Yet Another Reason Why You Should Resistance Train - Bone Health.

Bone mineral density (BMD) decreases with age and bones can become more porous and frail, but weight-bearing and resistance training exercises can prevent this. 50% of women and 20% of men over the age of 50 will experience a fracture due to bone weakness. The more bone mass that you can accumulate during your young adult/adult years, the less likely you will be part of this statistic.

In order for bones to build themselves and become stronger, we must put more stress on our bones than what they are used to. To this day, my favorite personal training success story involves one of my 60 year old female clients. When I first began my training career, this woman approached me with the primary goal of increasing her BMD. She had a history of severe osteoporosis dating back 15 years. She had tried many different medications to help increase her BMD, but nothing worked. Year after year, different medication after different medication, her doctor finally told her that either she could try a new drug on the market that had horrible side effects and, at best, would improve her osteoporosis by 3% and possibly improve her condition to being osteopenic (still under healthy BMD range).....OR she could stop all osteoporosis medications and start resistance training. She decided that resistance training would be the more beneficial route, and WOW am I happy that she did!! We started working together in the fall of 2013 meeting for two 1 hour sessions per week. In addition, we talkled about small lifestyle changes such as taking the stairs as often as possible and making sure to get plenty of steps in throughout the day as her job required her to be at a desk for many hours. I cannot recall this client cancelling a single session and when she had to travel, she stuck to the "out of the gym" program that I had perscribed to her (#dreamclient). Research, her doctor, and myself all agreed that it would take up to 2 years before we saw much of a change in her BMD. Well this client's dedication and awesome attitude proved us all wrong. After about one year of working together she went and got her BMD assessed and all areas in her body were CURED of osteoporosis!!! She also gained strength, resolved most knee pain (at the start she couldn't squat and now she is a squatting machine :-D), became more functional, and looks great. SO very proud of her :)!!