Many women who are diagnosed with osteoporosis aren’t aware they can improve their condition.
Marianne Smith is a master naturalist through Texas Parks and Wildlife. She travels all over to hike and be with nature.
So, when she was diagnosed with osteoporosis, she looked for a way to keep her bone density high.
She sought help to begin weightlifting.
“I had that diagnosis, I wanted to be sure that I was lifting the right way and that I had somebody looking over me so that I was building bone mass and not injuring myself,” Smith said.
Blaine Schmidt, a strength coach with Memorial Hermann | Rockets Orthopedics and Athlete Training & Health said your bone density mostly stops developing after your early teenage years.
“Really the bone growth you’re going to get during puberty for most men and women but over time if you continue to do some of these high impact exercises or higher resistance training exercises, you can maintain that bone growth and maybe prevent the loss of bone density,” Schmidt said.
Luckily for Smith, initial tests confirmed she did improve her bone density after lifting heavy weights. She goes back for more testing again soon.
“For me, even if it doesn’t increase, I really like the heavy lifting... I come here and I deadlift 100 pounds and I do everything you put me through, and I feel like I can take on the world,” Smith said.
Schmidt said anyone can start lifting weights at any time as long as they start slow and increase weight slowly too (but it should feel uncomfortable).
“We adapt to these everyday types of stressors, and if the weight is not quite heavy enough to break that threshold, then you won’t see that same adaptation. So, what we found is the higher impact exercises such as stepping, hopping, jumping, and then loading the tissue around the bones with heavier weights, gives you that adaptation,” Schmidt said.
Smith did take a break from weightlifting during the pandemic and at that time saw a decline in her bone density.
This shows that the benefits of heavy weight will likely be a long-term commitment.