Building Strong Bones Through Exercise

Building strong bones to prevent osteoporosis and injury from falling is a goal for many of our members at Pratt’s Pro Fitness. I’m going to show you how to best go about building strong bones through exercise.

For years, some fitness influencers created a fear that lifting anything heavier than 3lb dumbbells would make you big and bulky. 

This was incorrect and benefited no one.

Unless you’re jumping with the weight or throwing it, 3 lbs provides no challenge to your bones and muscles. 

Now, the pendulum has swung the other way. Fitness influencers are claiming that you need to “Lift heavy s#!t.”

We’re not focusing on lifting heavy necessarily, but looking to exert a stress (force) on the bones. We can do that with high-impact activities like jumping and through low-impact activities like strength exercises … even bodyweight strength exercises like push-ups.

What does the research say?

A 2021 study by Kistler-Fischbacher and colleagues reviewed the research on developing bone density in post-menopausal women. They discovered that different regions of your body responded best to different intensities.

Note: 1RM stands for 1-repetition maximum. It’s the heaviest weight that you can lift for one repetition. On average, you can lift 80% of your 1RM for 8 repetitions, making that your 8RM.

They defined high, moderate, and low intensity as the following …

High force: Resistances greater than 80% of 1RM done for fewer than 8 reps and jump forces exceeding 4x bodyweight 

Moderate force: Resistances of 65-80% of 1 RM done for 8-15 reps and jump forces at 2-4x bodyweight

Low force: Resistances less than 65% of 1RM done for more than 15 reps and jump forces less than 2x bodyweight

Looking at the above description, you might wonder how you’re going to match those jump forces if you can’t lift 4x your bodyweight. 

Imagine you’re trying to bicep curl a 20lb dumbbell. Maybe it’s not that difficult to do. Now, try lifting it with a straight arm. It’s much harder because the lever is longer. 

Your muscles have terrible leverage. It would be much easier to curl a dumbbell if your bicep were connected from your shoulder to your wrist. However, you would be so bulky if your muscles were well-leveraged. Instead, your bicep is connected close to your elbow. To curl that 20lb dumbbell, your bicep has to tug on your forearm with 100lbs of force … and the force is applied for longer than a high-impact jump.

It’s not the amount of weight used, but how hard your muscles work. 

You can use weights, cables, resistance bands, or your own bodyweight. Your muscles and bones don’t know the difference.

What did the Kistler-Fischbacher study find?

High-intensity exercise wasn’t the best for all areas of the skeletal system.

The lumber spine responded best to high-intensity exercise. 

The femoral neck (upper thigh) responded best to moderate and low-intensity exercise.

The hip responded best to moderate-intensity exercise.

How do we apply this information to our 40+ year old members at Pratt’s Pro Fitness?

High-Intensity

We like to perform 5-8 reps on our main strength exercises. These weights are more forgiving than the ones that you can only lift for 1-3 reps.

Main strength exercises include variations of the deadlift, squat, lunge, and press.

For jumps, we’re careful about what exercises we give to our members because the impact forces are so high. We prefer to focus on the muscular power benefits of jumps and leave the skeletal benefits to strength exercises.

Low to Moderate-Intensity

Accessory exercises like rows, push-ups, step-ups, and isolation exercises are done for 8-25 reps.

A Word on Running

Until recently, I would have told you that running was great for building strong bones. However, runners' bones are no stronger than those of the average person. After the first few minutes of running, the signal to build your bones shuts off. The repeated stress from thousands of steps makes it a draw. Training with varied movement, like in a team sport, is better for building strong bones.

In conclusion, building strong bones is best done through a variety of movements and intensities in the gym and is not limited to high-impact jumping and lifting heavy weights.

Source:

Kistler-Fischbacher, M. et al., The effect of exercise intensity on bone in postmenopausal women (part 2): A meta-analysis. Bone, 2021.

 

Improve Your Step-Ups with This Technique

 The step-up is an exercise that trains the quads and glutes as well as improves balance. 

Try the technique in the video below if your goal is to use step-ups for strength or muscle building.

CLICK HERE 

Stay fit,

Jonathan

The Best Squat Variation You're Not Doing

 The goblet squat is our most used squat variation. 

Like other squat variations, it emphasizes the quads and glutes. As with the front squat, you’ll feel your upper back and probably your core, too.

What I like about the goblet squat is that it’s easier to stay upright and sit deeper compared to barbell variations. In fact, I now use it as a warm-up for my barbell squats.

In the video below, I’ll show you one cue to use to ensure you’re in a stronger position. You’ll also notice that my heels are elevated on a wedge. This helps with good posture, especially if you have poor ankle range of motion.

CLICK HERE

Stay fit,

Jonathan

Developing Three Muscle Qualities for a Healthy, Active Lifestyle

 

Introduction

Building strength, power, and muscle mass forms the foundation of a healthy, capable body. Whether your goal is to keep up with your kids, perform better in sports, or simply move through daily life with ease, developing these qualities can make a tremendous difference. Strength training isn’t just about lifting heavy weights; it’s about improving your ability to produce and control force in different ways. By understanding how building strength, power, and muscle mass work together, you can train smarter, stay active longer, and enjoy a higher quality of life.

Strength

Being strong helps make it easier to pick up your kids/grandkids, excel at sports and physical activities, carry your groceries, and climb stairs and hills. Plus, if these tasks are easier, you can do them for longer periods.

We typically think of developing strength through lifting heavy weights. But this isn’t the only way to do it. 

Strength is the ability to produce force.

Muscles can produce force in three ways: by shortening, lengthening, or staying the same length all while under tension. We typically experience these actions by lifting, lowering, and holding, respectively. 

It doesn’t matter what tools you use to develop strength. You can use free weights, bands, cables, machines, and even your bodyweight. The key is that your muscles are experiencing enough tension.

How much tension do you need? 

A textbook might tell you to use a resistance that allows you to perform 3-6 sets of 1-6 reps with 3-5 minutes of rest. However, my experience tells me that performing 2-3 sets of 5-8 reps will do a sufficient job while lowering your risk of injury.

Power

While we lose strength as we age, we lose power much faster.

Power is the ability to use our strength quickly. We need power for climbing stairs, fall prevention, and excelling in sports and other physical activities. 

(If you think you’re too young to worry about fall prevention, your risk increases after the age of 35.)

Another great benefit of power exercises is that they prime your body for better performance on strength exercises later in your workout.

If we want to improve power, strength training is part of the equation. Stronger people are generally more powerful and respond to power training faster.

However, our focus should be on faster movements. Athletes enjoy Olympic lifts, plyometrics and other jumps, medicine ball throws, and sprinting (often with resistance).

Our members are better served with simpler jumps, kettlebell swings, medicine ball throws, skips, and shuffles. Keep the repetitions in the 3-10 range to maintain quality.

The goal is to move fast, rather than use more weight. You might not be straining or feeling the burn, but these exercises are effective.

Muscle Mass

Preserving your muscle mass is important for maintaining good health.

Whether your goal is to build muscle, maintain muscle, or tone, the training is the same. Again, it doesn’t matter if you use free weights, machines, bands, cables, or bodyweight.

The most important part of building or maintaining muscle is using enough resistance. 

We used to think that you needed to use enough resistance to do 6-12 reps per set. More recent research shows that we can go lighter as long as our effort is high enough.

There are two additional ways to build muscle: through feeling the burn and making your muscles sore. Contrary to popular belief, though, you don’t have to experience soreness to get results.

Basically, every rep range works. We prefer doing 2-3 sets of 5-10 reps for multijoint exercises like squats and push-ups, and doing 1-2 sets of 12-20 reps or more for isolation exercises like tricep kickbacks and calf raises.

Conclusion

Building strength, power, and muscle mass isn’t reserved for athletes. It’s essential for everyone who wants to stay strong, independent, and active throughout life. 

You don’t need complex equipment or extreme workouts; you need consistent effort, proper resistance, and a focus on quality movement. Whether you’re goal is keeping up with your kids, excelling in an activity, or staying independent, every step toward greater strength supports a healthier, more capable you.

Try These 3 Push-Up Variations

Here are three push-up variations that you can use to bust through a plateau or prevent boredom.

WATCH HERE

Tips for Proper Execution

1. Make a double chin to keep your head in line with the rest of your spine.

2. Keep your elbows tucked 45 degrees to your body. Looking from the top down, you should look like an arrow rather than the letter T.

3. Squeeze your glutes and quads and brace your core to avoid sagging at the hips.

We do 5-12 reps for the close-grip variation and 3-6 reps per side for the push-up to T and single-leg variations. If you can do more reps from the floor, add a weight plate to your low back.

Stay fit,

Jonathan Pratt

Build Your Ankle Strength for Pickleball and Hiking

 A couple of months ago, I listened to an episode of the Jacked Athlete Podcast that changed the way we train calves. These tips will strengthen your ankles for hiking on trails and for sports like pickleball.

Usually, you would perform calf raises on a step to get extra stretch in the calves, but we didn't have a convenient way to do that in our space.

Bodybuilders often perform them by turning the feet in and out to emphasize different areas of the calves, but we focus on function and performance over aesthetics.

What I learned in the podcast episode is that the Achilles tendon has a lot of subdivisions rather than being one uniform tissue. That means to optimally develop it, we need to take the ankle through a greater range of motion and turn the feet in a variety of positions when performing calf raises.

To get more stretch in the calves, we started doing calf raises on 15 degree foam wedges purchased from BC Strength. This was a low-cost option that was convenient to set up.

We also started doing our calf raises with toes in, toes out, and toes straight. We do each position for 4-8 reps totalling 12-24 reps per set.

Finally, we added some calf raises into our warm-ups with our feet turned in and out like you would experience if you've ever twisted your ankle. We're not sure if we want to try loading this position.

You can check out that video here: Ankle Inversion/Eversion Calf Raise

We recommend doing 5-10 reps per position.

Stay fit,

Jonathan Pratt

Better Posture and Reduced Pain in Only 8 Weeks

 

We've started doing monthly check-ins at Pratt's Pro Fitness, and I wanted to share feedback from one of our newer members. You can read her response below. Here are a few of the exercises we've been using to work on Denise's posture. Face Pull TRX Single Arm Row Dumbbell Bench Row Stay fit, Jonathan Pratt P.S. If you're interested in setting up a call to see if we're the right fit for you, fill out our form here: Sign-Up