Can exercising also care for our brains?

When we reach the mid-40s, the bones start to creak slightly. By the mid-50s, the creaking is really loud. And don't ask us to remember anything.

To help us keep our bones healthy, here are three exercises to add to our fitness regimen, assuming we all have one.

Starting early in life doing "bone-loading exercises" and eating high-calcium, high-fiber, low-fat diets is essential for building stronger bones and keeping osteoporosis at bay, says Dr. Cedric Bryant, the American Council on Exercise's  chief science officer.

"Contrary to popular belief, osteoporosis is not an old woman's disease," Bryant says. "In reality, it is a disease process that begins relatively early in life but does not manifest itself until later in life."

To keep that from happening here are the three exercises Bryant's organization says will help you keep your bones healthy:

√  Squats

Hold light-weight dumbbells in each hand with arms straight and hanging down alongside the body. Stand with feet shoulder-width apart and knees and feet facing forward.

Engage the abdominals and flex the hips and knees to a place where the thighs are approaching a position parallel with the floor. Only go as low as you feel pain-free and stable.

Keep the chest and shoulders in an upright position throughout the movement and feel the body weight centered toward the middle of the feet and heels. Perform one to three sets of eight to 12 repetitions.

For beginners, body-weight squats may represent a proper starting intensity.

√  Side Lunges.

Stand with your feet together and hands by your sides or in front of your chest. Take one large step to the right side, allowing your body weight to shift to the right foot as it makes contact with the floor.

The left knee should remain straight as the right leg accepts a majority of the weight.

Push off of the floor with the right foot and return to the starting position. Repeat movement on the left side.

Bending the knee 90 degrees is ideal, but only go to as low as you feel pain-free and stable. Throughout the movement, be sure to maintain the chest and shoulders in an upright position.

This movement should be quicker than the regular squat because it requires the use of muscular power to push off the floor and return to starting position. Perform one to three sets of eight to 12 repetitions.

√  Seated Row.

Using exercise tubing, flex at the hips and shoulders - not the spine - to grasp the handles and sit upright on a bench or the floor with the elbows extended.

Slowly pull the elbows behind the back and maintain an upright posture without allowing the hips to rotate. Pause, and focus on squeezing the shoulder blades toward each other before returning the arms to the starting position.

Perform one to three sets of eight to 12 repetitions.

Exercising and brain power

And if you think exercise will only help your bones, think again. In fact, exercising just may help you remember to exercise.

Research has shown that people who exercise do better on memory tests. Now, brain doctors at New York's Columbia University Medical Center said exercise helps build new cells in an area of your brain associated with memory and memory loss, which usually begins in most adults when they hit 30.

"No previous research has systematically examined the different regions of the hippocampus and identified which region is most affected by exercise," says Dr. Scott Small, a Columbia neurologist who led the study. "I, like many physicians, already encourage my patients to get active and this adds yet another reason to the long list of reasons why exercise is good for overall health."

The neurologists used sophisticated magnetic resonance imaging scans, better known as MRIs, to peek into the brains of 11 people before and after after three months of aerobic exercise, according to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In earlier projects, the doctors found the same growth of brain cells in lab mice put through the exercise paces.

"Our next step is to identify the exercise regimen that is most beneficial to improve cognition and reduce normal memory loss, so that physicians may be able to prescribe specific types of exercise to improve memory," Small said.

Source: American Council on Exercise, Newswise Daily Wire

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