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Moving Free® with Mirabai
Best Exercises For Skeletal Fitness
By Mirabai Holland, MFA ©2010

www.movingfree.com

Mirabai Holland MFA is one of the leading authorities in the Health & Fitness industry, and public health activist who specializing in preventive and rehabilitative exercise for women. Her Moving Free® approach to exercise is designed to provide a movement experience so pleasant it doesn't feel like work.
Osteoporosis is one of those silent diseases that can creep up on you before you know you have it. To combat Osteoporosis and help keep your bones healthy for a lifetime, it’s important to increase your Skeletal Fitness!
Osteoporosis is a disease, which, over time, causes bones to become thinner, more porous and less able to support the body. Usually there's no pain in the early stages.
44 million of us are at risk for Osteoporosis. The vast majority are women.
Women often develop Osteopenia (low bone mass that can lead to Osteoporosis) in the first few years after menopause because they lose bone-protecting estrogen.
But, we can prevent and help reverse the effects of Osteoporosis by working out our bones. On the outside, bones look solid and rock-like, but they're not.
They're living tissue. There is a smooth, hard, outside layer
made of cortical bone, and the inside, is a strong, light weight,
honeycomb-like structure, called trabecular bone, which contains blood vessels, and bone marrow. The combination of cortical and trabecular bone enables the skeleton to be light, strong, flexible and efficient.



By young adulthood, our bones have grown to their full size and density. But activity in our bones is far from over. In a cycle called remodeling, old and weakened areas of our skeletons are broken down and replaced with new well-formed tissue. Adults have about 10 to 15% of their bone replaced each year.
In bones with Osteoporosis, the remodeling cycle is out of balance. Bone is broken down but little or nothing takes its place. The outside hard cortical layer
gets thinner, and the honeycombed, trabecular inside becomes more porous.
Most people don't discover they have Osteoporosis until a fracture occurs.
Fractures occur most often at the spine, at the hip, and at the wrist.

The good news is since bones are living tissue they can become denser with weight bearing exercise.
For example, astronauts lose bone mass in the weightlessness of space. To combat this, NASA is training astronauts for a mission to Mars, to do weight bearing exercise that simulates the exercises they will need to do in space to maintain their bone mass. Weight bearing exercise for Skeletal Fitness is called bone loading. When working out your bones it’s important to load the areas most at risk for fracture: the spine, the hip, and the wrist.

So for instance try these Do’s to help load the three areas most at risk:

· Carrying a backpack instead of a purse to help load your spine.
· Take stairs instead of the elevator whenever you can to load your hips.
· Grab some soup cans and do 8-16 reps of wrist curls and when that gets too light invest in some hand weights. Remember; always exhale on exertion when you're lifting a weight. Start with a comfortable weight and add one pound every couple of weeks, or, when it feels too easy.
· As you get stronger you can add a full body weight-training program with special emphasis on the areas at risk for Osteoporosis.
Weight train every other day, because your body needs time to recover and grow stronger.

If you are at risk for or have Osteoporosis, here are some Don’ts
· As a general rule, don't do anything that requires you to bend forward from the waist with the back rounded; this is called spinal flexion and increases the risk of collapsed vertebra so no toe touches.
· Avoid sit-ups, and crunches. Instead, you can strengthen your abdominals by keeping them pulled in, navel back to your spine during daily activity.

Also, always consult with your doctor, get all the information you can, together you can decide what's best for you. The National Osteoporosis Foundation has great info at www.nof.com
And remember, it’s never too early or too late to start working out your bones!
For more information on bone-loading workouts please visit www.movingfree.com

Moving Free® with Mirabai

Whole lot a shakin’ goin’on
The ELVIS Study
Bone Health & Fall Prevention

By: Mirabai Holland © 2010

Mirabai Holland M.F.A. is one of the leading authorities in the Health & Fitness industry, and public health activist who specializing in preventive and rehabilitative exercise for people. Her Moving Free® approach to exercise is designed to provide a movement experience so pleasant it doesn't feel like work. www.easyexercisevideos.com

Every May I write something about osteoporosis. May is osteoporosis month and I can’t say enough about this debilitating yet largely preventable bone disease.
By definition, osteoporosis is a disease that, over time, causes bones to become thinner, more porous and less able to support the body. Bones can become so thin that they break during normal, everyday activity.
I’ve written a number of articles about the importance of weight bearing exercise and a calcium and vitamin D rich diet in preventing osteoporosis. So today I’m focusing on FALL PREVENTION. So many osteoporotic fractures are caused by falls so anything that can prevent those falls should be on your radar.

An interesting fall prevention method that’s been getting a lot of attention lately is using a Whole Body Vibration platform. Research by the Russian and American space programs has long suggested that a piezo-electric effect caused by vibrating the body strengthens muscles, and may prevent bone loss. A recent German study ‘Erlangen Longitudinal Vibration Study (ELVIS) shows it can also greatly reduce falls.
You simply stand on the vibrating plate and shake for several minutes. How long and how vigorously you shake can be dialed to suit your personal body needs and fitness level.
Commercial versions of the vibration platform are available at gyms and rehab centers. Home versions are sold online and at sporting goods and health equipment stores. Prices for the home versions start at about $199.

And for traditionalist in all of us, it’s true, simple balance exercises can go a long way towards reducing your chances of taking a serious fall.

Try this simple exercise:
Stand erect near a wall (in case you lose your balance) hands at your sides.
Slowly raise one foot a couple of inches off the ground while shifting your weight to your grounded foot.
When you’ve got your balance slowly raise your arms over your head and reach for the sky.
As you get more comfortable, try raising your held-up foot farther up until it’s near the knee of your grounded leg.
*ELVIS STUDY: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20306017
Contact Mirabai at askmirabai@movingfree.com