No Bones About It!!

on the trail up Hurricane Mt

I walk.

A lot.

It's my major form of fitness.

Usually I prefer walking in the woods on a trail up a mountain or to a deep woods lake because it's a better work-out.  Hiking uses a lot of different muscle groups and gets your heart rate up which is good cardiovascular fitness.

But...during the school year/work week, I have to power walk around my neighbor or in a nearby park or on a bike trail.  And that just isn't as fun!

I recently learned that walking WILL boost bone strength on a daily basis, but that if walking, we do need to up the intensity to improve bone MASS.

How do we do this??

• Increase the intensity of the walk.  Walk up some hills or do interval training (alternate between walking fast and walking a moderate pace. I tend to fast walk then jog then fast walk, then moderate and repeat. I do this for 2 miles).
• Add 10 minutes of climbing stairs!  You can do this right in your own home, or if you have a one floor house, use the stair climber machine at a gym.
• Do strength training.  We need to target our arms and spine. (runners do, too!).  The reason is so that we prevent bone loss in our spine and upper body. Lift weights (right now I'm using 3 or 5 lb hand weights per doctor's advice) 2-3x a week. Right now I am doing twice a week. My goal is to do 4x a week by Christmas.

Other ways to build your bones/strengthen bones are:

• Weight-bearing endurance activities which include but are not limited to tennis, stair-climbing (I do 4 sets twice a week), jogging, or the interval training I mentioned above (walk/jog/walk, etc)
• Jumping.  Some activities include volleyball skipping/jumping rope ( I do this often in the winter months down in my basement), basketball.  One tip about jumping from a professor of nutritional studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia:  after about 100 jumps, the bones stop responding for the day, so doing more is ineffective.
• Lift Weights:  activities include weight lifting, strength training (I use the Wii Fit routines) and circuit training.  A tip about weights: it should be heavy enough so that you feel tired at the end of a set.  You will need to increase the weight over time to challenge your bones.

Make no bones about it.....adding some of these activities will be good for your physical development and it also boosts your mental and emotional moods.

Try it!!

This information was taken from Natural Health Magazine, Sept/Oct 2013 issue