Is Muscle Power More Important Than Strength For Longevity?

In your 30s, you start to lose a certain percentage of muscle tissue year over year, and that rate really accelerates when you hit 60. But everything we've been told about the importance of maintaining muscle as you age is roughly around half right.

Maintaining muscle mass and muscle strength is a key driver of longevity, but even more important is maintaining muscle power and explosiveness. They are not the same.

A recent 10-year study of nearly 4,000 adults revealed that those with lower muscle power and explosiveness had a six to seven times higher mortality risk compared to the strongest, most powerful group, while differences in pure strength were insignificant once age and health history were factored in.

I explain the difference between sarcopenia and dynapenia, why muscle power is the first thing you lose and you lose it more quickly than anything else, and why we lose our anaerobic conditioning, muscle strength, and power at around 40% per decade, compared to roughly 10% for aerobic conditioning.

I also share practical ways to develop and preserve muscle power and explosiveness safely, so you can maintain that important attribute throughout life and avoid the devastating consequences of falls.

TIMESTAMPS:

Muscle mass and muscle strength are not the same but both are key drivers to longevity. [01:01]

Sarcopenia is age-related loss of muscle mass or muscle strength. Dynapenia is the age-related loss of muscle power and explosiveness. [02:25]

Training has risen in the level of sophistication where athletes can perform better. [05:16]

We have an obligation to hone things like coordination, balance, agility, and timing. [07:22]

Dynapenia is defined as the loss of the nervous system's ability to recruit what muscle you still have. [10:10]

Muscle mass declines the slowest. Muscle strength declines faster than muscle mass declines. Muscle power declines faster than all the others. [14:29]