Strength Training and Osteoporosis

I talk about strength training and osteoporosis reversal A LOT! I'm a fitness trainer and the majority of my clients are anywhere from the age 50-85. Many of my clients have seen a reversal of their osteoporosis with just exercise alone, including my own mother!

In the 1970's Ken Hutchins performed a year long study that validated strength training is effective for the reversal of osteoporosis. The study resulted in the founding of a new form of exercise, the most effective and safe form of exercise I've found in my 13 years in fitness – It is called “Super Slow”. Since then many books have detailed how this method works and how to perform these exercises, Body by Science, Power of Ten, and Flat Abs Now just to name a few.

Strength Training and Osteoporosis Exercises

For the past three years I've worked with these strength training and osteoporosis exercise methods (Super Slow) EXCLUSIVELY with my clients - AND I have been able to reverse my mom's osteoporosis all the way to osteopenia using strength training alone (she uses NO osteoporosis medications). On this website I'm going to show you what we've done to accomplish that using Nautilus strength training machines!

I want to emphasize how important and helpful it is to work with a trainer for osteoporosis weight training, the most effective way to reverse osteoporosis with strength training is always done with heavy weights for your muscles (for a lot of reasons), so these methods are intense and you want to assure your safety at all times. My focus as a trainer with all of my clients is to keep safety through all of our workouts. I'll explain the importance of these osteoporosis weight training principles in further depth on other pages – Slow pace, good breathing, and proper form are paramount.

Let's Look at These Osteoporosis Weight Training Exercises

When working with heavy weights ALL strength training exercises are important and helpful for the reversal of osteoporosis, so I suggest a full body workout routine on low friction weight training equipment. BUT there are two machines (two basic movements) that have more impact on that reversal. Studies have shown that when two joints are loaded with heavy weights the whole body is flooded with calcium. These two strength training and osteoporosis exercises below are the most important, but as I mentioned, you want to get a full body workout for maximum results and to fight the loss of muscle mass -

The Leg Press - creating pressure against the hip and the knee joints causes the bone to bend at a microscopic level which sends a signal to the brain to send calcium to your bones. I would really advise hiring a Super Slow certified trainer to assure that you are remaining as safe as possible, if you're unable to do that please read everything that I offer in terms of safety, speed, form, breathing, ect... Even if a trainer isn't in your budget there are still exercises you can do at home, I will include all of these as I build this website. I'm going to include multiple sources with all important safety concerns and teach you how to stay safe.

The Chest Press - The second important strength training and osteoporosis exercise is the chest press. In the same manner as the leg press, here we are putting weight against two joints (elbow and shoulder) simultaneously. Ideally, just like every exercise you perform, you will want to achieve complete muscle fatigue in just a couple short minutes for the absolute best results. That's the main reason I suggest hiring a trainer at The Perfect Workout to guide you through these exercises. 

For this to be truly effective for reversing osteoporosis, the weights truly have to be heavy enough to momentarily bend the bone during the exercise. It will be such a slight microscopic bend that you won't see it or feel it, instead you'll feel the muscles begging you to stop. This "Super Slow" method has also been called high intensity training also, that will give you an idea that, yes, you'll have to lift heavy weights to achieve these life changing results. But this can all be achieved in only one or two twenty minute sessions a week. I will add the full exercise plan here in the coming weeks.