Why Cycling is Bad for Bone Density and How You Can Improve It

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NorthCascades
NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Very good article from the folks at TrainingPeaks. All cyclists should read this. I'd love to hear your thoughts, whether you were already aware of this problem, and what you do about it in your own life.

What the Research Shows

If you are a road cyclist, especially if you train hard or have been training for multiple years, you are more likely to develop osteopenia or osteoporosis. This puts you at a higher risk for fractures; a risk that continues to go up with age and training. More masters were classified as osteoporotic compared to age-matched, non-athletes, and the percentage of these increased significantly after a seven-year period.1 So, for those of you in this category, you are not only more likely to be at risk, but the risk factor is higher as you complete more years of cycling training.

In 2012, there was an extensive review of 31 studies on the subject2. The findings were that adult road cyclists who train regularly have significantly low bone mineral density in key regions. This was found to be true when comparing the cyclists to control populations of both athletes in other sports as well as non-athletes. Areas of the lumbar spine, pelvic and hip regions, and femoral neck were all key areas found to have lower values in road cyclists than the controls.

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http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/why-cycling-is-bad-for-bone-density-and-how-you-can-improve-it

Replies

  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
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    Interesting article. Important to note that those showing the decreases in bone density were elite cyclists, not average exercisers, which means that most people can ignore this.

    I also found it noteworthy that the author advocated heavy weight training to improve bone density, yet the study she cited specifically stated that neither heavy strength training nor circuit weight training improved bone density.

    From the abstract: "Our results suggest that ST and circuit training positively affect postmenopausal women's muscular strength, muscular activation, and cardiorespiratory fitness, with no changes in BMD." ---(note: "BMD" stands for "bone mineral density" .

    A recent article in the NY Times suggests that there is little research to support the idea that exercise improves bone strength:
    http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/04/02/health/exercise-is-not-the-path-to-strong-bones.html?_r=0&referer=http://m.facebook.com
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
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    Correction, @Azdak. Those showing the worst decreases were elite cyclists. All cyclists (especially roadies) need to be aware of this. To what extent it affects you depends on a number of factors. But we should all be aware that cycling is bad for bone density, and we should be doing weight-bearing exercise to counter that.
  • brentfostwood904
    brentfostwood904 Posts: 51 Member
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    There is an episode of "my strange addiction" where there is a man addicted to cycling who kind of destroyed his hips.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,871 Member
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    I haven't done a ton of research on this, but I figure lifting can't hurt...
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
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    brentfostwood904 wrote: »
    There is an episode of "my strange addiction" where there is a man addicted to cycling who kind of destroyed his hips.

    Cyclists are no strangers to breaks and fractures, but Andrew Coggan could be forgiven for not expecting a hip fracture from a bike crash at age 30. He may have been less surprised than most of his peers though, having recently been diagnosed with low bone density.

    For many cyclists, an injury like Coggan's is the first sign that bones are not as strong as they should be. Although cyclists are known for staying on top of their training heart rate zones and pedal cadence, increasing research suggests they should also pay attention to their risk of thinning bones.

    "Sometimes athletes in their late 20s and early 30s will come in for a femur or a hip fracture, and they'll be surprised because the fall was really not that bad," says Dr. Max Testa, a sports medicine physician at the Orthopedic Specialty Hospital in Salt Lake City who routinely treats elite cyclists. "But we'll look at the X-rays and see that there is some osteopenia [lower-than-normal bone density] there."

    http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/16/health/he-cycling16
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
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    NorthCascades wrote: »
    Correction, @Azdak. Those showing the worst decreases were elite cyclists. All cyclists (especially roadies) need to be aware of this. To what extent it affects you depends on a number of factors. But we should all be aware that cycling is bad for bone density, and we should be doing weight-bearing exercise to counter that.

    Whoops--that's what happens when you quick read on a phone. Thanks for the correction.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
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    Then why do they put a stationary bike on the ISS?
  • Cherimoose
    Cherimoose Posts: 5,209 Member
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    Azdak wrote: »
    A recent article in the NY Times suggests that there is little research to support the idea that exercise improves bone strength:
    http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/04/02/health/exercise-is-not-the-path-to-strong-bones.html?_r=0&referer=http://m.facebook.com

    Actually there is plenty of evidence, but for some reason the author chose to ignore it. For example:

    - Females in higher-impact sports have improved bone strength compared to non-impact sports (cycling & swimming) and non-athletic females:
    onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1359/JBMR.041119/full

    - Weight loss from calorie restriction reduces bone density but exercise-induced weight loss does not:
    https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27154437

    - Tennis players have stronger bones in their dominant arm vs. non-dominant:
    https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16099730

    It's important to note that bone density is only one measure of bone strength, and "denser bone is not necessarily stronger". An analogy would be a piece of a wood that has low density can be stronger when it's bent in the direction of the grain than a higher density wood that's bent against the grain. Bone gets stronger based on the direction of the loading (Wolff's Law), so it's important to have a varied exercise program with dynamic movements, as the first study i linked to shows.
    jgnatca wrote: »
    Then why do they put a stationary bike on the ISS?

    For cardiovascular health. They do strength training daily, for bone & muscle strength. :+1:
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,041 Member
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    When I first learned of this back in the early 2000s, I was cycling about 10,000 km/year including a number of ultra-long randonnees etc.

    So I upped my walking to a minimum average of 15 km/week. In the last couple years, I've increased it even more so that I'm averaging about 20 km/week.

    Much of the time it is not just walking, but also walking with a relatively heavy backpack.
  • CM_73
    CM_73 Posts: 554 Member
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    I remember this coming up a few years ago, I'm sure that mountain biking occasionally helped to balance it out with the far harsher vibrations/impacts encountered?
    I think it's important to remember the massive benefits that cycling brings as well though, and if you keep a healthy balance of weights/walking/running or whatever floats your boat then I don't think it's anything to worry about.

    Just my opinion though.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,041 Member
    edited November 2016
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    Hit 1000 km of walking in 2016 yesterday. On pace with last year ... averaging 21.3 km/week. :)

    I've also been stair climbing (real stairs) quite regularly for about the past 2 years.

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