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Strengthen Your Bones By Joy DuMay, Certified Fitness Trainer Did you know that you can grow bones? Yes, it's true: bone is a unique connective tissue that becomes mineralized, thereby providing a rigid support structure. This structure is actually a very active tissue that is sensitive to changes in the forces it experiences and has the capacity for growth and regeneration if damaged. The maintenance of bone mass is related in part to hormonal and nutritional factors, but it is also related to the level of physical activity of an individual. After about age 25, the mass and structural integrity of bone begin to decline in the average man or woman. If a person has a mostly sedentary lifestyle, they may be on the road to osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is a disease in which bone mineral density and bone mass become reduced to critically low levels. Although it occurs largely in post-menopausal women, there is an increasing rate of incidence among elderly men. When the bone becomes this compromised, forces that would normally be absorbed by the skeleton now result in bone fractures. The sites of fracture that are the most devastating are in the axial skeleton (the spine and hip). What kind of training is the best for increasing your bone strength? Activities that stimulate muscle growth and strength gains also stimulate the growth of bone and associated connective tissue. Trainers generally refer to this type of training as "weight bearing". The following are three principles to guide you in your selection of exercises. Make sure that you get advice from a qualified fitness professional to develop a program that suits your individual needs. strength equipment Progressive Overload Progressively place greater-than-normal demands on the exercising muscles. If you have been sedentary, just walking around the block may be sufficient stimulus to build bone. Bone responds to the magnitude and rate of external loading: therefore, it is necessary to increase the resistance by making the exercise progressively more difficult. Start out easy and add weight slowly. If you suspect that you have very low bone mass, it would be wise to have some form of bone imaging before you embark on a fitness program. Specificity Perform an exercise that directly affects your target bones. Doing a Squat (which starts in a standing position and involves bending from the hips, knees and ankles) puts more force on your spine than a Wrist Curl (flexion and extension of the wrist). When you press weight up overhead in a Shoulder Press, you'll be strengthening your upper skeleton. If you're new to weight bearing exercises, body part exercises are useful: you'll increase your kinesthetic awareness and begin to condition your muscles. However, after becoming more familiar with strength building exercises, you'll want to incorporate the third principle, Variation. Variation Choose exercises that involve many muscle groups. Use of isolation exercises that stabilize that rest of the body should be limited when your goal is bone building. If your body is braced for isolating one muscle group, you won't get the synergistic and stabilizing benefits of a structural exercise (one that involves many muscle groups). Structural exercises like squats (for the spinal skeleton) and bench presses and overhead presses (for the upper limbs) also allow you to lift heavier loads during training. The National Strength and Conditioning Association has set exercise prescription guidelines for stimulating bone growth. They suggest performing 3-6 sets of up to 10 repetitions, rest of 1-4 minutes between sets, and selection of structural exercises such as: Squats, Deadlifts, Bench Press and Shoulder Press. Bio Joy DuMay (805) 687-8215 email: sbworkout@hotmail.com Joy has worked as a Personal Fitness Trainer for over 18 years, incorporating her background in Physical Therapy, dance and sports training into workouts that work for her clients. She has won national awards as an aerobics competitor, produced and starred in her own fitness cable television show, The Santa Barbara Workout, and currently appears as the Fitness Expert on KEYT, an ABC affiliate. Joy's goal as a trainer is to provide intelligent, efficient fitness programs that teach others the love of movement.