How To Maintain Explosiveness As You Age

One of the more interesting things I've noticed coaching masters athletes is that two athletes can be the same age, compete in the same event, and have completely different experiences when it comes to explosiveness. One athlete reaches their 50s or 60s and feels like every year brings another drop-off in speed and power. The other still looks sharp, reactive and athletic. Neither athlete has discovered a way to stop ageing, but they often train very differently.

That's important because many athletes assume losing explosiveness is simply part of getting older. To a degree, age matters. We can't pretend otherwise. But I think we sometimes give ageing too much credit and training too little. In many cases, what appears to be inevitable decline is actually the result of gradual changes in the way an athlete trains.

Over the years, I've seen plenty of athletes drift away from the qualities they most want to preserve. A sprinter does a little less sprinting because recovery takes longer. A runner stops including strides because they don't seem essential. A swimmer spends less time working at race pace. Gym work becomes more controlled and less explosive. None of these changes seem particularly significant at the time, but after several years they can fundamentally change the athlete you're training your body to become.

The body is incredibly adaptable. That's one of the reasons training works in the first place. But adaptation cuts both ways. If most of your training becomes steady, controlled and submaximal, your body gradually becomes very good at producing steady, controlled and submaximal efforts. Speed, power and explosiveness are different qualities. They need to be challenged if they're going to be maintained.

That's why I often tell athletes that many people stop training speed before they stop needing speed.

It's rarely a conscious decision. More often, it happens gradually. Life becomes busier. Recovery becomes more important. High-quality speed work feels harder to justify than another steady session. Before long, the fastest movement an athlete performs all week is nowhere near the speeds required in competition. A few years later they conclude that ageing has taken away their explosiveness, when in reality they may have stopped giving their body a reason to hold onto it.

This doesn't mean masters athletes should train like they're 25. In fact, that's often where things go wrong. The answer isn't to pile on more intensity or ignore recovery. The athletes who maintain their explosiveness best are usually very good at balancing both sides of the equation. They continue exposing themselves to speed and force production throughout the year, but they also recognise that these qualities require freshness. They understand that being tired and being productive are not always the same thing.

One of the biggest differences I see between younger and older athletes is margin for error. Younger athletes can often carry substantial fatigue and still perform reasonably well. Masters athletes generally have less room to get away with that. When fatigue accumulates, speed and power are often the first qualities to disappear. That's why maintaining explosiveness is rarely just a power issue. It's often a training organisation issue. The challenge is creating enough opportunities to move fast and produce force while remaining fresh enough to benefit from those sessions.

The athletes who continue performing well into their 50s, 60s and beyond aren't defying biology. They simply recognise that ageing changes the way training needs to be approached. They remain committed to the qualities that matter for performance, but they're often more selective in how they develop them. They appreciate the value of recovery without allowing training to become comfortable. Most importantly, they continue asking their bodies to do the things they want them to be capable of doing.

Ageing will influence performance. That's unavoidable. But the idea that explosiveness inevitably disappears at a certain age doesn't match what I've observed in practice. The body remains capable of remarkable adaptation well into later decades of life. What changes is not the opportunity to improve, but the way improvement is achieved.

That's an important distinction, because ageing changes how you train, not whether you can continue to be explosive.

Click here for more insights

Click coaching options