Submitted by admin on Mon, 2006-12-04 08:00. ::
Home › Lifestyle › Health & Fitness Story Tools E-mail this story Print ST. LOUIS -- After four years, Laurie Cohen knew the drill. Since being diagnosed with osteoporosis, she had received almost the same news at every checkup -- her bone density had improved slightly, thanks to prescription medication, vitamin D supplements and calcium supplements.
But this time, in November 2005, Cohen's doctor greeted her with big smile and a question: "What are you doing different from every other year?"
The answer was simple. Cohen had begun to work out twice a week with a personal trainer. The additional weight training and resistance training had done exactly what Diemer tells her patients can happen -- it had enabled her body to reverse bone loss.
Cohen couldn't believe it. It's not as if she were engaging in hard-core training. She works out with a personal trainer for 30 minutes twice a week and attends one 45-minute class, taught by one of the trainers. The heaviest weight she uses is 12 pounds. And her cardio workouts don't last more than 30 minutes.
"The problem that most women have is you tell them they need to start working out, and they think they have to start running marathons and lifting 100-pound weights," says Diemer, an osteoporosis specialist at Washington University Physicians. "But it's mainly basic toning. With cardiovascular, you've got to get your heart rate up. But with osteoporosis, it's mainly getting on your feet and walking."
Cohen discovered she had osteoporosis shortly after she turned 50; she asked her primary care doctor for a bone-density scan simply because she had read that 50 was the age for a baseline reading. She didn't expect to learn about any problems, but she was told that her bone density was so low that she already had osteoporosis in her left hip and osteopenia, the precursor to osteoporosis, in her right hip.
In retrospect, Cohen realizes that the news should not have come as a shock. Her mother has osteoporosis. So did her grandmother. The family history had never affected her diet or exercise decisions. "I always liked ice cream," she says, "but I don't think I tried to get calcium. And I'm not a milk drinker."
The diagnosis forced some changes. Cohen began to take 35 milligrams of Actonel, a drug that slows the degeneration of bone, every Monday. She needed calcium supplements. Doctors recommend weight-bearing exercise, so Cohen continued to walk for about 20 minutes, four mornings a week, although her years of walking hadn't appeared to help.
"We are always rebuilding our skeleton," Diemer says. "We're breaking down old bones, rebuilding and replenishing the skeleton in the normal cycle of bone turnover. In osteoporosis, the cells that break down bones, the demolition crew, are working too fast, and the construction crew can't keep up."
Weight-bearing exercise stimulates the "construction crew." Says Diemer, "All the stimuli are telling the bone, 'You've got to work a little bit harder.'"
Along with a co-worker, she had attended classes three times a week at Curves. Then her co-worker suggested that they try a kickboxing class, which they loved. When that class time changed, they found another class at Club One Fitness in Creve Coeur, Mo. They figured they may as well join the club.
She couldn't believe how difficult the workouts were. (And still are, for that matter.) Squats. Lunges. Squat jumps. Her trainers varied the exercises, which she did sometimes in place, sometimes moving across the room.
For her upper body, she did push-ups, dips, shoulder presses, rows, biceps curls, planks, crunches. She even began to use an exercise ball, working on her balance.
She still doesn't think of herself as an athlete, but she pushes herself harder. Her walks have turned into jogs. Sometimes she squeezes in an hour and a half of workouts, divided into 30-minute blocks morning, noon and evening.
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