| I was most horrified the other day when Mum came for a walk with me. We were walking along at a medium pace and I noticed she was walking with a stoop, her head was down and her back was hunched over. I said "MUM, stand up!!!! and walk with your back straight". Then we got into the conversation about how her doctor was going to give her some medication to help prevent osteoperosis and increase her bone density blah blah blah. I said "MUM its not about pills, its about weight training and keeping strong which will help to strengthen you and your bones. I don't know how many years I've been telling her to go the gym, I've even written out a programme for her many times for things she can do at home but no, she hasn't done anything about it. |
 Stand up straight Mum!! |
| Sure, she's pretty active and in good health for 60something but weight training will just give her than extra workout her bones and muscles need to stay strong as she ages. This will also help her hopefully not break any bones if she happens to fall down...eek lets hope this doesn't happen. Osteoporosis is a disease of the bones that affects men and women, especially women beyond menopause because estrogen helps to protect bone. In osteoporosis, the bones become brittle and weak and have a greater risk of fracture. The word osteoporosis means "porous bones," where porous essentially means "full of holes" -- and that accurately describes the condition of osteoporotic bones. Postmenopausal women are especially prone to osteoporosis because they lack estrogen. Most women know this and begin to take calcium supplements to ward off the debilitating disease. Calcium supplements are important, but according to Kathy Keeton's book, Longevity, they are not enough. Not only does your body need magnesium and other nutrients to assimilate calcium into your bones, it also needs strength training to retain calcium. Keeton quotes nutritional biochemist Dr. Neil S. Orenstein: "Without consideration of these effects, no amount of calcium supplementation will prevent osteoporosis."   How can exercise prevent osteoporosis? Muscle pulling on bone builds bone, so weight-bearing exercise builds denser, stronger bones. The more bone mass you build before age 25 or 30, the better off you will be during the years of gradual bone loss. Exercise can also help you maintain bone density later in life. The best exercises for building bone are weight- or load-bearing exercises. These include weight-lifting, jogging, hiking, stair-climbing, step aerobics, dancing, racquet sports, and other activities that require your muscles to work against gravity. Swimming and simply walking, although good for cardiovascular fitness, are not the best exercises for building bone. Thirty minutes of weight-bearing exercise daily benefits not only your bones, but improves heart health, muscle strength, coordination, and balance. Those 30 minutes don't need to be done all at once; it's just as good for you to do 10 minutes at a time. |
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| Never too late! I told Mum its never too late to start weight training. I think she has this weird idea she has to do olympic weight lifting with huge weights and she'll get all bulky. She even thought she was going to get big just by having that one protein shake I gave her!!! MUM!!!!!! All that she, and any other girls/ladies out there would need to do, is 3 days a week of circuit style weight training alternating upper and lower body exercises. It doesn't have to be super heavy to start with, 3 sets each of 12-15 reps is plenty for your first month. Then with each month try to push a little more so you continually get stronger. |
 Hopefully Mum will actually use the extension machine instead of just resting on it next time! |
" Numerous studies demonstrate strength training's ability to increase bone mass, especially spinal bone mass. According to Keeton, a research study by Ontario's McMaster University found that a year-long strength training program increased the spinal bone mass of postmenopausal women by nine percent. Furthermore, women who do not participate in strength training actually experience a decrease in bone density.
In Prescription Alternatives, Professor Earl Mindell and Virginia Hopkins detail these findings: "In a recent study on bone density and exercise, older women who did high-intensity weight training two days per week for a year were able to increase their bone density by one percent, while a control group of women who did not exercise had a bone density decrease of 1.8 to 2.5 percent. The women who exercised also had improved muscle strength and better balance, while both decreased in the non-exercising group." |
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