WooHoo!!! 💪 I am now BoneFit Trained!
Body in Tune, LLC offers specialized services for osteoporosis and osteopenia to help you make a plan to live your best life, preventing falls and the FIRST fracture. I would like to share the tools with you to help you go from feeling scared and anxious to feeling strong, agile and confident.
This past weekend I met with a wonderful group of physical and occupational therapists, functional medicine practitioners and personal trainers to become BoneFit Trained. Osteoporosis Canada has developed a training that has been adopted by the Bone Health and Osteoporosis Foundation to educate practitioners to help prevent the FIRST fracture in people with osteopenia and osteoporosis. The BoneFit training is a new set of skills adding to my knowledge and experience including 30+ years as a physical therapist and and 11+ years as a yoga teacher to help me move toward my goal of helping decrease the incidence of falls and fractures in people with osteoporosis and osteopenia. I believe quality of life matters.
Keys points presented in the training included thoughts about the how, what and why exercise when we have osteopenia or osteoporosis, that posture is key and that we may want our focus to be prevention of the FIRST fracture. Sadly the statistics suggest that 50% of women and 25% of men will have an osteoporotic fracture during our lifetime. The primary goal is to change that statistic.
At 50 I insisted on a DEXA scan and became concerned. I was not happy with my results as I was just entering menopause. It is said that during the average 7 years of menopause we lose about 20% of our bone density. If you remember we typically reach our peak bone mass between the ages of 20-30 years old. This is one reason why being active as a child, eating a healthy diet as a child and getting help if there are digestive issues from childhood and eating disorders in our teenage years will benefit us later in life by building more quality bone.
Exercise and the “silent disease”
The “Too Fit to Fracture Exercise Guidelines” are focused on improving the quality of life of those with osteopenia and osteoporosis. Instead of leaving the training feeling discouraged by the research and statistics around fractures, I instead feel more confident that there are tools to help us maintain quality of life as we age. In fact I am feeling encouraged as I review how I am choosing to move and exercise in my life as well. In addition to the yoga for osteoporosis that I will continue to practice for strength, balance, flexibility, coordination, stress management and hopeful of improved bone building, I will make other additions to my regular exercise routines.
There is mixed research about the ability to build bone as we age past 30 years old. BoneFit offers that we might consider exercise for osteoporosis more as a means to prevent injury rather than focusing our efforts on building bone. So they offer guidelines on the type and amount of exercise to add to our routines and remind us that it is important to learn to live life in a way that helps us to prevent that first fracture. This is important because once we have a fracture after the age of 50 we are at more risk of future fractures. This darn “silent disease” is sneaky.
In case you are curious Body in Tune would love to collaborate with you to find your perfect movement practice.
Are You Too Fit to Fracture?
The “Too Fit to Fracture” program recommends
✅ daily balance and back extensor training and spine sparing (ie. good body alignment) during daily activities. The back extensors are the muscles running vertically along your spine that are responsible for holding your spine upright and decreasing the rounded upper back posture.
✅ 2x per week strength training for all muscle groups
✅ 5x per week of at least 30 min of aerobic exercise.
I have to admit as I read the recommendations the first time, I thought how in the world am I going to make that happen? But then I realized that the total looks to be around 45 min of a time commitment. Maybe there is hope after all.
Good news! Body in Tune would love to collaborate with you to get you started on your perfect plan or review your current program and offer modifications or additions.
How many of us listened to our mothers?
Did your mother get after you to “stand up straight” as a child? Mine did and sadly I really didn’t listen very well. So I got caught a little behind trying to improve my posture as an adult. 😞
Posture training also know as back extensor strengthening is key for a few reasons.
First it just makes us feel better. When our rib cage is up off of the pelvis and the breast bone is lifting with our head back over our shoulders there is room for the diaphragm to move, more comfortable and easier digestion and significantly less stress on the vertebral bodies where we often get compression fractures.
As the bone density decreases, the bones lose their strength gradually, so micro fractures that are painless are more common than we would like to think. It may be from the repetitive stress of bending that ultimately compresses the vertebral body to finally cause a full on compression fracture. It is a little like the straw the broke the camel’s back. Additionally we may even see gradual wedging of the vertebra. This creates the rounded upper back, called hyperkyphosis. This is one of the ways we lose height. This hyperkyphotic posture is a risk factor in falls because it changes our center of gravity. So darn it! Our mothers were right.😞
Did you know that when we sit the force through our spine and discs increases 140% and when we sit in a slouched position it increases 185%. So exercises that strengthen and teach our body to stand in good posture can help us limit the slouching not only in sitting but also with other activities like gardening, cleaning, or other activities like waxing the car. I like to tell clients that I could tell you to stand up straight or we can teach your body how to do it and give you the endurance that it carries over into daily life.
Body in Tune is here to help you update your strength training to include exercises for a strong back.
It’s a Matter of Balance
BoneFit teaches that balance training is a key component of any exercise program to again reduce the risk of falls and fractures. Interestingly, one research study revealed that a walking program could not be relied on as a way to prevent falls, so we must do more than just walk. There are many ways to challenge our balance. I love that most of the clients I speak with about osteoporosis have already found a “balance class”.
But how do we incorporate it daily life? A starting point I offer to clients is to stand on one leg while brushing your teeth with one hand on the sink or while waiting for the coffee to brew (always have a surface to hold). We want our reaction time to a loss of balance to be as quick as possible. So it is important to do targeted balance training that gets progressively harder so that you can be ready for all the challenges our surroundings may offer. As for those of us in Maine, the “ice season” seems to be extending into March this year.
At Body in Tune, LLC I spend time with each individual client to assess and treat holistically. We help you become aware of the emotions associated with the issues at hand and get help if needed and how the emotions may affect your symptoms and sensations. We will talk about what is going on, where you want to go and what might be getting in the way. That way we can make a detailed plan of how to get you there.
Quality of Life Matters
I would welcome the opportunity to be part of your support team with regards to your muscles, joints, bones and osteoporosis. The goal is, after all, to help you feel confident in your body so you can play with your grand children, take that long-dreamed of vacation and get outside and enjoy a walk with friends.