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Light Weight Exercises for Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis is a condition in which your bones become weak and brittle due to low levels of calcium, phosphorus and other minerals your skeleton needs. This can lead to serious injuries from minor stresses to your bones. In some cases, coughing has caused fractures. Though it can affect both men and women, it is most often seen in women. Here's what you can do to keep it from affecting you.

  1. Exercise

    • The old saying, "Use it or lose it" applies to bones, too. You need to exercise your bones with weight-bearing exercise just as you do your muscles. This helps increase your bone density, which in turn, will help you avoid the problems of osteoporosis. Exercise stimulates metabolic hormones that promote bone growth. This is why athletes have a greater bone mass than non-athletes.

    What Works

    • The exercise needs to be weight-bearing like weightlifting, walking and tennis. It should also be done at least three times a week for at least 20 minutes at a time to get benefit from it. Before beginning any new weight program, consult your doctor. He or she may have specific recommendations or exercises for you. The doctor may also have some cautions specific to your condition of which you should be aware.

    Type of Exercises

    • There are a number of different types of resistance-training you can incorporate into your exercise program. Calisthenics like chin-ups and sit-ups can be done at home with no special equipment. You can purchase resistance tubing to perform exercises using the elasticity of the tubing as resistance. You can purchase a weight set or join a gym to perform light weightlifting. Or you can join a gym to uses weight machines like Nautilus.

    Exercises to Do

    • The most-effective exercises are called basic exercises. These exercises involve multiple muscle groups. If using free weight, add bench presses, bent rows, squats, overhead presses, barbell curls and tricep extensions to your program. If you are using machines, the similar machines would be chest press, pulldowns, leg presses, shoulder presses, bicep curls and tricep extensions.

    General Guidelines

    • Start with a light weight and focus on doing 12 to 15 repetitions. Do each repetition in a slow, controlled manner. You don't want to be using momentum to lift the weight because that could injure you. Add 5 to 10 pounds for each set, and do three sets of the exercises. When you can easily do more than 15 repetitions, increase the weight for your next workout. For instance, you use 10, 15 and 20 dumbbells for an exercise. Once you can do 15 repetitions for each set increase the weights to 15, 20 and 25 pounds.

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