Gymnastics is better for your bones than running, say sports
scientists at the University of Oregon. Christine Snow-Harter
and student Tracey Robinson of the university's Bone Research
Laboratory compared women gymnasts and runners to determine what
type of exercise benefits bones most. Most of the athletes were
amenorrhoeic - they did not menstruate and had extremely low
oestrogen levels, similar to those in postmenopausal women. Low
oestrogen may lead to the bone-wasting disease of osteoporosis,
even in teenage athletes. Among gymnasts, the wasting effects of
amenorrhoea are countered by their exercise routines. The
researchers found that compared to the runners, the gymnasts had
20 per cent more bone mass in the lower spine and 23 per cent
more bone mass in the hips. The reason is that gymnastic moves
exert as much as twelve times the body weight on the skeleton,
whereas running exerts between two and five times the ... To
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