Why power fades first
As a masters athlete in your 30s, 40s, or beyond, you may notice subtle changes in how you move. The jog still feels like a jog. The deadlift still moves, just a little slower, or with a little more focus.
But that quick first step? The way you used to launch off a curb, change direction in a game, hop onto a log on a trail? That can feel less crisp, less bouncy, less powerful.
You're not imagining it. And you're not just "getting older." You're watching a very specific physiological pattern unfold, and it is one of the most overlooked truths in masters fitness, especially for women.
Here's the general order things tend to shift with age.
Endurance holds on the longest.
Strength gradually declines.
Power, explosiveness, speed, and the ability to produce force fast, tends to go first.
What the masters records show
One of the clearest ways we understand the aging curve is through Masters athletes, women and men who keep training and competing into their 50s, 70s, 80s, even past 100. Because they keep showing up, their data removes a lot of the noise and gives us a look at what aging itself does to performance.
A 2019 analysis of Masters World Records across track and field found something important. Decline is relatively gentle from age 30 to 50. It becomes more linear from 50 to 70. Then it steepens.
The bigger pattern is this. Explosive events like jumping, throwing, and sprinting decline faster than endurance events. A 65-year-old runner can often hold onto a striking percentage of her younger distance times. A 65-year-old long jumper cannot hold onto her distance the same way. The longer the effort lasts, the better aging skeletal muscle tends to tolerate it. The more it asks for fast, forceful contraction, the bigger the hit.
The same research also showed that the decline pattern is remarkably similar between men and women. Women may start about 10 to 15 percent lower in absolute output because of differences in muscle mass and strength, but the slope of decline stays almost parallel until about age 50. After that, women's decline appears to accelerate slightly faster than men's.
Why power drops faster than strength
Power is not the same as strength. This is where the distinction really matters.
Strength is how much force you can produce. Think of how much weight you can deadlift. Time does not matter. The question is simply, what is the maximum load you can move?
Power is force times velocity. So now the question becomes, how much weight can you move quickly? That could look like a fast deadlift, a medicine ball throw, or a jump off the floor.
For the keeners, explosiveness is that instant from stillness into action. It is a nervous system skill as much as a muscle skill. Think reaction time off the start gun, or a clap push-up. If the timing is off, the whole thing falls apart.
Strength and power both decline with age, but they do not decline in the same way. Power often drops faster because it depends on both the amount of force you can produce and how fast you can express it.
That is why a masters athlete can often still squat well, but not jump as high as she did ten years ago. The strength may still be there. The speed of contraction, the quick recruitment of motor units, the snap of fast-twitch fibres, has quietly eroded underneath.
The research gap behind the problem
If you're a woman over 40 and thinking, why am I only hearing about this now? there is a reason.
In 2024, an editorial in the British Journal of Sports Medicine called out something the sport and exercise science world has known for years. Midlife and postmenopausal women are still nearly invisible in the research.
The numbers are striking. Out of 5,261 studies surveyed across six major sport and exercise science journals, women and girls made up only about a third of participants. When researchers looked more closely, they estimated that women in midlife and beyond accounted for just 9% of total study participants. Of the studies focused exclusively on women, only 16% focused exclusively on older women.
That matters because estrogen and progesterone influence muscle, connective tissue, motor unit recruitment, and recovery, and they shift dramatically through perimenopause. Postmenopausal women also face a higher risk of osteoporosis, sarcopenia, cardiovascular disease, and dementia, and power based training is one of the most protective tools we have across those areas.
The training and recovery strategies that work for a 25-year-old athlete are not automatically the strategies that work for a 52-year-old woman in perimenopause. For too long, we've been guessing, and women have been expected to guess too.
Why this matters beyond sport
If you're not training for a race or a podium, this still applies to you more than you might think.
Muscle power is one of the strongest predictors of falls, fractures, hospitalization, and loss of independence later in life. It matters when you catch yourself after tripping, step over a curb, rise from a low chair, or react quickly enough to avoid a fall. That is power, not just strength.
And that is why this conversation matters.
Power is often the first capacity to fade, but it is also highly trainable at every age when you are deliberate about it.
What is coming next
In Part 2, we will get practical about the training tools that actually build power and explosiveness in midlife, why plyometrics like box jumps and lateral jumps belong in the conversation, and how to use your menstrual cycle as a training ally, especially when it comes to high intensity speed work, intervals, and hill efforts.
Power is the first thing to go. It does not have to be.
References
Alex Hutchinson, Outside magazine. Age and declining muscle power.
Dr. Andréa Proulx, ND is a naturopathic doctor and athlete practising in Ontario with a focus on healthcare and fitness for female athletes and masters athletes. This content is educational and is not a substitute for individualized clinical care.
Dr. Andrea Proulx, ND — helping female athletes crush fatigue, fix their hormones, and finally perform like the athlete they know they are. Read full bio