Category Archives: Physical Activity Guidelines

How to Exercise Safely with Bone Loss-Free NOF Webinar

How to Exercise Safely with Bone Loss-Free NOF Webinar

If you weren’t able to attend NOF’s live webinar, “How to Exercise Safely with Bone Loss” on Wednesday, here’s the link to the recording. March 7, 2018: Join NOF for our second online community webinar on Wednesday, March 7 at noon Eastern. NOF online community volunteer moderator, personal trainer and physical education instructor, Susie Hathaway… Continue Reading

Learn to Move Safely with Osteoporosis

Learn to Move Safely with Osteoporosis

Newly Diagnosed with Bone Loss? 1st Priority: Learn to Move Safely When first diagnosed with bone loss, people often want to jump into a bone-strengthening exercise program, ASAP! While it’s a good idea to pursue weight bearing and muscle strengthening exercise, it’s even more important to find the ways you might already be putting your spine at risk during your… Continue Reading

10 Tips for Osteoporosis Prevention Exercise

10 Tips for Osteoporosis Prevention Exercise

Women sometimes contact me on their way home from a doctor’s appointment. Their bone density scan has shown bone loss and their doctor wants to put them on medication. They’ve also been told to strength train, do weight-bearing exercise, and change their eating habits. It can be overwhelming, dealing with a bone loss diagnosis and… Continue Reading

4 Tips for Starting an Osteoporosis Prevention Exercise Program

4 Tips for Starting an Osteoporosis Prevention Exercise Program

Ease into any new exercise program. As you start increasing your daily exercise to help your bones, be sure to do it gradually. You don’t need to start with a huge overload. Working a little bit harder than what you’ve been doing in any activity will help your muscles safely get stronger which then creates a stronger pull on your bones during exercise. Continue Reading

Overtraining: Get the Right Amount of Exercise to Prevent Osteoporosis

Overtraining: Get the Right Amount of Exercise to Prevent Osteoporosis

Overtraining? You mean we can get too much exercise? Yes! I often feel like a cheerleader for incorporating regular safe movement and exercise into your daily schedule to prevent fractures, osteoporosis and low bone density (osteopenia). Have fun with it! Move safely! Vary your routine! Make it social! Sometimes, however, I need to suggest that… Continue Reading

5 Traits of Centenarians, Staying Active, and Housework

5 Traits of Centenarians, Staying Active, and Housework

One of the four main traits that were common to the group was being active and staying mobile. They chose to do things in a more physical way, eschewing some modern conveniences. The range in mobility was huge, from a man who swam a mile in the Atlantic to a wheelchair bound woman who made a circuit in her mobile home, completing it 15 times a day. She felt that in order to keep moving, she had to make herself move to live. Continue Reading

Exercise Less and Accomplish More? Add Weight-Bearing Activities Throughout Your Day for Stronger Bones

Exercise Less and Accomplish More? Add Weight-Bearing Activities Throughout Your Day for Stronger Bones

Keeping a strong body with strong bones in the midst of a busy life can be a scheduling challenge! Awhile back, I switched from teaching my Safe Strength Training for Osteoporosis Prevention classes from three days a week to two days. My class participants and clients are generally between the age of 50 and 75. Many of us weren’t feeling fully recovered with only 48 hours between our hour-long, vigorous workouts. Read more about how 72 hours seemed to do the trick.

In a progressive resistance/strength training program, fully recovered muscles grow stronger after each workout. Those stronger skeletal muscles, all of which are attached to bone, then pull harder on your bones during movement, stimulating them to slow down bone loss and possibly even grow stronger.

Other research supports twice-weekly strength training as optimal for those in the over-fifty age group. That schedule provides plenty of time for other aerobic, heart-healthy types of activities. I love to see the recent research which helps us piece together the puzzle of what constitutes, “The Illusive Optimal Fitness Routine.”

Rest assured, many varied paths can lead to good, overall fitness. Continue Reading