High-impact warm-up shown to help bone health
A new report has suggested that a ten-minute warm-up programme involving high-impact activities can help promote better bone health in adolescents.
The research was carried out by the Australian Griffith Institute of Health and Medical Research and published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.
During the study, a group of 99 adolescents with a mean age of almost 14 years were asked to perform the ten-minute warm-up programme twice a week for about eight months.
It involved high-impact activities such as jumping and skipping.
The results showed that boys that performed the warm-up routine saw their whole body bone mass increase significantly when compared to people that undertook a normal warm-up.
In girls, there was an increase in bone mass at the spine and hips.
"Eighty per cent of bone mass is accrued in the first 20 years and especially around puberty due to the circulating hormones," physiotherapist Ben Weeks explained.
"This study targets a window of opportunity in adolescence to maximise peak bone mass with high-intensity, weight-bearing activity."
Interestingly, the research also showed that boys that undertook the high-impact warm-up also lost significantly more fat mass than the controls.
Mr Weeks acknowledged that larger, longitudinal studies were required to determine whether the beneficial effects could persist into adulthood and reduce the risk of future bone fractures.
"We know that healthy bones are due to a combination of pre-natal factors such as the diet of the mother during pregnancy, and a good diet and plenty of exercise in childhood," said a spokesman for the Arthritis Research Campaign.
The charity is funding a major clinical trial to find out whether supplementing the diets of vitamin D-deficient pregnant women improves their babies' bone health at birth.
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