Share:

Osteoporosis is a major public health problem affecting elderly populations, especially women. Not everyone knows that exercise plays an important role in building and maintaining bone strength. Just like muscles, bones are forced to bear more weight than they are used to if they are under stress. In other words when you exercise, you don’t just build muscles and endurance. You also build and maintain the amount and thickness of your bones. This can be accomplished by weight bearing but more importantly impact exercises.

There are three types of exercise that affect osteoporosis (weight-bearing, resistance and flexibility). Weight bearing exercise means that your feet and legs support your body’s weight. These include walking, hiking, dancing, stair climbing (at Cheetahfit Training center we use Jacobs Ladder and many other forward thrusting movements), future method squats, etc. Sports like swimming and bicycling are great for your lungs and heart, but are not weight-bearing exercises for osteoporosis. In one study the majority of Tour De France riders were found to have an average of 30% spinal density loss.

Resistance exercise means that you are working against the weight of another object. Resistance helps with osteoporosis because it builds bone and strengthens muscle. Studies have shown that resistance exercise increases bone density and therefore reduces the risk of fractures. To get the best results you need to do resistance training at least two to three times per week. At The Cheetahfit Personal Training Center we recommend that you make the exercise more challenging by adjusting tempo, muscle force production and vector loading. Also, make sure that you work on different muscle groups and don’t do resistance training on the same muscle group two days in a row. Each muscle group needs time to recover.

Many people worry about the safety of exercise later in live when they get older and more fragile. You might be especially concerned if you already have osteoporosis or osteopenia. And maybe you have never even been very physically active. Our trainers at The Cheetahfit Personal Training Center choose from a range of safe exercise options. We encourage you to talk to your doctor to see how much bone loss you have. Decreased bone density is growing problem in modern societies. Exercise remains one of the best alternatives to drug treatments for maintaining and improving bone density.  

tracking