We all know that exercise is good for you. It can help you build stronger muscles, increase stamina, lower your risk for heart disease, and help you lose weight.
But what you might not know is that exercise is also great for your bones.
It can be easy to take your bones for granted. When you’re young, you know to drink your milk so that your bones grow strong and healthy, but you never see them, so it’s easy to forget about them. Until, you bump your knee just right on that forsaken coffee table.
But, your bones are fundamental — they create the shape of your body, help facilitate movement, protect your organs, produce red blood cells, and store essential minerals.
Maintaining the density and health of your bones ensures they can keep doing what they’re supposed to do, especially as you get older. Bones begin to lose their strength later in life, which can manifest as brittleness that raises your risk of fractures and breaks. Good bone health can increase lifespan and quality of life.
Here's how to do it.
What is Bone Density?
Bones are living tissues primarily made of collagen and calcium phosphate. These tissues change as your body alters composition depending on its needs.
Bone density refers to the density and amount of bone-building minerals in your bone tissue. More bone minerals mean that your bones are thicker, stronger, and healthier.
It’s normal for bone density to fluctuate over time because your bone tissues are constantly being dissolved and replaced. Your body steals from your bones when it needs minerals elsewhere, but it replaces them as-needed, as well.
Problems with bone strength arise when your bones lose more tissue than they replace — this tissue loss is a condition known as osteoporosis, and it commonly affects men over 50 and postmenopausal women.
When your bone density starts to drop, it can lead to weakened and fragile bones. Injuries that may have only been a bruise before might lead to a fracture instead. These injuries are more severe and harder to repair as you get older because of low bone density and the aging body's less robust bone replacement/production abilities.
That’s why it’s so important to do exercises for bone density!
What Exercises Can Improve Bone Density?
Exercise and physical activity are important for building stronger bones when you're young, but exercise is also essential for maintaining bone density throughout adulthood and later in life. Routine exercise encourages your bones to build and repair themselves, making them stronger.
Three types of exercises can help you to improve bone density: weight-bearing, flexibility-based, and strength training.
If your bone density is very low, you may want to consult a doctor before starting an exercise regimen to avoid injury. Take time and work your way up slowly.
Weight-bearing exercise
Weight-bearing exercises are any activity where your bones and muscles are working against the effects of gravity. Your own body weight is used to help increase the strength of your bones and muscles.
Most aerobic and cardio-based exercises fall under this category, including:
- Badminton
- Basketball
- Dancing
- Gymnastics
- Hiking
- Hopscotch
- Jogging
- Jump rope
- Pickleball
- Soccer
- Stair climbing
- Tennis
- Volleyball
- Walking
Incorporating one or several of these forms of activity can help support your bones and prevent bone disease while getting your heart pumping, too — two birds with one stone!
Strength training exercise
Strength training exercises (also known as resistance training) bring in additional weight to increase the workload on your bones and muscles.
Weight machines, free weight, dumbbells, and resistance bands fall under this category of exercise and provide all kinds of health benefits for your body.
Weightlifting requires a significant amount of strength and energy. The important thing to remember about strength training is that you will need to give your body a chance to rest afterward.
There are seven major muscle groups in your body: legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders, and arms. For best results, you should only work out two or three during each session, with a day of rest built in between. Giving your body a chance to heal and repair will prevent injury or strain and boost gains from the exercise.
Flexibility-based exercise
Flexibility-based exercises won’t have much of an impact on your bones. But, they can improve your range of motion, muscle strength, and stamina. Improving these physical traits will provide health benefits and increase the effectiveness of other exercises that directly affect your bones.
Yoga, pilates, and tai chi are a few examples of stretching techniques and balance exercises that can provide some of these benefits. Swimming and cycling are other beneficial physical activities that aren’t weight-bearing or strength training exercises.
What Foods Can Improve Bone Density?
The two most important things to look for in food for bone strength are calcium and vitamin D. Calcium is the primary building block for your bones, and vitamin D helps your body absorb calcium more efficiently.
These two nutrients are essential to maintaining bone density.
Magnesium and potassium are other nutrients that can help with bone density. Magnesium helps regulate the vitamin D in your body, and potassium neutralizes acids that can erode bones. Foods high in any of these four nutrients can help support bone density.
Foods that you should be considering in your diet include:
- Figs for calcium, potassium, and magnesium
- Milk, cheese, yogurt, eggs, prunes, and fatty fish for calcium and vitamin D
- Nut-based butters, or nuts, and milk for calcium and potassium
- Spinach, potatoes, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and raisins for magnesium and potassium
- Bananas, plantains, prunes, oranges, and orange juice for potassium
- Broccoli, cabbage, okra, kale, cabbage, and tofu for calcium
In addition to eating more of the above, you should also cut back on foods that can be a detriment to bone health –– and health in general. Foods high in salt, sugar, and caffeine can limit your body’s ability to absorb calcium properly, for example.
Alcohol and smoking have also been linked to a loss of bone density and increased bone loss.
Learn More About Bone Density
Weight-bearing exercises, flexibility exercises, and strength training are great ways to strengthen and maintain bone density as you get older.
It’s just a part of life that bone density naturally declines as we get older. As bone density drops, fractures and broken bones become much more likely. In addition, healing from a broken bone can take much longer than when you're young.
This potential to increase your risk of injury means that it becomes increasingly important to protect and support your bone health as you age. Getting more physical exercise and eating a healthier diet are two effective ways to maintain bone density and avoid injury.
