NYTimes: Building Up Bones, With a Little Bashing

peggy_j

This article claims that exercise to "bash our bones" is even more effective than walking.

Building Up Bones, With a Little Bashing

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/building-up-bones-with-a-little-bashing/?_r=0

Excerpt:

"Still, she emphasized the need to “bash our bones” to make and keep them strong. This can be done, she said, through “dynamic impact” — by hopping or jumping rope 100 times a day, for example — or through “positive stress” by walking rapidly uphill or upstairs, or even standing on the pedals while cycling uphill. "

FWIW, when I saw my bone doctor (endocrinologist) last month, I asked about the claims that swimming and bike-riding can be bad for our bones. He says not to worry about. His logic: 1) the studies that show it is bad usually look at professional or college-age athletes who are doing these exercises for many, many hours every day. 2) other factors may be at play. For example, many professional cyclists have low body weight and low body fat, which can alter the sex hormones in the body. i.e. women stop having their periods; men have symptoms too. So in that case, it's the reduced hormone levels that cause bone loss, not cycling per-se. My doc's opinion is that it's important to get good cardio-vascular exercise, but I shouldn't "count" swimming or cycling at being exercise that strengthens my bone.

coraleliz

Interesting. There was a women a few years ago at the gym I belong to, who use to wear ankle weights when she swam. She was trying to avoid be put on a biphosphate. It didn't lead to increase bone density, so she went the pharmacuetical route.

Having done a lot of cycling in my past, I have to believe that standing up while riding(pushing) up a hill has to qualify as weight bearing/bashing(?)