Exercise Your Way To Stronger Bones!

Hey team!

It’s super important to incorporate exercises that maintain your bone health when creating your wellness plan. Bones function in the body to provide structural support, protect internal organs, enable movement, store minerals and produce blood cells. Therefore, strong and healthy bones are essential to maintain these functions for overall health and well-being.

Bone is continuously being modified through bone breakdown or bone formation in response to various stimuli including mechanical loading, nutrition, hormones and nutrient needs. This process allows the body to remove damaged bone as well as repair and preserve bone tissue. If there is a balance between the amount of bone formation and breakdown, bone mass will be maintained; however, as we age, this balance shifts as bone resorption begins to exceed bone formation, resulting in a loss of bone over time.

Bone mass peaks between the ages of 25 and 30 years and then gradually declines over time, with accelerated losses occurring in women after the onset of menopause. Some contributing factors to the loss of bone over time are increased sedentary activity, low calcium and vitamin D levels, and hormonal changes, especially the loss of estrogen during menopause, which plays a large role in maintaining bone. Greater losses in bone over time can lead to osteoporosis, loss of bone tissue, and increased risk for fractures.

Exercise is a highly effective way to combat these age-related losses in bone, as the mechanical load caused by exercise has been found to improve bone mass and bone mineral density. To build strong bones, resistance training and high-impact training should be incorporated into your exercise plan.

Resistance exercises can be performed with machines, free weights, bands or body weight and should be performed at least 2 days per week for 2-3 sets of 8-12 repetitions. Focus on pushing, pulling, squatting, lunging, and twisting. High-impact exercises that include movements such as jumping, skipping and running are beneficial for preventing bone loss as well. Greater benefits have been found with exercise programs that incorporate a combination of resistance training with high-impact exercises - such as my HIIT class!!!

Below is your opportunity to exercise your way to stronger bones!! Please sign up for the classes you’d like to take. All HIIT and HIIT Yoga classes will be inside at The Little Theater if it’s raining and outside on The Rec basketball court if it’s sunny.

Monday: HIIT at The Rec - 8:15-9:15 am

Tuesday: HIIT Yoga Fusion at The Rec - 8:15-9:15 am

Thursday: PiYo at The Athletic Club - 12-1 pm

Friday: HIIT at The Rec - 8:15-9:15 am

Shine on SoulShiners!!!

Jode xo

Reference: American Council on Exercise