Like every a part of your body, your bones need maintenance to remain healthy and robust. Exercise is considered one of the pillars of bone maintenance and prevention of falls. By taking steps now, you may also help maintain your bone mass and even construct more of it, reducing your risk of debilitating fractures later in life.
Certain varieties of exercise can increase muscle mass, which in turn increases strength, muscle control, balance and coordination. Good balance and coordination can mean the difference between falling and suffering a fracture and staying in your feet. In fact, strong evidence suggests that regular physical activity can reduce falls by about one-third in older adults at high risk of falls.
All exercises for strengthening bones have a number of of the next attributes.
Provide resistance. In these types of exercise, you challenge your muscles by working against some type of resistance, akin to dumbbells, elastic bands, and even your individual body weight. Resistance exercises, including classic strength training, depend on muscle contractions that stimulate bones to stretch them to bulk them up.
A weight lifter. Weight-bearing exercise is any activity, akin to running, walking, dancing, climbing, stair climbing, or playing tennis, golf, or basketball, by which you lift your body weight and work against gravity. This contrasts with non-weight-bearing activities akin to swimming or cycling, where the water or bicycle supports your body weight. When you do weight-bearing activities, the force you exert against gravity is what stimulates the bones to grow to be stronger.
Provide impact. When you jump or pound the bottom with each step while running, you multiply the load effect of gravity. That’s why high-impact activities often have a more pronounced impact on bones than low-impact exercises.
High speed. The effect can increase as your speed increases. For example, jogging or high-speed aerobics will do more to strengthen your bones than leisurely jogging or slow calisthenics exercises.
Include sudden changes of direction. Changing direction while moving also advantages the bones. When researchers examined bone strength within the hips of varied athletes, they found that those that played sports like soccer and squash, which involve quick turns and start-and-stop movements, had the identical bone strength as those that did high-impact sports, akin to triple jumpers and high jumpers—and all had higher bone density.
Improve balance. Exercises that focus on balance might not be optimal for bone constructing, but they are going to help prevent falls, so additionally they function bone protection.
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