To date there have been no strength training studies that have looked at fractures as an outcome. Finally, scientists from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota have published a study showing a reduction in fractures with strength training. What is interesting about the study is that the benefits showed up many years after the main study stopped.

Let me give you more detail. Over a decade ago, the scientists took a group of 50 women (aged 58-75) and randomized them into two different groups. One group performed muscle strengthening exercises of the back muscles for two years and the other group served as controls. At the end of two years the women who had been strength training had stronger back muscles but there was no difference between groups in bone density. Then a full eight years later, the scientists brought the women back into the laboratory to test them to see if any differences still remained. What they saw was dramatic. The women who had originally been strength training still had stronger back muscles and their bone density was better than the controls. Most importantly, the women in the control group had had experienced almost three times as many vertebral fractures (fractures of the bones in the spine) than the women who were originally in the strength training group. The controls had had 14 crush fractures; whereas the strength trainers had had only 6 crush fractures. This was a highly significant difference between groups. It is unknown whether the women in the strength training group continued training over the eight year follow-up period, but they certainly were more active overall than the control women.

I am thrilled that we are seeing reductions in fractures with such a simple strength training protocol. I am confident that more and more research is going to be published over the next few years on the importance of exercise, and strength training in particular, on reducing fractures in older women.