to do and enjoy. When your muscles lack strength or power, even simple tasks that most people take for granted become harder. Plus, having power capabilities gives you a greater chance of recovering if you slip and almost fall since your muscles and brain are trained to react faster.
Training for Strength versus Training for Power
When you train to build strength, the focus is on maximizing the amount of resistance. In most cases, you’ll lift the weight slowly, using a slow tempo, to avoid using momentum. Lifting slowly also increases the time muscles spend under tension and that can boost muscle hypertrophy.
Why is using momentum discouraged when strength training? If you use momentum, it reduces the force your muscles have to generate and that limits strength gains. Slowly the pace of an exercise also increases the time your muscles spend under tension and that may enhance hypertrophy gains.
You can build strength using dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, as an outside source of resistance, or you can use your own body weight by doing exercises such as push-ups, pull-ups, and bodyweight squats. The downside is you’re limited if you use only your bodyweight since it’s harder to increase the resistance over time. Using a slow tempo is the way most people train, but they’re building strength rather than power.
How Power Training Differs
Power training is a different animal. The best way to train for power is to increase the tempo of your reps. Rather than lifting a weight in a slow, controlled manner, move the weight quickly through space. Some people refer to power movements as explosive training; the goal is to move the weight fast with explosive force. When you’re moving a weight at a high speed, you’ll need to lighten up on the resistance you use. You shouldn’t work with very heavy weights when you’re lifting with a fast tempo, although you need to do enough repetitions to fatigue your muscles.
Another way to build power is with plyometric training. Plyometrics involves lengthening a muscle before shortening it explosively. The lengthening phase stores potential energy in the muscle that you release when you shorten it. Plyometric training will improve your vertical jump height and make you more powerful too.
Examples of plyometric exercises are jump squats, squat thrusts, tuck jumps, platform jumps, long jumps, lateral jumps, and plyometric push-ups. Plyometric movements are popular among athletes, especially those who play sports that require jumping, as plyometric exercises can improve vertical jump height. However, they also build power.
The easiest plyometric exercise for beginners is the jump squat. Here’s how to do one:
- Stand with your feet about hip-width apart.
- Lower your body toward the floor as you extend your buttocks behind you as if doing a squat.
- When your thighs are parallel to the floor, jump into the air and land lightly on your feet.
- After landing, quickly launch into the next jump squat by repeating the above.
- Do 5 jump squats and gradually work up to 20.
Once you’ve mastered a basic plyometric exercise, like the jump squat, you can try move advanced exercises, like tuck jumps and platform jumps. Platform jumps are tricky, so save them for when you’re more advanced and keep the platform low at first. Like strength training, don’t train for power every day. Give your muscles at least 48 hours of rest between training sessions.
You can also build power by working with kettlebells. The two best exercises for boosting power capabilities are kettlebell swings and snatches. If you don’t have a kettlebell, you can substitute a dumbbell. For kettlebell swings with a dumbbell, hold one end of the dumbbell with both hands and swing as you would a kettlebell.
The Bottom Line
Strength training and power training differ, and it comes down to the tempo you use when you do exercises. To build power, move the weight faster through space or do plyometric exercises. Chances are you’ll want to train using fast and slower tempos since power and strength are both important.
References:
- IDEA Health and Fitness Association. “Power Training For Older Adults”
- com. “Using Plyometrics for Power Development”
- Harvard Health Publishing. “Power training provides special benefits for muscles and function”
- com. “5 Best Kettlebell Exercises to Build Explosive Power”
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The Benefits of Depth Jumps and How They Can Improve Your Fitness Level
The Fitness Benefits of Jumping
3 Ways to Power Up Your Training and Get Better Results
How Plyometric Exercises Can Benefit Your Fitness Routine
Ramp Up Strength and Power with Plyometric Drills
