Keeon Tay­lor

When you think about get­ting fit­ter, you prob­a­bly pic­ture los­ing weight, build­ing mus­cle or fit­ting com­fort­ably in­to your clothes. Your bones may not make that list.

Yet they sup­port you when you walk, climb stairs, car­ry gro­ceries and get up from a chair. Look­ing af­ter them is part of stay­ing ac­tive and in­de­pen­dent as you get old­er.

World Os­teo­poro­sis Day, ob­served on Oc­to­ber 20, re­minds us to pay at­ten­tion to bone health through­out life. Os­teo­poro­sis is a con­di­tion that weak­ens your bones, mak­ing them more like­ly to break.

Ac­cord­ing to the US Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of Arthri­tis and Mus­cu­loskele­tal and Skin Dis­eases, it of­ten de­vel­ops with­out no­tice­able symp­toms. Feel­ing fine does not al­ways tell the whole sto­ry.

The good news is that every­day habits can help you care for your bones.

Make strength part of your rou­tine

Walk­ing is a use­ful way to stay ac­tive, but your fit­ness rou­tine can in­clude more than walk­ing.

Strength ex­er­cis­es make your mus­cles work against re­sis­tance. That re­sis­tance can come from your body weight, bands, ma­chines or weights.

A 2022 ex­pert re­view pub­lished in the British Jour­nal of Sports Med­i­cine rec­om­mends re­sis­tance ex­er­cise to sup­port bone strength, along­side strength and bal­ance ac­tiv­i­ties to help re­duce falls in peo­ple with os­teo­poro­sis.

If you are new to ex­er­cise, be­gin by learn­ing a few sim­ple move­ments. These could in­clude stand­ing up from a stur­dy chair, do­ing wall push ups or pulling a re­sis­tance band to­wards your body.

Fo­cus on mov­ing with con­trol rather than rush­ing through rep­e­ti­tions. As the ex­er­cis­es be­come eas­i­er, grad­u­al­ly in­crease the chal­lenge with ap­pro­pri­ate guid­ance. Start at a lev­el you can man­age and give your­self time to im­prove.

Think about what your body helps you do

Progress is not al­ways some­thing you see in the mir­ror. Get­ting out of a chair more eas­i­ly, car­ry­ing your shop­ping com­fort­ably and feel­ing stead­ier on your feet al­so mat­ter.

Give bal­ance some at­ten­tion, too, us­ing a stur­dy sup­port when need­ed.

Food al­so plays a part. The In­ter­na­tion­al Os­teo­poro­sis Foun­da­tion rec­om­mends a bal­anced di­et with enough cal­ci­um, vi­t­a­min D and pro­tein to sup­port bone health.

If you have os­teo­poro­sis, have had a frac­ture or are un­sure which move­ments are safe, speak with your doc­tor or phys­io­ther­a­pist be­fore chang­ing your rou­tine.

You do not need to change every­thing this week. Choose a few suit­able ex­er­cis­es, learn them well and make time to re­peat them.

Your fit­ness goals can in­clude how you look, but they should al­so in­clude how well you want to move and live in the years ahead.

Keeon Tay­lor is a per­son­al train­er with over 14 years of ex­pe­ri­ence help­ing peo­ple im­prove their health, fit­ness, and over­all well-be­ing.

He fo­cus­es on cre­at­ing re­al­is­tic habits and sus­tain­able rou­tines that fit in­to busy lifestyles, help­ing clients build strength, con­fi­dence, and long-term re­sults.