Bone health is finally getting the attention it deserves — which is fantastic. BUT, the standard advice (“you need more impact!”) leaves a lot of people staring at their knees thinking, no thank you.
Here’s the thing: your bones only get stronger when they think they have to. Load, pressure, that jarring kind of impact — that’s the signal they need to stimulate change. Unfortunately, I learned this one the hard way. I broke my hand five or six years ago, and the fragments that broke off had no load going through them, so my body simply absorbed them. They’re gone now. Bones without load get dissolved. We don’t want that happening to your skeleton.
So how do we send that “get stronger” signal without beating up your joints? In our first community Q&A, this was the very first question, and I gave the three approaches I use with my own clients:
The rebounder. A normal jump (like jumprope) stops you abruptly every time you hit the ground. A rebounder stretches downward as you land, spreading that impact over half a second instead of one instant — and the springs push back harder and harder the deeper you go. Less jarring, but actually more total G-force on your skeleton. I’ve read this is an excellent stimulation for your osteoblasts to start adding more bone density. That’s why NASA had astronauts bounce on them: in zero gravity bones quickly begin to weaken, and rebounding is an effective way to build them back up — particularly the ankles, knees, and hips.
Bands added to your lifts. Not just the little physical therapy exercises (nothing wrong with those) — I mean strapping heavy duty resistance bands to a weight or a machine so the load increases as you move. This is called accommodating resistance. It’s gentle on your joints in the bent, scrunched-up bottom position and heaviest where you’re strongest — and your muscles read that rising resistance as acceleration, so you’re training power too. Stand on a band for overhead presses or curls, loop one onto a cable row, hook one around a leg press platform. When I was head trainer at Gold’s, I went through a period of finding every possible way to add bands to an exercise and it was really fun. Many of my clients loved the feel of banded lifts too!
One rule: it has to be challenging. If you could do it 100 times, that’s a warmup, not training. Stop at 10 when you could have done 12 — not when you could have done 50.
Vibration plates. I’ll be honest, these make me a little skeptical. But the research weight is in their favor — circulation, lymphatic flow, and stimulation of the osteoblasts that build new bone. If you have access to one, 10-20 easy minutes now and again can only help your recovery. Why not?
This came from our community Q&A inside Stronger. Faster. Younger. — we’re doing these monthly. Come ask your own.
