Body Tempo

This months article is for all the mothers, daughters, sisters, grandmothers, and aunties and nieces. Lets be proactive to prevent osteoporosis.

What is osteoporosis?

Osteoporosis is a condition that affects bone strength (the word osteoporosis literally means “porous bones”). Bone is made of collagen fibres (tough, elastic fibres) and minerals (gritty, hard material). It is a living tissue and contains cells that make, mold and resorb (take back up) bone. Initially, as you grow, bone formation exceeds bone resorption. But, as you get older, this reverses and, after about the age of 30 for women and 45 for men, you start to lose a certain amount of bone material. Your bones become less dense and less strong. The amount of bone loss can vary.

Osteoporosis alone does not produce any symptoms. Most people with this condition are unaware that their bones are thinning until they experience a fracture.

One of the best ways to prevent this disease is to weight train and to build of your bone density. Women stop building bones by age of 30 and from there begin to lose bone mass. Keep in mind its never too late to start recreating or maintaining bone mass.

One of the best ways to prevent this condition is Exercise.

The pulling and tugging on the bones by your muscles during exercise helps to stimulate bone-making weight-bearing exercise throughout life is best, but it is never too late to start. This means exercise where your feet and legs bear your body’s weight, such as brisk walking, dancing, weight training, etc. For older people, a regular walk is a good start. However, the more vigorous the exercise, the better. For most benefit you should exercise regularly – aiming for at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise or physical activity at least five times per week. Excessive exercise such as marathon running may not be so good. (Note: because swimming is not weight-bearing exercise, this is not so helpful in preventing osteoporosis.) 

Muscle strengthening exercises are also important. They help to give strength to the supporting muscles around bones. This helps to increase tone, improve balance, etc, which may help to prevent you from falling. Examples of muscle strengthening exercises include weight lifting but you do not necessarily have to lift weights in a gym. There are some simple exercises that you can do at home.

If you are new to exercise or have not been properly trained in weight lifting it’s important to hire a personal trainer or weight trainer to make sure that you are executing the exercises properly to ensure safe training without injury. Training incorrectly can create a whole another series of problems in your structural health that can affect other areas of your life.

If you are looking for small group training in a private gym or one-on-one training I would be happy to sit down with you for a FREE consultation to discuss your goals.