A healthy and strong skeletal system consisting if mineral-dense, strong bones is essential to overall health and quality of life - including everyday activities such as standing, walking, and getting dressed. Bones not only help support the body and provided attachments for our muscles; our skeletal system also protects our vital organs and acts as a storehouse for minerals including calcium, potassium, and magnesium. When needed, these minerals are released from our bones into the bloodstream and delivered to the cells to use.
 
A long-standing misconception is that bone weakness and osteoporosis-related fractures only occur in older women. The reality is that bone disease affects men and women of all ages and ethnicities, and is growing in severity and frequency. At the current rate, one in two Americans over the age of 50 will be at risk for fractures from low bone mass by the year 2020.

The good news is that it is never too late to improve bone health. Daily exercise, sound nutrition, and other simple strategies can help people of all ages to strengthen and maintain strong bones,  resulting in a longer and healthier life. Here are a few recommendations to keep bones strong for a lifetime.

Participate in weight-bearing exercise on a regular basis. There are many factors related to maintaining bone health, including genetic, intrinsic, and environmental factors, but physical activity is by far one of the strongest means to develop and maintain healthy bone mass. While calcium is known for its positive effects on bone (more on that in a bit), it is important to recognize that regardless of the amount of calcium ingested, it is essential that there is a stress demand and a physical need for the bones to get stronger. Circulating blood calcium is controlled by the parathyroid glands, which is removed and delivered to skeletal bones based on need (physical stress). Exercise is the best way to stimulate bone cells to use calcium and increase the density of the stressed bone.

Eat the right foods and take the right bone-building supplements. Eating a diet that consists of fresh, organic vegetables and fruit will do a lot toward enhancing and maintaining overall bone health. Most vegetables and fruits contain healthy levels of calcium, vitamin D, and many other beneficial vitamins and minerals. However, for too many individuals, committing to get enough calcium and vitamin D (the latter improves the absorption of the former) through a healthy diet can be challenging so supplementation becomes necessary. Designs For Health provides high-quality supplements for bone health, including Osteoforce, Vitamin D Synergy, Vitamin D Supreme, and Calcium.

As a final recommendation, it is important to appreciate that bone-weakening can be avoided and calcium absorption enhanced by not smoking, limiting alcohol intake, and eliminating the consumption of soft drinks. Of course, these are all things we should be limiting or eliminating anyway - not just for bone health.

Recently, a man came to me complaining of low back pain, which he had been experiencing for almost two years. The man sits for a lot of his workday and travels for a living. He had no significant history of trauma or major back injury. Pain had been present most days and severely limited physical activity and exercise, particulary cycling, which had been his exercise of choice. Previous MRI was negative for any significant structural abnormality (disk herniation, osteoarthritis). This particular individual was a perfect example of someone suffering from what is oftentimes referred to as "Lower Cross Syndrome". 

Lower Cross Syndrome is oftentimes seen in people just like this guy - those who spend a lot of time sitting. Upon assessment and evaluation, there will be evidence of tightness and hyperactivity in the hip flexor group and subsequent inhibition of the extensor group, most important of which are the gluteus maximus muscles. This imbalance then leads to the real problem - the movement pattern dysfunction. When a person exhibiting these muscle firing patterns walks or even stands up from sitting in a chair, they will substitute the low back muscles and use them too much because they are unable to use their glute muscles. This is stressful to these muscles in the low back as well as the ligaments, vertebrae, and disks of this region. Furthermore, as the low back extensors become tighter, this subsequently inhibits the abdominal and oblique muscles. Going from sit to stand, walking, and exercising with this "no butt and big gut" scenario increases the biomechanical stress in the lumbar spine (low back) producing chronic pain, osteoarthritic degeneration, and disk problems.

Just as there are many causes of low back pain, there are also many strategies, or tools, that can be used to help resolve low back pain. My strategies typically involve some combination of manual therapy (ART, Muscle Activation Technique), low-level laser therapy, Kinesio Taping, percussion, decompression, and various corrective exercise strategies. The challenge and ultimate goal is to use whatever tools are necessary to facilitate healing of the damaged tissue structures and permanently correct the underlying dysfunctional movement pattern.

Once the patient and I had removed enough strain in the tissue with the therapies listed above, it was time to work on correcting his movement pattern. Enter the kettlebell. I have found the kettlebell swing exercise - when taught and then performed correctly - to be very effective at helping to correct some faulty movement patterns. Proper swing technique involves lowering the kettlebell via lumbar spine neutral hip flexion and then producing power via lumbar spine neutral hip extension (hip snap). This movement reinforces activation and strengthening of the glutes and other hip extensors, relaxes and eccentrically stretches the hip flexor group, and teaches lumbar spine stability and control. Additionally, at the apex of the swing the abdominals and obliques are facilitated (bracing strategy I teach) and strengthened creating a winning movement pattern.

You are probably curious about how this guy is doing now. I am happy to write that this patient has experienced full resolution of symptoms. He is continuing to work with the kettlebell on his own, including other exercises such as the 1-arm swing, goblet squat, lunge patterns, cleans, and modified deadlifts. He has resumed cycling and trains and races with no negative effects.

When your immune system is working right, it helps defend against disease and responds to viruses, bacteria, and other foreign invaders. When is it not working right, the opposite can happen. General cold and flu symptoms include physical and mental fatigue, malaise, aches and pains, and loss of appetite. The scientific term for these symptoms is the "acute phase response." This response is caused when the immune system actively releases excess amounts of inflammatory chemicals called cytokines.

What you may not know is that there are many things we can learn and do to more effectively manage the various stressors in our lives so as to keep the immune system from being overactive and pro-inflammatory and thus reduce the expression of the acute phase response.

Consider this: There may have been a time when you were psychologically stressed by an event or series of events and you developed cold / flu symptoms. In other words, you developed the acute phase response (physical / mental fatigue, malaise, aches and pains, loss of appetite). Most people think along the lines of, "I am stressed out and run down, which lowered my resistance, and now I am sick." Instead, what appears to happen in studies is that psychologically stressful situations themselves activate the immune system in a similar fashion as viruses; inflammatory cytokines are produced in excess, which causes an acute phase response that we misinterpret as "catching a cold."

This information and way of thinking is contrary to what most people have been told and long believed. Even fever expression (a component of the acute phase response) can occur when we are psychologically stressed. It is known that public speaking and being in a new, unfamiliar environment can give people a fever.

Researchers have also uncovered that there is an interplay between diet, psychological stressors, and pro-inflammatory immune activation. Stressful events such as taking a difficult examination leads to an increase in immune activity. The pro-inflammatory acute phase response appears to be greater in students with elevated blood levels of pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids and with low blood levels of anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids.

These examples should make you think about what you can do to prevent the expression of the acute phase response. The key point here is we need to keep our immune system from being pro-inflammatory. This means keeping our stressors to a minimum.This means getting proper amounts of exercise, adequate sleep, maintaining healthy relationships, and making the most healthy of lifestyle choices we can, particularly with regard to nutrition.