Build Healthier & Stronger Bones

Get active and exercise for a stronger and healthier bone. Bone is formed by specialized cells and like the rest of the entire body. The bones that we have are being broken down and renewed on an ongoing basis. The bones that we have are made of living tissue that needs exercise to gain its strength, just like the muscles that we have attached to our bones. 

When we are younger there is more bone that is being broken down on a regular basis, but by the end of our teens, bone has completed growth. By the time you are around 25 or 30 years old your ‘peak bone mass’ has been reached and achieved.

So what role does exercise play during this time in your life? Regular physical exercise and strength training plays an important role in ensuring that our bone density is at an optimum level – not just for our bones but also for the support network of our bones: Our muscles.

In order for strength training to be effective, the exercise that we are doing must be regular and ongoing, because our bones and muscles become stronger only when a certain amount of regular pressure and impact is placed on them.

The best thing for your bone health is to do specific exercises and to supplement your calcium intake with organic osteoporosis supplements. That way you’re meeting the needs of your diet and of your exercise, and you’ll have a nice strong set of bones to show for your efforts.

Bones through the life cycle

Your goals will change throughout your life depending on the age that you are. When you’re younger your body is focused on building optimum bone strength and on maximising your calcium intake to develop your skeleton. 

As you age, your exercise routine is going to be focused on optimizing and maintaining your muscle and bone strength and on keeping yourself strong, and then as you get older you’re going to focusing on reducing overall bone loss.

What kinds of exercises should I do?

You can work to make sure that you’re doing the right kind of exercises as you age, but despite your age you’re always going to benefit from the following:

• Weight bearing exercises – brisk walks, yoga, jogging, skipping, netball, tennis, dancing, aerobics

• Resistance training – weights training, gym workouts

The ability of an exercise to build bone is going to depend on the overall way in which stress is applied to your bones during the exercise. To this end, exercises that aren’t weight bearing - like swimming and cycling - may be good for your overall health but will not impact on your overall bone health. They can however be incorporated as part of a bone strengthening exercise routine that is part of your regular practice.

How often should I work out?

In order to get the best kind of benefit from your workout that you possibly can, you need to make sure that your exercise routine is following a certain progression and that you’re practicing your exercise regularly. 

You should make sure that you are exercising at least as often as three times per week and you should be always be working to progress your exercise over time so that the weights you’re using and the degree of difficulty are getting stronger.

You need to increase the challenge for yourself over time in order to challenge your bones, and to grow the bone’s strength. Finally, you need to ensure that your exercise routine is varied and is performed in short and intensive bursts so that you’re getting the maximum benefit for yourself.

By incorporating a wide range of exercises, strength training tactics and variation into your workout routine you can be sure to put yourself into a good position for the best possible bone health that you can have.