The Role of Exercise in Bone Development and Maintenance
Our learning in class has already established the importance of “loaded exercise” in maintaining adequate levels of bone density throughout adulthood. Now that we know more about the cells involved in the bone modeling and remodeling process, we can better understand the process by which activity leads to better bone density.
Loaded exercise places mechanical stress onto our bones. Bones can actually bend slightly during loaded exercises like running. In fact, your bones are subjected to a range of forces during loaded exercise including compressive forces (from weight bearing down with gravity), tensile forces (as muscles pull on the bones they are attached to), and shear forces (as bones move against each other). The image below shows how these different forces acting on the foot and ankle during running lead to a slight bending of the bones.
