Enhance Bone Density In The Elderly With Weight Training

As you grow older, one determining factor in the quality of life in which you live could be osteoporosis. Who wants to lose their independence as well as their freedom having to spend their retirement years wasting away in some assisted living home or nursing home while their retirement funds are being depleted?

No one wants this, but so many individuals plan for their future financially and forget to plan for their future physically. Is it not time to do something right now so that you can remain independent and maintain not only your financial freedom, but your physical freedom as well?

Many older adults nowadays have to turn to assisted living homes or nursing homes for assistance due to the declines in their muscles and bone mass, which are unfortunately age related. In older adults, these declines in their muscles and bone mass can oftentimes cause frailty and fractures.

Strength training is the best activity known to help increase bone mass while at the same time decreasing the possibility of osteoporosis developing later on in life. Studies have proven that postmenopausal women who lack estrogen are especially prone to osteoporosis, which is why so many doctors will oftentimes recommend calcium supplements to these women, but they are not enough.

A recent study conducted at Ontario’s McMaster University revealed how a group of postmenopausal women who participated in a year long strength training program. The study proved that strength training could increase spinal bone mass. In fact, in the majority of the women who participated showed their spinal bone mass was increased by up to nine percent.

Another study conducted on bone density and exercise used older women as their test subjects that were divided up into two groups at random. One group of women participated in high intensity weight training sessions twice a week for one year. As a result, they were all able to increase their bone density level by one percent. The other group of older women who did not participate in the weight training sessions had a decrease in their bone density levels by up to two and a half percent.

The group of women who participated in the weight training sessions even showed improvements in their muscle strength and muscle tone as well as showed better stability and coordination. At the same time, the group of women who did not participate in the training sessions all showed a decrease in all of these areas, which are areas that can dramatically improve during your later years to increase an individual’s longevity.

To aid in the prevention of a bad fall in an elderly individual, which can so often be a major turning point in their life, then these health areas need to be improved. Do not wait until that fatal fall comes and you find yourself with a broken hip, which can become your immobility and lead you to have to become dependent upon others for your care.

Strength training and weight training can provide you with the benefits that you need today for the bone density and bone mass that you will need in the future to keep the independence and freedom you so desperately want

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Source: newantiagingsolutions.com