Take a look at the picture below of two arm wrestlers. Which one do you think won?
You may have guessed the wrestler on the right simply because you knew there was a reason I was asking that question. But if you looked at it discerningly you had to have guessed it was the man in the red shirt. He is easily twice the size of the other one.
But if you did guess the young man in the black shirt you would be correct. Let me introduce you to Aleksandr Beziazykov, aka The Schoolboy. He is a Russian arm-wrestler that, despite him not being as large as some of the other competitive arm wrestlers, is considered one of the best in the world.
Why am I sharing this with you?
This seems like the perfect way to show you that the size of muscle is not always directly related to strength of muscle, and it is also not directly proportional to something called muscular power.
You can actually have small muscles but be stronger than someone with larger muscles. (Women who are still worried about bulking up…read that again). And as Personal Training Specialists we know how to train your body so it can be big (hypertrophy), we can train your body to be strong and we can train your body to have power. But as we age, size, no matter your gender, is the least of your worries. Somewhere in our 30s to 40s we start to experience something called sarcopenia, or age related muscle loss. This accelerates between the ages of 65 and 80, and our strength decreases at twice the rate as our muscle mass (size) in these time periods.
Thankfully the solution is simple: Resistance training and sufficient protein intake.
Engaging in strength training 2-3 times per week and consuming 1.2 – 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of ideal body weight can help maintain and even build muscle mass as we age. (On a side note, if you are trying to lose weight, it is essential that you try to preserve muscle mass so your metabolism doesn’t drop, this requires up to 2 grams of protein per kilogram of ideal body weight).
What about Preserving Muscle Power?
Muscle power declines more rapidly than both mass and strength as we age and it has more function than you realize.
To recap; muscle mass focuses solely on the size of the muscle, muscular strength is about maximal force and muscular power involves the production of force (strength) in combination with speed. It is an intersection of a lot of skills like agility, balance and strength.
Importantly, a loss of power, called powerpenia, is actually a better predictor of adverse health outcomes, such as falls, physical dependence, immobility etc compared to strength or mass.
And so, this is why, even though you don’t seem to like it, we ask you to move quickly sometimes. We want to train your muscular power.
Examples of Power Training (when safe to do so these can be done with weights):
- “Running step-ups’ on a BOSU or on stairs.
- Quick sit to stands as you can as many times as you can.
- Kettlebell Swings
- Overhead Snatch or Push Presses.
- Plyo pushups quickly off of a BOSU or the floor
- Paloff press quickly on the way out and slowly on the way in.
But keep in mind, you should only do these if you can maintain proper and safe lifting form. If you are unstable, have a bad back or are new to exercise this should not be in your program until it is safe to do so. And so, if you are thinking about adding power training into your program make sure your body is ready to do so. It requires a great deal of core, hip and shoulder mobility and stability to make sure you can do it safely.
As always, remember…the only way to coast is downhill. So keep pushing, keep striving and keep living and looking forward to your best life. A strong and healthy body is the best way to do that!
