Why Buff Bones?
We are constantly bombarded by health messages to look after our gut, eyes and skin etc.; but what about our bones? When was the last time you heard someone say “I’ve just been to the gym to workout my bones?”
Good bone health is vitally important for us all no matter what age. Maintaining bone strength and enabling our body to build new bone cells becomes a concern as we all age, both for men and women.
Let me tell you a story: Eggs are sufficiently hard when laid and during brooding, to protect them from breaking. As the chick grows inside the eggshell, it needs calcium to form its bones. During egg incubation, the inner portion of the shell dissolves to provide this mineral ion supply, while at the same time weakening the shell enough to be broken by the hatching chick. Neat, eh?
In an egg shell, sorry, nut shell, this is what happens to us- as we get older more calcium is absorbed into the body than is deposited in our bones resulting in lower bone densities. At the same time we lose lean muscle mass. This can happen for a number of reasons but the result is the same: our muscles fail us and we fall and bones break more easily.
Building bone is an amazing process. It also requires Vitamin D, which our body makes when exposed to the good UVB rays. Vitamin D helps calcium stick to the bones- well not exactly, but calcium absorption and mineralisation of the bones requires Vitamin D in partnership in a very complex way. Learn more about Vitamin D and how much we need here.
But wait - there’s more:
Good bone health is linked to muscle strength because the best way to build strong bones is to put them under a heavy load and to do this you have to use your muscles. So it’s the exercise you use to build those muscles that also builds your bones and recent research studies have shown that “People who had a higher lean mass and muscle mass also had higher levels of active vitamin D”- surely a great Win-Win situation for our bone health.
In a review article published in The American Journal of Medicine, studies showed that after an average of 18-20 weeks of progressive resistance training, an adult can add 2.42 pounds (1kg) of lean muscle to their body mass and increases their overall strength by 25-30 percent.
Mark Peterson, Ph.D., a research fellow in the University of Michigan Physical Activity and Exercise Intervention Research Laboratory, at the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation states: "Resistance exercise is a great way to increase lean muscle tissue and strength capacity so that people can function more readily in daily life”. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110331163539.htm
Pilates is a proven resistance exercise program which uses your own body weight to progress through a full range of motions to minimize degenerative muscular function. And as a bonus, as lean muscle mass increases, it burns more kilojoules and replaces fat.
So don’t hesitate - book yourself into Flow Pilates Buff Bones classes aimed specifically at increasing your lean muscle mass and bone density, and start building a stronger you NOW.