The first thing your body loses after 60 isn’t strength, and it isn’t muscle mass. It’s muscle power, and almost no doctor is testing for it. In this episode I walk you through powerpenia, the newly named decline that predicts falls, mobility, and even longevity better than the measures most clinics actually track.

Here’s the part most people miss. Muscle strength and muscle power are not the same thing, and they don’t decline at the same rate. Power, your ability to produce force quickly, falls first and fastest, often twice as fast as strength. It’s what lets you catch yourself when you trip, push up off the floor, or react when you lose your balance. The reason comes down to what happens to your fast-twitch fibers and motor neurons as you age, and the good news is that a specific kind of training can make the fibers you still have larger, faster, and more capable. I’ll show you the one rule that separates exercise that works from exercise that does nothing, plus a simple at-home power test and three exercises pulled straight from clinical trials in adults over 60.

In this episode you’ll learn:

* Why muscle power, not muscle mass, is the real predictor of fall risk and independence as you age

* What powerpenia is and why standard sarcopenia screening misses it entirely

* How fast-twitch fibers convert to slow-twitch ones, and how to slow or partly reverse it

* The five-times sit-to-stand test you can use at home to measure your lower-body power

* Three explosive, equipment-free exercises for adults over 60, and the speed rule that makes them work

* How just two to three fifteen-minute sessions a week can rebuild functional power

This is practical, science-forward lifestyle medicine you can start today.

Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/your-body-isnt-losing-muscle-first?r=4t8jxg

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