 [ Symptoms ] which exercises are best for people with osteoporosis [ Disease ] osteoporosis is a disease characterized by loss of bone that increases the risk of fracture particularly in the wrist spine and hip exercise can have a positive effect on bone mineral density and the strength of bone but it is a complicated relationship because of many factors including genetics age gender hormone and menopause status activity level and nutrient deficiencies age applies to everyone when it comes to the effect of exercise on building bone strength in youth the time of peak bone mineral content velocity the time around puberty when bone rapidly forms is an important time for children and early teens to be exercising because 1 research shows that increases in estrogen in girls helps bone form puberty is when estrogen rises and exercise added during this time enhances the effect on bone density 2 research shows that active youth have higher bone density than inactive children 3 research suggests that denser bone formed during childhood may track into adulthood that is if children and teens exercise enough to create denser bones than their sedentary peers then they may have thicker bones as adults as for young adults it is generally believed that peak bone density is reached by the time we reach our late 20s or early 30s and research suggests that athletes in this age group have higher bone mineral density than sedentary individuals for middle aged and older adults bone density decreases by about 5 per decade after the age of 40 some scientists believe that during these times of life it may not be realistic to expect substantial increases in bone density but rather we should expect a reduction or attenuation of the loss of bone that we experience as we age these scientists may be right because there is little evidence that walking weight lifting or any other type of exercise substantially increases bone density in older adults what you can say with some certainty is that active individuals in these age groups do maintain their bone density while their sedentary peers do not and that is a good thing equally important for older adults in terms of osteoporosis is the effect of exercise on the risk of falling when individuals with osteoporosis fall they typically break bones and in fact sometimes the bones are so brittle that they break before the person hits the ground for example just stepping off a curb could break a brittle bone in the hip and then the individual falls as a result people fall for many reasons including poor balance poor vision decreased strength and range of motion and cognitive impairments like dementia exercise can not help every factor but studies show that exercises such as balance training e g tai chi leg strengthening and flexibility training e g yoga can reduce the risk of falling in older adults as for which exercises are best for people with osteoporosis the simple answer is 1 weight bearing exercises that cause force on the bones like jogging stair