Types of exercise that will improve your bones depend on several factors. Muscle mass can be increased by certain types of exercise, which improves strength, muscle control, balance, and coordination. Balance and coordination can mean the difference between falling and breaking a bone and standing upright.
Regular physical activity can prevent falls by about a third of older persons who are at high risk of falling, according to strong evidence.
All bone-strengthening activities have one or more of the following characteristics:
You push your muscles by working against some type of resistance, such as dumbbells, elastic bands, or even your own body weight, in these types of exercises. Resistance activities, such as traditional strength training, rely on muscle contractions to induce bone growth.
Weight-bearing exercise is any activity in which you carry your body weight and work against gravity, such as jogging, walking, dancing, hiking, climbing stairs, or playing tennis, golf, or basketball.
This is in contrast to non-weight-bearing activities like swimming or cycling, where your body weight is supported by the water or the bicycle. When you conduct weight-bearing exercises, the power you exert to fight gravity is what causes your bones to grow stronger.
You multiply the weight-bearing effect of gravity when you land a jump or pound the ground with each step as you run. As a result, higher-impact activities have a greater influence on bone than lower-impact workouts.
As your speed increases, the impact will grow even more. Jogging or high-intensity aerobics, for example, will strengthen bones more than a leisurely stroll or moderate callisthenics.
Changing directions while moving appears to be beneficial to bones as well. When researchers examined bone strength in the hips of a variety of athletes, they discovered that those who participated in sports like soccer and squash, which involve rapid turns and start-and-stop actions, had bone strength compared to those who participated in high-impact sports like triple jumpers and high jumpers—and that they all had greater bone density than long-distance runners.
Balance exercises may not be ideal for developing bone, but they will save you from falling, so they have a bone-protecting purpose as well.
Exercise That Will Improve Your Bones are many, however, always consult your healthcare providers if you have any medical condition that may be a determining factor of what type of exercise you should do.