To get your bones to grow and keep regenerating (just like Doctor Who does every so often) they need to have a reminder. Unlike us, with our phone apps with our notifications, the reminder that they have is an impact. Sounds a bit bizarre that impacts cause the bones to regenerate. Every time you walk you cause an impact to ripple up your legs and its those impacts that signal the bones to regenerate (it’s really called remodelling, but I like the Dr Who analogy better ?)
The Royal Osteoporosis Society (ROS) recommends 50 moderate impacts per day. What’s a moderate impact? The ROS classifies impacts as follows:
– Lower impact – Walks, Brisk walking, Marching, Stair climbing, Gentle heel drops, Stamping
– Moderate impact – Highland dancing, Jogging, or running, Team and racket sports, Skipping and hopping, Low-level jumping, Vigorous heel drops and stamping
– High impact – Basketball, Volleyball, Track events, Star jumps, Tuck jumps, High-level jumps
As you know I love to walk with my dogs and when up to full fitness we walk at about 3.5 mph, but this still comes in the lower impact category, my Morris dancing I think comes into the moderate to high impact categories so I’m ok with my 50 per day (on Morris days). With all that in mind I started to learn to run – I thought the dogs would love it and it would be something I can do to get my impact up.
Unfortunately after progressing really well I realised my knee was not liking this activity so took myself off for an MRI only to find out I had sever bone brusing as a result of the knee surgury I had the previous year. So I followed my surgens advice and rested. It’s all better now but I’ve never got back to the running!
