A New Era of Osteoporosis Management
We discussed in this past blog about how osteoporosis used to be viewed and how we are looking to change that viewpoint on how proper physical therapy can combat osteoporosis pain. Today, we will dive into how we like to prescribe and administer those items!
As a reminder, the items we utilize in our fitness forward physical therapy clinic for osteoporosis management are plyometrics, heavy resistance training, and impact training. We believe in this because research is supporting it more than ever, but lets also consider the physiology of how the human body, bone included, adapts. Our whole body, all systems rather, adapt and react to stress put upon them. These adaptations are in varied degrees, but what we are finding in the literature and research regarding bone health with osteoporosis management is that bones ADAPT to load. Load in this context is stress. So what do we have to do? Find a threshold of what your body can tolerate, whether that be by fatigue, strength capacity, or pain, then we stress up to that point and progressively build past that.
Here is a recipe we have found for success:
Historically, our osteoporosis population has chronically been under dosed when it comes to exercise. This includes strength training. We firmly believe and the research would support that we need to be having our older adults lift greater than 70% of their 1 rep max for compound lifts (squats and deadlifts especially) to see adaptations. Rarely are people challenged to this point, so we make it a point at Loon State Physical Therapy to get you lifting HEAVY, but find your subjective heavy. We then follow general strength and power protocols for rep and set schemes to progressively overload and see those changes we were mentioning.
Plyometrics have also been viewed as ‘scary’ because jumping can cause stress to the bone and people feared this could fracture bones. Though we can never predict a fracture, we also know that bone adapts to all stressors put upon them! With jumping to tolerance and then progressively making it more difficult, we are appropriately advancing the bones ability to BUILD and decrease fracture risk. It’s when impact activity occurs outside of the bones capacity is when fractures occur.
So let’s recap. Those dealing with a diagnosis of osteoporosis absolutely need to lift heavy and perform impact activities. It is paramount this happens, and actually we would argue it is MORE dangerous to not do them then it would be to perform them.
Looking for assistance in getting your questions answered and needing direction on next steps in osteoporosis physical therapy and arthritis pain? Let’s chat! We would be happy to discuss further how Loon State Physical Therapy can be a teammate in getting you back to moving and feeling your best! Our convenient Minneapolis physical therapy, Edina physical therapy, and Stillwater physical therapy locations will happily welcome you to get you back to moving at your best. Call us at (612) 405-8503 or book with us online at www.loonstatephysicaltherapy.com for an in-person or virtual appointment.
We look forward to being your teammate through this journey!
Andrew Eccles
Owner and Physical Therapist at Loon State Physical Therapy
