It’s widely known that resistance training can be beneficial for muscle strength, increasing performance, and increasing our ability to perform our hobbies or activities of daily living. But what isn’t as widely promoted is the benefits of resistance training on bone health.
Why is this important?
According to Osteoporosis Canada, over 2.3 million Canadians are currently living with Osteoporosis. Additionally 1 in 3 women and 1 in 5 men will suffer from an osteoporotic fracture sometime in their lifetime.
Where does resistance training come in?
In our younger years our bones have a high capacity to adapt to resistance training by building up more bone tissue in response to the added load that is provided through lifting weights. Think of this as optimizing our bone inventory to prepare us for our later years where our bone mass steadily declines as we age. Most people’s window of growth ends by their late 20s, and we begin to lose bone mass in our 30s - making it critical to introduce resistance training into our exercise regime early on to maximize our inventory. That being said - don’t fret if your window has passed! Our bones can still respond to lifting after the optimal growth window has passed allowing us to slow down the rate of bone loss and reduce our risk of developing osteoporosis and associated fragility fractures.
As a bonus, strength training in adults is essential in improving balance and coordination to reduce the risk of falls, and also serves to increase our muscular capacity and overall resilience to respond better to falls if accidents do occur.
In summary - lift weights, the earlier the better, your bones & future self will thank you!
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Find more information regarding statistics provided by Osteoporosis Canada here