Bone and muscle strength after menopause

Step by step

1. 1

   Step 1: Challenge your muscles twice a week

   This is the step that does the most and the one most often skipped. Sit-to-stands, resistance bands, light weights or steady stair climbing all count. The principle is simple: your muscles need to be asked to do slightly more than they are used to, and what was hard last month should feel easier this month.

   Learn more: Muscle strength and ageing
2. 2

   Step 2: Let chair dance carry the habit

   Movement you enjoy is movement you keep doing, and consistency beats intensity over a year. Chair dance gives you rhythm, coordination and company every week, and you can build real strength into it by rising without your hands, holding a leg out longer, or adding heel raises at the chair back.

   Learn more: Chair dance for bone and muscle
3. 3

   Step 3: Train your balance on purpose

   Balance is a skill and it fades if it is never practised. A few minutes most days of heel-to-toe steps, weight shifting and standing on one foot with a chair within reach is enough. A fracture usually needs both a vulnerable bone and a fall, and this is the half of that equation you can work on directly.

   Learn more: Balance exercises for seniors
4. 4

   Step 4: Eat enough protein to hold your muscle

   Muscle cannot be maintained without the material to maintain it, and protein at one meal a day is not the same as protein spread across three. Curd, milk, paneer, lentils, kidney beans, soy and tofu all count, as do eggs, fish and chicken. Protein and strength work go together: neither does the job alone.

   Learn more: Nutrition basics
5. 5

   Step 5: Get calcium from food, and keep Vitamin D in perspective

   Lean on food first for calcium: dairy, calcium-set tofu, some leafy greens, fortified foods and small fish eaten with the bones. Vitamin D helps you absorb it, but it is not a muscle builder and it is not a substitute for exercise. Whether you need testing or a supplement is a question for your own doctor.

   Learn more: Vitamin D: what it does, and what it does not

All topics in this guide

• Muscle strength and ageing
• Chair dance for bone and muscle
• Balance exercises for seniors
• Nutrition basics
• Vitamin D: what it does, and what it does not
• Bone health after menopause
• Osteopenia and osteoporosis explained

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