Speed fades first: why rising from a chair may be the aging test that matters

When an older person struggles to get up from a chair, the problem is rarely shrinking muscle — it is slowing muscle. A French team led by Elodie Piche at Université Côte d'Azur studied 319 adults aged 60 to 97 and found that muscle power — how fast a muscle can contract, not just how hard — fades with age far more steeply than muscle size or strength, with the sharpest drop between 71 and 80. That matters because power is what daily independence runs on: standing up, catching yourself, climbing a step. The hopeful flip side is that power is also measurable with nothing more than a chair and a stopwatch, and trainable — the researchers point to resistance exercise done at speed, lifting with intent rather than slowly, as the approach that targets exactly what fades first. Published in BMC Geriatrics, the study argues clinics should treat power, not just strength, as a key sign of how well someone is aging.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being