Less Fatigue, Similar Leg Gains? A Trial in Older Adults

For older adults lifting under supervision, stopping a set when bar or machine speed drops by 10% may deliver much of the lower-body payoff of pushing to a 20% drop—while requiring fewer repetitions. That is the useful finding from a small randomized trial. It is not proof that easier-feeling training improves recovery, adherence, or safety. The study did not compare those outcomes.

Velocity loss is a practical way to measure fatigue within a set. If the first repetition moves at a given speed and later repetitions slow down, the percentage drop in speed gives the stopping point. A 10% velocity-loss target ends the set sooner than 20%, usually before fatigue accumulates as far. The question is whether those omitted repetitions cost meaningful results.

Diogo Luis Marques and colleagues' 2024 randomized trial gives a narrow but relevant answer: perhaps not for several lower-body outcomes over 10 weeks. The trial does not establish a universal rule, but it makes set-ending criteria worth taking more seriously than the usual "train hard" advice.

A small trial tested the stopping point inside the set

The study randomized 18 older adults to resistance training that stopped at either 10% or 20% velocity loss. The 10% group included 10 participants with a mean age of 78 ± 12 years; the 20% group included eight participants with a mean age of 73 ± 10 years. Both groups trained under supervision and underwent repeated testing before, during, and after the 10-week intervention.

The researchers assessed leg-press and chest-press one-repetition maximum (1RM), movement velocity at lighter and heavier relative loads, five-repetition sit-to-stand time, handgrip strength, and 10-meter walking time. These are performance measures, not direct measures of independence, falls, hospitalization, or quality of life. Still, leg strength and chair-rise performance are more useful than a vague claim that a program "supports healthy aging."

The central result was a null between-group comparison: the study reported no statistically significant differences between the 10% and 20% groups for any measured outcome at any time point; all reported between-group p values exceeded 0.05. That does not prove the two approaches are equivalent. With only 18 participants, the trial may have missed meaningful differences, and the published abstract does not report confidence intervals or exact change magnitudes.

Within each group, leg-press 1RM improved from baseline to the mid-intervention and post-intervention assessments. Both groups also improved leg-press movement velocity at loads below 60% of 1RM and at loads of at least 60% of 1RM from baseline to mid-intervention. Five-repetition sit-to-stand time improved in both groups. The reported within-group p values for those improvements were below 0.05.

The 10% velocity-loss group achieved those lower-body results with fewer repetitions than the 20% group. That is the efficiency finding. The abstract does not state the exact repetition totals, so it cannot tell readers how large the volume reduction was.

Lower fatigue did not win every outcome

The trial does not support the claim that 10% velocity loss is better across the board. Neither group significantly improved chest-press 1RM, although both improved chest-press movement velocity at lighter loads. More notably, only the 20% velocity-loss group showed statistically significant improvements in handgrip strength and 10-meter walking time.

Those results do not prove that 20% velocity loss improves grip or walking more than 10%. The direct between-group tests were non-significant. But they do block a tidy story in which less fatigue preserves every benefit. The higher-loss group accumulated more repetitions, and some outcomes may respond differently to that added work. Handgrip also does not map neatly onto leg press, which is exactly why one endpoint should not impersonate the whole program.

For an older adult whose immediate goal is lower-body strength, leg movement speed, and chair-rise performance, the 10% threshold looks plausible under supervised conditions. For someone prioritizing walking performance or broader strength outcomes, this single trial leaves the choice unresolved.

What the broader literature supports—and what it does not

The larger evidence base supports resistance training for strength in older adults, but it does not validate one velocity-loss threshold. A 2025 meta-analysis by Ruiqing Sun and colleagues pooled 22 randomized controlled trials involving 959 older adults with sarcopenia. Resistance training improved handgrip strength, with a standardized mean difference of 0.83 (95% confidence interval, 0.43 to 1.23), and knee-extension strength, with a standardized mean difference of 0.90 (95% confidence interval, 0.50 to 1.30).

Those confidence intervals exclude zero, so the pooled strength results were statistically significant. They do not convert into a simple number of extra kilograms of grip strength or a guaranteed change in daily function, because standardized mean differences combine studies that used different measures. The same meta-analysis found no statistically significant improvement in chair-stand performance overall. Strength and function often travel together, but they do not share a lease.

Sun and colleagues also reported larger strength effects in protocols using at least three sets and loads above 70% of 1RM. Their body-composition analyses favored programs lasting 8 to 12 weeks with three sets, slower contraction speeds, and loads of 60% to 70% of 1RM. That split matters: the program that best serves one outcome may not best serve another. It also complicates any broad claim that less accumulated fatigue is always preferable.

Other trials show that several well-designed approaches can work. In a 2022 randomized study by Luis Leitao and colleagues, 95 women aged 60 to 75 completed 16 weeks of supervised training twice weekly. The study compared strength-endurance, absolute-strength, traditional, and power-focused programs with a control group. Sessions were separated by 72 to 96 hours, loads progressed every two weeks, participants avoided failure, and total repetitions were matched at 20 to 25 per exercise.

That design supports the feasibility of organized, subfailure resistance training in community-dwelling older women. It cannot answer whether fewer repetitions would have produced the same outcome because the investigators deliberately equalized repetitions across training styles.

A review by Itamar Vieira and colleagues concluded that high-speed resistance training can improve strength, power, and functional performance in older adults, depending on the protocol and population. This supports the idea that moving with high intent can matter. It does not show that stopping at 10% velocity loss beats stopping at 20%.

The population can matter as much as the programming detail. A 32-week randomized trial by Luis Polo-Ferrero and colleagues studied power training in community-dwelling older women with sarcopenic obesity, a higher-risk group than many healthy older-adult samples. It evaluates power training as a modality, not velocity-loss thresholds within sets. Likewise, a randomized crossover trial by Paolo Cunha and colleagues found no major differences in the main health outcomes across four exercise orders in trained older women over a 63-week intervention. Once a program is controlled and participants already train, some session-structure details may be flexible.

What the study cannot tell you

The direct velocity-loss evidence comes from one 18-person trial. Its randomized, supervised design strengthens its ability to test the specific set endpoint, but the sample limits precision and generalizability. Most supporting research also involves supervised, community-dwelling older adults. It cannot automatically guide frail adults, people in institutions, or people training alone with poor technique.

The 2024 abstract does not report exact outcome changes, confidence intervals for those changes, session exertion, soreness, delayed recovery, adherence, adverse events, or between-group safety outcomes. Claims that a 10% threshold improves recovery or makes training safer would therefore be speculation. Fewer repetitions may feel appealing, but "may" is doing real work in that sentence.

Velocity-based programming also requires reliable measurement of movement speed. A coach or device can track it; guessing based on how slow a repetition looked is less precise. People should not chase explosive movement at the expense of control, joint tolerance, or medical guidance.

The practical verdict

Resistance training is a well-supported foundation for improving strength in older adults, including those with sarcopenia. The more specific claim is smaller: in 18 supervised older adults over 10 weeks, stopping sets at 10% velocity loss produced similar lower-body strength, movement-velocity, and sit-to-stand improvements to a 20% cutoff while using fewer repetitions. The higher-loss group alone showed significant within-group gains in handgrip strength and 10-meter walking time, while direct between-group differences remained non-significant.

That makes velocity loss a reasonable programming lever to test, not a settled prescription. A lower threshold may suit an older lifter trying to preserve lower-body performance with less within-set work under qualified supervision. Larger trials need to show whether that economy changes recovery, adherence, safety, long-term retention, or everyday function before anyone treats 10% as the magic number.

For now, the evidence supports precision over bravado: stop sets based on a measurable fatigue target when possible, then judge the program by the outcome you actually want.