impact exercise to help make your bones stronger

Impact exercise is a type of weight-bearing exercise. This means your feet and legs support your weight.

Impact exercise happens when you are on your feet and you add an extra force through your bones. The force travels through your bones. This helps to maintain or improve your bone strength. The impact comes each time your feet hit the ground.

You can get impact exercise from your daily activities and by doing specific movements, exercises or leisure activities. The level of impact you get will depend on the type of exercise or activity you do.

The levels of impact exercise that are recommended for your bones are low-impact and moderate-impact exercise

Low-impact

Low-impact exercise is when you put a small amount of force through your bones. One foot always stays on the ground. Examples of low-impact exercises are walking, marching and stair-climbing.

Low-impact exercise can help to reduce the loss of bone and muscle strength.

We show you examples of low-impact exercises in Level 1 of our plan to build up impact exercise.

Moderate-impact

Moderate-impact exercise is when you push off from the ground and land with a medium amount of force through your bones. In many moderate-impact exercises, both feet will leave the ground at the same time. Examples of moderate-impact exercises and activities include jogging, skipping, dancing and playing tennis.

Moderate-impact exercise can help to improve your bone strength.

We show you examples of moderate-impact exercises in Level 2 and Level 3 of our plan to build up impact exercise.

Impact exercise may not be suitable if you have other medical conditions. You may need to focus on building up strength exercise instead. Talk to your doctor or physiotherapist if you have other health conditions that you think may affect your ability to exercise.

Exercises like swimming and cycling help your general fitness. But they are not impact exercises. This is because the water or bike holds the weight of your body. This means there is not much force travelling through your bones to help make them stronger.

Everyone should do impact exercise if they are able, especially if you have osteoporosis. How much and how often you should do impact exercise depends on if you have had spinal fractures or many broken bones.

If you have had spinal fractures or many broken bones

It is best to only do low-impact exercise. Try to build up to 20 minutes of low-impact exercise on most days of the week.

You may be able to build up to doing moderate-impact exercise if you have had spinal fractures or many broken bones. It depends on different things, like how your spinal fracture happened, your pain and your fitness levels. Talk to your doctor or physiotherapist if you are not sure if building up impact exercise is suitable for you.

If you do not have spinal fractures

Aim to build up to 50 moderate-impact exercises on most days of the week. The impacts could be jumps, skips, jogs or hops. One jump counts as one impact. You can spread your 50 impacts throughout the day.

Visit the NHS website to learn more about physical activity guidelines for adults.

We have developed a plan to help you build up impact exercise for your bones. These videos are for everyone, including if you have osteoporosis.

It is important to keep active at a level that is right for you. If you do not usually do impact exercise, start at Level 1 and gradually build up to Levels 2 and 3 if you can. If impact exercise is already a part of your routine, keep building up this type of exercise.

You may feel ready to move on to the next level when you feel confident with the movements and techniques.

If these exercises are not suitable for you, take a look at these gentle sitting exercises you can do at home.

Now that you have tried our plan, it is important to continue to make impact exercise a part of your daily life. Doing these exercises on most days of the week can make a difference as they can maintain or improve your bone strength.

Find a combination of exercises and activities you enjoy and that work for you. For example, you could do a combination of your favourite exercises from our impact exercise plan that are suitable for you. Or you could replace them with activities such as going for a walk, dancing or playing tennis.

You may enjoy Dance for your bones – a dance routine we created with Scottish Ballet. The dance includes Level 3 moderate-impact exercises such as hops and jumps.

The best way to help your bones is to do both impact and strength exercises. Take a look at our plan to help you build up strength exercise for your bones.