Do Bones Get Weaker As We Get Older?
Strength and balance is something that is often overcomplicated but is also very misunderstood as the potential for good functional strength can help with a lot of things as we grow older.
As we grow older, our muscle mass tends to decrease and our bone quality tends to lessen as well. It has been shown in many studies that one of the best ways to increase muscle mass and bone quality is by using resistance exercise and putting load on the joints.
There was a German scientist called Wolff who once said ‘that bone adapts to the demands that are placed upon it.’ Using load-bearing activities, using light resistance will ultimately put more demand on the bone, causing it to become more complex rather than losing its strength over a period of time.
If you think about a ‘Crunchie’ chocolate bar, this is often what our long bones are like. They have a dense network of honeycomb on the inside and a hard chocolate shell around the outside. The hard chocolate shell remains intact. However as the years go on, if we don’t use the bone, the crunchy honeycomb tends to wither over time.
Offer: Book a free consultation with West Chiropractic >
Why is this important for you and what can we do to help it?
You need to make sure that you’re doing some sort of load-bearing activity at least three times a week in order to keep the density of the bone in a good shape and prevent fractures in the long run.
We use one of our new services here called “functional strength and rehabilitation” in order to build strength through the muscles and the muscles then put demands on the bones in order to increase bone quality in the long run.
We start this with all of our clients from as young as 10 all the way through to our oldest clients at 90. Obviously the plan and the type of exercise we use is very different depending on age, mobility and level of activity at that point. Everyone has to start from somewhere.
We build a plan based on the function rather than looking at just the client. Everybody is different and we need to ensure that we’re meeting all of our clients where they’re at.
Aside from bone quality, using resistance work and functional rehabilitation is fantastic for balance and proprioception. Proprioception is the body’s awareness of where it is in space. Balance is great as it helps us to stay mobile, stay active.
A lot of people in their older age forget about how important balance is until we lose it. This can come from keeping your body strong, using light resistance work and that is what all of our rehabilitators use with our clients here.
It sounds complex but a lot of the exercises they do just need to be done under supervision with the right direction and the right exercise for the right person can make a huge difference in the strength, bone quality and balance.
If we gave balance back to somebody, it brings their confidence back. When they have their confidence back, they want to move more and with more movement, we can keep the body upright, healthy and exercising prevents long-term chronic issues.
How do we improve balance and strength in our rehabilitation sessions?
They consist of soft tissue work for half the session where we’re working on the muscles to soften them up.
This can be done with deep tissue massage, and we also use instruments such as IASTM. These are to blend the fascia as they work through different muscles, to increase flexibility and reduce tired muscles. We also use shockwave therapy to soften up the ligaments around the joints and then the second half of the session is where we build on the rehabilitation of the body.
So that’s where we’re using resistance bands to do certain exercises to improve strength, balance boards in order to produce proprioception and balance as well as light dumbbells to load the bones to improve the quality.
If you’re interested in booking one of these sessions with us, please follow the link below.
Offer: Book a free consultation with West Chiropractic >
