You're listening to Life Kit from NPR.

Hey, it's Mariel.

So you've heard of strength training and you've heard of cardio, but have you heard of

training for explosive power?

Sounds kind of badass, right?

And it is.

Explosive power is the ability to generate a lot of force very quickly.

It is not necessarily lifting the heaviest load. It's about moving a lighter load very

quickly. Jessica Scott has her PhD in cardiovascular physiology, and she's the director of exercise

oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She says you'll need to do explosive power

training, which is also sometimes called ballistic power training or pliometric training. If you're

an athlete and you're running, jumping, throwing, hitting, flipping, but you'll also use it if you're not. It's a

component of our day-to-day movement. It's used for mobility when you're walking up and downstairs.

If you stumble or catch yourself while walking down the sidewalk, explosive power is what allows

you to catch yourself and not fall.

You even use explosive power when you're doing things like standing up from a seated position.

And here's the thing. As we age, our muscle mass declines.

And training for these forceful movements becomes even more important to prevent falls and injury.

Starting at about age 40, we lose one to two percent

of our fast twitch muscle fibers every year. These are a type of muscular cell that allow us to do

these explosive movements. But even before you reach your 40s, adding explosive power training

into your exercise routine can have a big impact. For instance, my nephew is a toddler, and he's always running around,

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