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Muscle power vs strength


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Medical News Today has an article Increased muscle power may prolong life which begins with "Increasing muscle strength is good, but increasing muscle power may be even better for enjoying a longer life"  https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325004.php

What's the difference between power and strength?
"Muscle power differs from muscle strength in that it relies on generating force and velocity while coordinating movement. For example, lifting a weight one time requires strength, but lifting it several times as quickly as possible requires power."

What is the benefit?
"participants in quartile one had a risk of dying that was 10 to 13 times higher than that of those in quartiles three and four, while the risk for those in quartile two was still four to five times higher"

How to increase power:
"choose a weight that is neither easy to lift nor so immense that the person cannot lift it at all.

Focus on doing 1 to 3 sets of 6 to 8 repetitions each while moving the weight as quickly as possible"

 

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I'm not very convinced of that explanation, maximizing power requires a certain weight, not very small, which must be lifted explosively. Such explosive (very fast) application of strenght may not be ideal for joints and tendons health though. I don't know if the original paper discusses the mechanistic, or hypothized mechanistic aspect.

Also, an association of death hazard and more explosive versus less explosive lifting appears conceptually strange.

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McCoy,

My understanding is that the weight in reality should never move fast; but you are ‘attempting’ to accelerate that very heavy weight which ends up moving at a very normal speed - and you are failing in the 6-8 rep range.

That chin-up video I posted is exactly that; I completely fail at 6 reps with all the weight I can possibly handle but mentally I am trying to heave as fast as possible... 

I no longer do this type of thing with deadlifts and squats though; I’m just no longer comfortable with huge loads on the spine.

edit: I also completely agree with your comment about joints and tendons; you never (imho) want to be actually moving a weight quickly, but rather visualize and attempt to move it this way.  

Fwiw after I shot that chin-up video I tweaked my lower back (a reoccurring injury) reaching too far to pick up a dumbbell (doh!!) ... I am almost 100% again.  

This was 100% preventable by walking over closer to my dumbbell rack and not reaching.

Safety is #1 wrt any physical training...

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Clinton, right, you can lift a huge weight explosively even if the lifting velocity seems low, since you must overcome a huge resistance.

Thinking it back, it may be the type of muscle fibers recruited in such explosive lifting that gave some advantage  dscribed in the article, but the association with overall mortality should be perhaps explored more thoroughly to eliminate possible (probable) confounding factors.

Yes, unfortunately joints and tendons seem to be the weak point after a certain age. To me, it's a continuos struggle, how to train to minimize pains, when to stop determined exercises and for how long when a certain tendon starts to ache, and so on. Lots of patience but worth it. So far I've been successfull this way to avoid long setbacks.

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