When George Yusuff, MS, ACSM-CEP, was playing soccer in college, his training involved a lot of power-focused movements, like snatching a barbell off the floor and thrusting it overhead as fast as possible. It felt good. It made him better.

Today, as an exercise physiologist at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City, he still prioritizes training for muscle power — which is basically how quickly you can move a weight — but it looks a lot more approachable. And it’s something he often recommends his patients incorporate into their routines as well. “Muscle power is really important for everyone from professional athletes to older individuals looking to improve their quality of life,” Yusuff said.

Indeed, muscle power may even be a better predictor of early death than muscle strength, according to a 2025 observational study published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. “We were likely the first to directly compare upper limb measurements of muscle power and strength in a large sample of the same individuals, and we found that muscle power significantly outperforms strength in predicting natural causes of mortality,” said study author Claudio Gil Araújo, MD, PhD.

In fact, Araújo said that for most daily activities — especially any that force you to react fast — muscle power is more relevant than muscle strength. “To rise from the floor or from a chair, someone needs to accelerate or move up quickly, and that is when muscle power is required,” he said. Yusuff added that power is also what helps you climb a flight of stairs or lift bags of groceries.

Unfortunately, both muscle power and strength peak around the age of 25 to 35, then slowly decrease until they rapidly decline after age 60, Araújo said, adding that while poor muscle mass is called sarcopenia, we should also use the term “dynapenia,” loss of muscle power. “The combined loss of strength and velocity much more than each one separately will impair an individual's autonomy and, consequently, [their] healthspan,” Araújo said.

Luckily, training for muscle power — which can be a whole lot simpler than those fancy moves Yusuff used to do — can help slow or reverse both sarcopenia and dynapenia.

The Fundamentals of Power vs Strength

The distinction between strength and power is simple: time.

Strength is how much weight you can move. Power is how fast you can move it, said Brad Schoenfeld, PhD, CSCS, a professor in exercise science at Lehman College in the Bronx, New York.

The link between muscle power and lower mortality risk is twofold. The obvious stuff: More vigor as we age allows us to be more active overall and everyday movement is easier. The second aspect isn’t as obvious, but just as important: Muscles that still have the power of explosive action can prevent or lessen the damage from falls.

“I think the biggest issue is that older people, they also have loss of balance and they end up falling,” Schoenfeld said. “You need to be able not only to have the strength to reverse yourself from falling but to do it very quickly. If you don’t react very rapidly to that fall, no matter how strong you are, you’re not going to be able to offset that.” Especially for people with sarcopenia and/or osteoporosis or osteopenia, progressive loss of bone tissue, one fall can be debilitating — and even deadly, he said.

Another Underappreciated Benefit

Muscle power requires a high level of neuromuscular activation, Yusuff said. Training for explosive movement also trains that brain-muscle connection and may help support brain health over time. Of course, regular exercise overall is linked to a lower risk for cognitive decline.

“Physiologically, muscles are innervated by nerves, and there has to be some degree of conscious effort to create force,” Schoenfeld said. “The ability to send the signal from the brain to the muscle more rapidly is what ultimately affects power.” That’s what you’re training when you quickly stand up from a chair, for example.

Once that signal reaches the muscle, it triggers the release of calcium within muscle fibers, allowing them to contract, Yusuff said. “The more we train muscle power, the more efficiently these systems work.” Power training also improves your ability to recruit more muscle fibers — particularly fast-twitch (type II) fibers — which further boosts force production.

How to Train for Muscle Power

Schoenfeld and Yusuff emphasize that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to boost your muscle power. You don’t even need a barbell. There are some basic power moves that Yusuff recommends to clients of all levels, starting with simple sit-to-stand (literally just standing up out of a chair quickly, then slowly lowering back down) and step-up (stepping up quickly onto a low box or step, then stepping down with control) exercises.

That said, power is developed through a foundation of strength. For Yusuff and the team at HSS, strength in addition to cardiovascular fitness, flexibility, posture, and body composition all sit lower on the sports performance pyramid. Once a patient has a solid foundation of those things, including that they’re resistance training at least twice a week, they’ll start to look at getting more granular with power training.

The good news is that if you or a patient are starting from scratch, general resistance training will not only help with strength but also should have an impact on power, too, Schoenfeld said. In fact, in Schoenfeld’s own research published in JAMA Open, specific power training (where people focused on doing the concentric — shortening — phase of the exercises faster) was modestly better at improving physical function compared with traditional strength training (lifting the weight deliberately and slowly) in healthy older adults. Power training, then, is an optimization thing, Schoenfeld said.

So start with mastering the basics movements at a controlled pace, then you could pick one or two exercises per session and speed up the concentric action (the part where you lift the weights up in the biceps curl, for example, or when you stand up from the squat). Schoenfeld said to be sure to keep the eccentric action (the lowering or lengthening part of the move) slow and controlled in order to avoid injury.

“Always pay attention to the correct posture and technique to execute the movement, minimizing the risk of injury,” Araújo said. “High speed of execution will not hurt you if the technique and posture are correct.”

An advantage for beginners is training for power requires you to work with lighter weights and/or body weight. Schoenfeld suggests using a weight that allows you to do repetitions with proper form — but here’s the key — where the last two-three reps in the set are really difficult. You don’t want to train to failure — just to the hard reps where your gains will maximize.

Yusuff focuses on training his own muscle power — with moves like deadlifts and back squats done with lighter weight but at a faster pace — just once a week. Things can get even more advanced from there with plyometrics like box jumps and broad jumps, but they certainly don’t have to, especially for older people or those with conditions like sarcopenia and/or osteoporosis.

How to Talk to Your Patients About Muscle Power

Schoenfeld said the biggest thing to get across to patients, older patients in particular, is that power can be a ticket to a more active, independent life. Vigor and vitality are mental as well as physical, which is why Yusuff agrees it’s important to talk to patients about how power also has a beneficial neurological effect.

Physicians can emphasize that some degree of muscle power will be developed by virtue of strength training in general and that patients don’t need to start jumping up onto 18-in boxes to see the benefits, Schoenfeld said.

The key is, even if you’re moving explosively, maintain control of the movement. Form counts, sloppiness leads to injury.

For patients who are brand new to resistance training, healthcare professionals could suggest they work with a trainer or physical therapist to first master the fundamentals and build the aforementioned foundation of strength.

The best part for beginners? Fast and easy gains. “Interestingly, larger and quicker benefits could be seen in those that have never trained using movements or repetitions at high velocity,” Araújo said.