Strength Loss With Age: How Fast Does Muscle Decline?

Try as you might, it is impossible to fathom the toll that age takes on your ability to physically exert yourself in a training environment, or in just about any other capacity. This is because once you surpass a certain age — shortly after age 40  — the peak performance potential of your muscles gradually begins to erode, and all you can do is devote yourself as steadfastly as you can to slow your gradual decline.

Certainly, this descent can be magnified by the fact that the longer you live, the more likely it is that an event or set of circumstances will unfold that compromises your capacity to execute your workouts and maximize the results. However, even if you account for the accumulation of problems caused by wear and tear, injuries, or illnesses, your muscles would still weaken over time. How quickly will your potential dip? There’s now an abundance of workout data that is now available to help you calculate a reasonably accurate answer.

Upper Body Strength

Because so much data exists to calculate maximum bench press performance, it is one of the most useful tools for assessing just how quickly you are likely to lose strength in your upper body as you age. The average max bench press of an advanced male lifter sits consistently at just over 290 pounds for the entirety of the range between the ages of 25 and 40.

By the time you reach the age of 50, that number dips to approximately 260 pounds. At age 60, it falls to about 220 pounds. This is a decline of about 10 percent in the 10 year period between 40 and 50, and a further decline of about 15 percent during the 10 year period between 50 and 60, indicating that the rate of decline accelerates as your age progresses.

In total, the 70 pound performance dip from 290 pounds to 220 pounds represents a drop in upper-body pressing strength approaching 25 percent. This is a significant decline, and its near inevitability needs to be understood and expected in order for you to set practical expectations and minimize your future frustrations.

Lower Body Strength

While squatting undeniably sets the standard by which overall lower body power is typically measured, your performance on the squat is influenced by a number of factors including your foot width, leg length, your squatting depth, and even your own body weight, which does influence your performance more than you might think. However, the leg press eliminates some of these factors, and leaves you with a measurement of raw leg strength that is a bit more consistently applied across people of different sizes and shapes.

At an advanced level, most trainees can leg press around 710 pounds until they achieve the age of 40. By 50, that number dips to about 630 pounds, before falling to about 530 pounds when you reach 60. This indicates that over a 20-year period you can expect your total leg strength to fall by 25 percent. So, for the sake of being thorough, it is useful to observe how closely your expected decline in lower body strength will mirror that of your upper body. 

Muscle Endurance 

There are several variables that influence the number of pull-up repetitions you can complete. These include your body weight — especially the amount of excess body fat you’re carrying around — along with the length of your arms, because a muscle gets weaker as it gets longer. With that being said, the average number of pull-up repetitions an average man of an advanced fitness level can complete has been standardized.

Between the ages of 25 and 40, the average number of pull-ups that an advanced trainee can complete is fixed at 25 repetitions. By the age of 50, that number falls to 19 reps, and at the age of 60, it is projected to drop to 12. This is a 24-percent reduction of pulling endurance in a 10-year period, and a staggering 52-percent reduction in pulling endurance over a period of 20 years.

What these numbers indicate

It can be a humbling experience to watch as your performance measurements become less impressive in an absolute sense.They say that Father Time is undefeated, and while he may not take everything away from you in one fell swoop, you’ll eventually notice that you can’t quite move the weights around with ferocity that you could in your youth. 

Thankfully, by reining in your nutrition and training plans as quickly as possible, not only can you slow your inevitable decline, but you may even be able to achieve some personal records after surpassing the 40-year mark. So please remember that although you may no longer be able to match your lifetime milestones when you arrive in your older years, there are still plenty of advantages to be gained by continually aspiring to optimize each and every training opportunity.

Key Takeaways

1. A loss in strength potential is inevitable as you age, even under the best of circumstances.

2. Aggregate bench pressing data indicates that even above average lifters in good health lost nearly 25 percent of their upper body strength between 40 and 60 years of age.

3. Similarly, leg pressing data reveals a similar rate of lower body strength decline, as maximum leg press output also seems to drop by 25 percent.

4. Muscle endurance seems to take a deeper plunge than muscle strength, as the number of pull-up reps performed by advanced lifters appears to drop by more than 50 percent between the ages of 40 and 60.

5. Optimizing your training and nutrition plans while continuing to exercise consistently is the most efficient way to preserve your muscle strength and endurance at their maximum achievable levels as you gradually age.