Strength Training To Combat Osteoporosis
In sedentary people, bones and muscles lose mass rapidly
Your muscles, bones, and cardiovascular system respond specifically to the amount of physical stress placed upon them. In sedentary people, bones and muscles lose mass rapidly. The economy of the body construes the lack of activity as a sign that those tissues don't need to be strong. Physical activity stimulates the body to lay down proteins (in muscle) and minerals and collagen (in bones). Staying active protects you from injuring yourself during day-to-day activities. It's almost as though you're tricking the body into maintaining muscle and bone that aren't really needed in our everyday lives.
Exercise, progesterone and diet are your best defense against osteoporosis
Osteoporosis isn't a disease that comes on in old age. It starts in women who are still in the prime of their lives and creeps along very slowly as small amounts of mineral are lost from bone each day. Only after years and years of this slow attrition do bones become noticeably brittle. Resistance training, weight-bearing cardiovascular exercise like walking or jogging, natural progesterone, and a health-supporting diet are your best defenses against osteoporosis.
Types of Resistance exercises
Resistance exercise includes weight lifting with machines or free weights, exercises with rubber tubing, and exercises here you use your own body weight for resistance, such as push-ups or squats. It also includes washing windows, polishing furniture, pushing a vacuum, scrubbing the floor, and lifting children, as well as hitting a tennis ball, swimming, and horseback riding (in the lower body). Hatha yoga incorporates poses supported by the strength of the muscles and can be considered a form of resistance training. If you have a gym membership and weight lifting appeals to you, inquire about a personal training session to get one-on-one instruction on how to use the weight machines and free weights. Those who have never used weights may need more than one session to feel comfortable, and you'll want to have a session every month or two to update your program as you build your strength. If you're working out at home, you'll want to get some dumbbells. A set of two five-pounders, two eight-pounders, and two twelve-pounders should be plenty to get you started.
Your exercise schedule
It's a good idea to get at least two strength-training work-outs a week, and it's ideal if you can find time for three. When you strength-train properly, you work just hard enough to break some of the microscopic fibers that make up the body of the muscle. Soreness after a good strength-training session is due to these microtears. The body fixes the damage, making the fibers a little sturdier in the process so that they won't break the next time they're stressed in this way. Over a period of three or four weeks your muscles have adapted to the new stresses you've placed on them, and you're ready to lift a little more weight. Don't do resistance training two days in a row because your muscles need at least a day between workouts to lay down new proteins where muscle fibers have been damaged.
The amount of weight you lift should exhaust the muscle group being used within one set of ten to twelve repetitions. Each repetition should be performed in a controlled, slow manner, without holding your breath. You can start out with one set per exercise, and gradually work your way up to three sets with at least thirty seconds of rest in between. If you want to split up your weight workouts, you can do some of your exercises one day and the rest on the following day so that you don't do any one exercise two days in a row.