Strength Training After 50: Why Power Matters More Than Strength

Ask an age-group triathlete in their 50s what they're losing and the answer is usually speed. Top-end efforts feel harder to reach, sprints at the end of races fade, and run turnover feels slower. TriForward's "The Kona Standard" shows how much slower triathletes get, on average, with each passing year. This article looks at one specific contributor that endurance training does little to address: the loss of muscle power.

Strength and power are often used interchangeably, but they aren't the same thing. The research suggests that, as you get older, the difference matters more and more. This article covers what declines, how quickly, what happens to lifelong lifters, and what training can do about it.

Strength and power: the difference

• Strength is the maximum force a muscle can produce, regardless of how long it takes. A slow, heavy deadlift is a strength test.
• Power is force multiplied by speed: how much force you can produce quickly. A jump, a sprint start, or getting up from a chair quickly are tests of power.

For endurance athletes, peak power isn't the limiting factor in most of a race. But it plays a role in surges, climbs, sprint finishes, running economy, and simply being able to react quickly when you stumble on a trail or have to brake hard on the bike. Inference: if power falls faster than other qualities, it may become a bigger limiter with age than it was at 30.

Where power shows up in a triathlon

Triathlon is mostly a steady-state sport, so it's fair to ask whether power matters at all. The following are inference rather than findings from a specific study, but they suggest a few places where it does:

• Swim starts and buoy turns, where a few hard strokes can decide whether you're in clear water or caught behind a group.
• Short climbs, accelerations out of corners and responding to surges on the bike, which ask for high force at a reasonably high cadence.
• Running economy and the final kilometre, where the ability to produce force quickly with each foot strike may help you hold pace or finish strongly.
• Everyday robustness, such as catching a stumble on uneven ground or reacting quickly to a hazard on the road.

None of these determine a long-course result on their own. But a triathlete who has lost a lot of power may find that these moments cost more than they used to.

Power declines earlier and faster

In a 2012 review in Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews, Kieran Reid and Roger Fielding of Tufts University summarised the case. They concluded that:

• Muscle power declines earlier and more steeply with age than muscle strength.
• Peak power is an important predictor of functional limitations in older adults.
• Lower-limb power may be a more useful measure than strength for understanding the link between muscle impairment, functional limitation and disability.

Their research focused on older adults and mobility, not athletes. But the pattern is consistent across the studies below, including in people who train.

When does it start?

A 2020 study by Julian Alcazar and colleagues in The Journals of Gerontology measured leg power in 1,305 adults aged 20 to 93, 729 women and 576 men, from the Copenhagen Sarcopenia Study. The participants were from the general Danish population rather than athletes.

• Leg power relative to body weight began to decline after age 40 in both women and men.
• Absolute leg power also began to fall after the fourth decade.
• In later life, losses of muscle mass added to the decline in absolute power.

This was a cross-sectional study, comparing different people of different ages rather than following the same people over time. But it suggests that the loss of power is a midlife process, not just something that happens in old age.

The same people over time

A longitudinal study by Reid and colleagues, published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology in 2014, followed older adults for about 3 years. It included 26 healthy older adults (12 women) with a mean age of 74 and 22 adults of similar age (12 women) with mobility limitations.

• Leg power fell by 8.8% in the healthy group and 8.5% in the mobility-limited group.
• The healthy group preserved their muscle size and strength over the same period. The mobility-limited group lost both.

Inference: in healthy older adults, power fell even while strength held steady. This is the clearest demonstration in this article that strength and power can follow different paths, and that maintaining strength alone doesn't guarantee maintaining power. These participants were in their 70s and not athletes, so the size of the effect in a 55-year-old triathlete is unknown.

What happens to lifelong lifters

If training preserved power completely, you'd expect people who have trained explosively for decades to show little decline. A 2002 study by Stephen Pearson and colleagues in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise tested this. They measured 54 elite master weightlifters aged 40 to 87 and a similar number of healthy, untrained people of the same ages. The abstract doesn't give a sex split.

• The weightlifters had 32% more leg power and 32% more knee extensor strength than the controls.
• Peak power declined by about 1.2% a year in the weightlifters and 1.3% a year in the controls, expressed relative to the value at age 45.
• Isometric strength declined by about 0.6% a year in the weightlifters and 0.5% a year in the controls.
• The authors estimated a 20-year advantage: an 85-year-old weightlifter was as powerful as a 65-year-old untrained person.

Two lessons stand out. First, power declined at roughly twice the yearly rate of strength, in lifters and non-lifters alike. Second, training didn't slow the rate of decline, but it lifted the whole curve: the weightlifters started higher and stayed higher. Inference: the benefit of power training with age is less about stopping the decline and more about where you sit on the curve. This is cross-sectional data from a select group of competitive lifters, so it can't fully separate training from talent.

Where endurance training fits

Endurance training is excellent for the heart, the aerobic system and long-term health. But cycling, swimming and steady running mostly ask muscles to produce moderate force repeatedly, not maximal force quickly. Inference: a triathlete who only does endurance training is likely to follow something closer to the untrained curve for power than the weightlifters' curve, even if their aerobic fitness is excellent.

There is some evidence that adding heavy lifting helps older endurance athletes. A 2013 study by Maria Francesca Piacentini and colleagues in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research randomised 16 master marathon runners with a mean age of about 44 to maximal strength training, lighter resistance training, or a control group.

• Maximal strength training increased one-repetition maximum by 16.34% and improved running economy at marathon pace by 6.17%.
• The lighter resistance training group and the control group showed no significant changes.

This was a very small trial in runners in their mid-40s, so it doesn't tell us about power in triathletes over 50. But it suggests that heavy, low-repetition lifting may help masters endurance performance where lighter, higher-repetition work may not. TriForward's "The Minimum Effective Dose" and "Heavy Lifting for Bike Power" cover the wider evidence on strength and endurance performance.

Power training versus traditional strength training

If power falls faster than strength, does training it directly help more? A 2022 meta-analysis by Ahmed Balachandran and colleagues in JAMA Network Open compared power training with traditional strength training in older adults. In broad terms, power training means lifting a moderate load with the lifting phase done as quickly as possible, while traditional training uses heavier loads lifted at a controlled speed.

They included 20 randomised trials with 566 community-dwelling adults aged 60 or older, with a mean age of 70. About 65% were women.

• Physical function improved more with power training than with traditional strength training (standardised mean difference 0.30, 95% CI 0.05 to 0.54), based on 13 trials with 383 participants.
• Self-reported physical function didn't differ clearly, based on only 3 small trials.
• The certainty of the evidence was rated low, because of risk of bias and imprecision.

The authors described the advantage as modest and called for larger, better trials. These were older, mostly non-athletic adults, and the outcomes were tests such as walking speed and chair rises, not sport performance. Inference: power training appears at least as effective as traditional strength training for function in older adults and may be slightly better. For triathletes, its main value may be maintaining the speed component that endurance training misses.

Women and men after 50

A 2021 meta-analysis by Matthew Jones and colleagues in Sports Medicine looked at sex differences in response to strength training in over-50s: 30 studies with 1,410 participants, 651 men and 759 women. Women gained more relative lower-body strength than men, and the two sexes gained similar relative muscle size and upper-body strength. Men gained more in absolute terms.

Inference: the case for lifting after 50 applies equally to women and men. For women around and after menopause, lifting has the added benefit for bone covered in TriForward's "Lifting for Bone" and "Menopause and the Triathlete". TriForward's "Same Lifts, Different Plan?" covers sex differences in strength training in more detail.

Putting it into practice

The suggestions below are inference from the research above, for healthy triathletes over 50. They aren't a tested programme:

1. Build strength first. If you're new to lifting, spend several weeks learning technique with controlled lifts. Power training is built on a strength base.
2. Keep some heavy lifting. The master runner trial found heavy, low-repetition work improved running economy where lighter work didn't.
3. Add speed with intent. For one or two exercises per session, such as squats, step-ups or push presses, use a moderate load and lift it as quickly as you can while keeping good form. Lower the weight under control.
4. Keep sets short. Power falls as fatigue rises, so stop each set while the repetitions are still fast.
5. Add simple jumps if your joints allow. Low box jumps, skips or hops can be a progression. TriForward's "Jumps or Iron?" covers plyometric training in more detail.
6. Lift twice a week through the year. TriForward's "The Off-Season Strength Block" covers building over winter and maintaining through the season.

Fitting it into the week

Power training is short and doesn't need to add much time. Some practical points, which are inference rather than tested schedules:

• Do fast work when you're fresh. Power training is best done early in a session, after a warm-up, and not straight after a hard ride or run.
• Keep it away from your key endurance sessions. Leave space between a heavy or explosive lifting session and the next hard bike or run, so that heavy legs don't compromise either. TriForward's "The Masters Training Week" covers recovery and session spacing with age.
• Keep the volume low. A few fast sets of a couple of exercises is enough to train the quality without adding much fatigue.

A triathlon scenario

The following example is illustrative, not drawn from a study. A 58-year-old man has raced triathlon for 15 years and lifts once a week, mostly light circuits with high repetitions. He notices he can no longer respond when other riders surge on a hill, and his run feels flat.

Based on the evidence above, he might:

• Check with his doctor if he has any heart or blood pressure concerns before adding heavier or faster lifting.
• Move to two sessions a week, keeping some heavy, low-repetition work for strength.
• Add fast-intent sets to one or two lifts per session after a few weeks.
• Introduce low-level jumps gradually, progressing only if his joints and Achilles tendons tolerate them.
• Keep expectations realistic. Power training can lift where he sits on the age curve, but it won't stop ageing. The master weightlifter data suggest even lifelong lifters lose power each year.

Common mistakes

• Doing only light, high-repetition circuits. These build muscular endurance, which triathletes already train, rather than strength or power.
• Lifting everything slowly. Controlled lowering is useful, but if every lift is slow, the speed component is never trained.
• Jumping into explosive work without a base. Strength and technique come first.
• Grinding sets to failure. Fatigue slows movement, so the last repetitions of a long set train endurance, not power.
• Expecting endurance fitness to protect power. It largely doesn't.

What we don't know

• How quickly power declines in trained triathletes. No study has tracked it directly.
• Whether power training improves triathlon performance in athletes over 50. The trials measured function in non-athletes.
• The best balance between heavy and fast lifting for masters endurance athletes.
• How much the master weightlifter findings reflect training rather than self-selection of naturally powerful people.

References

• Reid KF, Fielding RA. Skeletal muscle power: a critical determinant of physical functioning in older adults. Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews, 2012;40(1):4–12. doi:10.1097/JES.0b013e31823b5f13
• Alcazar J, Aagaard P, Haddock B, Kamper RS, Hansen SK, Prescott E, Alegre LM, Frandsen U, Suetta C. Age- and sex-specific changes in lower-limb muscle power throughout the lifespan. The Journals of Gerontology: Series A, 2020;75(7):1369–1378. doi:10.1093/gerona/glaa013
• Reid KF, Pasha E, Doros G, Clark DJ, Patten C, Phillips EM, Frontera WR, Fielding RA. Longitudinal decline of lower extremity muscle power in healthy and mobility-limited older adults: influence of muscle mass, strength, composition, neuromuscular activation and single fiber contractile properties. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 2014;114(1):29–39. doi:10.1007/s00421-013-2728-2
• Pearson SJ, Young A, Macaluso A, De Vito G, Cobbold M, Nimmo MA, Harridge SDR. Muscle function in elite master weightlifters. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 2002;34(7):1199–1206. doi:10.1097/00005768-200207000-00023
• Piacentini MF, De Ioannon G, Comotto S, Spedicato A, Vernillo G, La Torre A. Concurrent strength and endurance training effects on running economy in master endurance runners. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2013;27(8):2295–2303. doi:10.1519/JSC.0b013e3182794485
• Balachandran AT, Steele J, Angielczyk D, Belio M, Schoenfeld BJ, Quiles N, Askin N, Abou-Setta AM. Comparison of power training vs traditional strength training on physical function in older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Network Open, 2022;5(5):e2211623. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.11623
• Jones MD, Wewege MA, Hackett DA, Keogh JWL, Hagstrom AD. Sex differences in adaptations in muscle strength and size following resistance training in older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sports Medicine, 2021;51(3):503–517. doi:10.1007/s40279-020-01388-4