Dem bones

A fascinating article about exercise and your skeleton. The bottom line is to stress your body with heavier loads.

Best news for Nordic walkers: “Even walking, Econs says, is enough to preserve the skeleton.”

Points:

• “Peak bone mass is the point at which a person's skeleton has grown as big as it'll ever be, and although the right kind of exercise can maintain that size by replenishing it with strong, dense bone, from that point forward you can only maintain or slow down gradual age-related bone loss...we reach peak bone mass between 25 and 30 years old.”
• “To encourage bone to regrowth as strong as existing bone and not waste away, you have to perform activities with hard impacts or heavy loading of the skeletal system, such as weight lifting and running…Even walking, Econs says, is enough to preserve the skeleton.
• “You work out to maintain what bone you have by adulthood, not to keep growing it bigger like a muscle.”