Pacifica Fitness: Power training: A senior’s best friend.

Chris Shah – Terra Nova Fitness, Strength Coach

Power can be define as “the time rate of doing work” Essentially getting something done as quickly as possible.

A woman walks in Terra Nova fitness observing a few fighters working on power development. She instinctively asks “do you train woman ?” I smile “we actually train more woman than men.”

Similar scene this time a guy walks in an observes s a 73 year and 64 year old woman working power development and asks “do you only work with woman?”

Power development is essential for all sexes and phases of our life. For each phase of our life the thought process or justification is slightly different.

For athletes usually the fastest (among other qualities) has the competitive advantage so of course properly progressed power development is a main stay of our programming.

For the youth athlete power is a must for the long term athletic development. Speed kills and wins in competitive on field sports.

We have both slow twitch muscle (endurance) and fast twitch (power) muscles.

Youth also have transitional muscle fibers that can be influenced to go one way or the other. Depending on what stimulus the muscles are exposed too. We want our kids developing transitional fibers to fast twitch (power muscles) for there on field sports.

But if power is usually thought of as athletic development why in the world would you program power for the senior client? With each passing year we lose power development and/or our ability to react quickly.

We have all heard of the stories of a senior falling and breaking their hip. We talk about and blame weak hips, and osteoporosis. Don’t get me wrong they also deserve some of the blame as well. But it all started with a fall remember?

Why couldn’t they prevent the fall? They lacked power and/or the ability to quickly react to prevent the fall. With seniors power development means fall prevention.

Training seniors and not working on there power development is like investing your money with out contingency plans. Plain FOOLISH!

I know what you’re thinking power training and seniors sounds intimidating. Here is the comforting thing; power is relative to the individual. You just have to move at a speed or velocity quicker than they are accustomed to. It’s been our overwhelming experience that seniors really enjoy the power training part of there fitness program.

Here are a few phase 1 power development exercises that are usually appropriate unless your assessment and/or screen deems them contraindicated. (Special thank to Ernie who is 70 years young in these videos)

Mball overhead slams

Mball chest pass

Box jumps

Volume or foot contacts- Very low, no more than 15-30 foot contacts per foot per week for first 3 weeks.

Phase 1 regardless of population is all about mastering landing mechanics

Most injuries happen not on take off but on landing. Start as low as possible with jump height. Someone in this population might not have jumped in 40 years.

Each height we go through for 2-4 weeks for senior population.