Osteoporosis is one of those silent diseases that can creep up on you before you know you have it. To combat Osteoporosis and help keep your bones healthy for a lifetime, it is important to increase your Skeletal Fitness!
Osteoporosis is a disease, which, over time, causes bones to become thinner, more porous and less able to support the body. Usually there is no pain in the early stages.
44 million of us are at risk for Osteoporosis. The vast majority are women.
Women often develop Osteopenia (low bone mass that can lead to Osteoporosis) in the first few years after menopause because they lose bone-protecting estrogen.
However, we can prevent and help reverse the effects of Osteoporosis by working out our bones. On the outside, bones look solid and rock-like, but they are not.
They are living tissue. There is a smooth, hard, outside layer made of cortical bone, and the inside, is a strong, lightweight, honeycomb-like structure, called trabecular bone, which contains blood vessels, and bone marrow. The combination of cortical and trabecular bone enables the skeleton to be light, strong, flexible and efficient.
By young adulthood, our bones have grown to their full size and density. However, activity in our bones is far from over. In a cycle called remodeling, old and weakened areas of our skeletons are broken down and replaced with new well-formed tissue. Adults have about 10 to 15 percent of their bone replaced each year.
In bones with Osteoporosis, the remodeling cycle is out of balance. Bone is broken down but little or nothing takes its place. The outside hard cortical layer gets thinner, and the honeycombed, trabecular inside becomes more porous.
Most people do not discover they have Osteoporosis until a fracture occurs.
Fractures occur most often at the spine, at the hip, and at the wrist.
The good news is since bones are living tissue they can become denser with weight bearing exercise.
For example, astronauts lose bone mass in the weightlessness of space. To combat this, NASA is training astronauts for a mission to Mars, to do weight bearing exercises that will simulate the exercises they will need to do in space to maintain their bone mass. Weight bearing exercise for Skeletal Fitness is called bone loading. When working out your bones it is important to load the areas most at risk for fracture: the spine, the hip, and the wrist.
So for instance, try these Do’s to help load the three areas most at risk:
Remember; always exhale on exertion when you are lifting a weight. Start with a comfortable weight and add one pound every couple of weeks, or, when it feels too easy.
As you get stronger, you can add a full body weight-training program with special emphasis on the areas at risk for Osteoporosis.
Weight train every other day, because your body needs time to recover and grow stronger.
If you are at risk for or have Osteoporosis, here are some Don’ts:
Moreover, remember, it is never too early or too late to start working out your bones! For more information on bone loading workouts, please visit my website, www.movingfree.com.
Mirabai Holland M.F.A. is one of the leading authorities in the Health & Fitness industry, and public health activist who specializes in preventive and rehabilitative exercise for women. Her Moving Free approach to exercise is designed to provide a movement experience so pleasant it does not feel like work.
