Ep17 One Guaranteed Way Riders Can Improve Bone Density

In this episode, endurance rider and personal trainer Tamara Baysinger talks about why bone density matters so much for riders—especially women. Because equestrians face a higher risk of fractures from falls and other horse-related, protecting bone health is essential. Learn how strength training supported by appropriate nutrition can reverse bone loss and keep you in the saddle for years to come.

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Welcome to Equestrian Fitness for the Long Ride with the sweaty equestrian. I'm personal trainer and endurance rider Tamara Basinger, and I'm here to help you ride stronger in a day and longer in your life. Hey rider, welcome back to the podcast. As I am recording this, I am, let's see, four days back from my first endurance ride of the season. It was at the Eagle Canyon ride here in Southwest Idaho. And four days out, I'm getting over my muscle soreness finally, but it was pretty intense for a few days. I catch-rowed somebody else's horse on Saturday, and he was super fun to ride. I had a great time, but I was riding in a different saddle that I'm not used to. And also, this horse was a lot taller and more to the point, wider than I'm used to riding. So I actually was pretty sore. I could tell by the time I was halfway through the first loop that I would be paying for that one. But it was totally worth it. Fun day. And then the next day, I did the limited distance ride, so just 25 miles, on my young horse, Coco Pelle. And I discovered that I was not quite fully recovered from the prior week's half marathon. And I actually did quite a bit of downhill running with the horse during that ride because we had to make up some time after some delays earlier in the ride. And I really aggravated my hamstring tendons at the backs of my knees. And so I'm still kind of hobbling around. I'm taking it easy this week, focusing on upper body strength training and just letting my legs heal. But it was super fun. I'm already looking forward to the next ride at the end of May. If you want to read all the details of that endurance ride experience, I wrote up the ride story. It's on my blog at thesweatyequestrian.com. And you can always get a heads up when new content like that comes out articles, podcast episodes, by signing up for my newsletter. It's free. And actually, the newsletter itself is like a short blog post. It'll give you a kind of a weekly shot of actionable tips to keep your writer fitness on point. So if you want to be getting that, you can sign up for it at theswequestrian.com/slash newsletter. In other news, the day this episode drops is going to be my birthday, and I am almost 50 now. And we all know that these are the years of life when women especially need to be cognizant of bone loss. So I want to talk about that today because those of us who ride horses are at a higher risk of bone trauma than the average person. The good news is that there is one guaranteed thing we can do to improve our bone density. And no, it isn't a drug, and yes, I'm going to tell you what it is. But first, statistics do show that equestrians have a high risk of bone fractures. This shouldn't be a surprise to any of us. It's usually due to falls, although various other things like getting kicked or even yanked at the end of a lead rope or taking a bad step out of your horse trailer, all those things can also result in a break. And then there are the really ugly wrecks, you know, when a horse falls on you. Yikes. 32 to 34% of reported equestrian injuries are fractures. One study of over 1,500 riders showed that the thoracic spine, so your mid spine and rib breaks are the most common. Other locations include the lower trunk, so your lumbar spine, the femoral neck, which is the top of your upper leg bone just below the hip joint, and the pelvis. A bunch more were to the upper extremities, wrists, shoulders, collarbones, forearms. And then there are fractures to the lower leg, the femur, the foot, the neck, which is terrifying. And fractures even occurred in faces, fingers, and toes. We riders can truly break anything. Now, of course, these breaks can occur in any rider, regardless of your bone health, simply because we sometimes take high energy impact from falls off these massive, unpredictable prey animals that we love so much. But throw in poor bone density, and obviously the risk of fracture and of more severe fractures goes up. Let's take a look then at how our bones work, because that will help us understand what changes with age and how we can reverse it. Because, spoiler alert, we can. We tend to think of bone as a hard static structure, like the beams that support a house, but they're actually highly dynamic. Our bones undergo constant remodeling as we remove old bone cells and replace them with new bone cells. When we are young and growing, we see a net addition of new bone, of course. And then from age about 20 to 50, we more or less balance the rate of addition and subtraction of new cells. With advancing age, though, bone resorption or getting rid of cells begins to outpace new bone formation. And the resulting decrease in bone mass and strength and density puts us at a higher risk of fracture. Now, women really hit a wall here at menopause when low levels of estrogen lead to more rapid acceleration of bone loss. Men tend to hit that point much later in life, which is a big reason why osteoporosis is so much more common in women. We ladies account for about 80% of osteoporosis cases in the United States. And of course, many of us experience plenty of bone loss without actually tipping over into an official osteoporosis diagnosis, or even osteopenia, which is that condition of lower than normal bone density, that's kind of a precursor or a warning sign for actual osteoporosis. Anyway, we women can lose up to 25% of our bone mass in the first 10 years after menopause. That is a terrifying number, right? 25% loss in 10 years, right about in our 50s. Now, who among us doesn't think that that is way too young to stop taking the risk of riding our horses? But riding with compromised bone density is a risk not just for pain and recovery time, but to your life itself. Maybe you have heard the expression break a hip, die of pneumonia. That expression exists because it is so common for a fracture in an older person to start a chain reaction of other conditions that can really decrease the quality and even the length of your life. So let's talk about what we can do to turn that bone loss around or ideally keep it from getting out of control in the first place. There's one thing you can do that is absolutely guaranteed to make a difference, and despite what the dairy industry would have you believe, you are not going to find it in your fridge. Now that isn't to say that calcium isn't important. Without adequate calcium intake, especially paired with adequate vitamin D, you're not going to have healthy bones. But that doesn't mean that more calcium is automatically better. Once you have sufficient calcium to meet your needs, consuming extra is not going to magically build bone. Instead, what you need to do is send your bones a signal that says, hey, we really need to keep the density up because we have work to do. Generally speaking, you're going to hear the recommendation that we do quote unquote weight-bearing exercise, right? Well, what is that exactly? To a certain extent, activities like running, where you're on your feet putting pressure against the ground, are weight-bearing. You're bearing your own weight, as opposed to a seated exercise like on a bike or a horse. And to a certain extent, activities like running will help build some bone. They do put more force on the bones than, say, riding does. But if you think about it, it's pretty limited to the lower body, nothing really for the spine and the upper body. And it's just one repetitive motion done over and over again. What we really need is to challenge our whole body full of bones, and we need to do it by pushing and pulling on them at lots of different angles. And the best way to do that is by strength training. This really works, and not only to slow the loss of bone density, but actually to reverse it. I'm thinking of one study that was done in women in their mid-60s. For eight months, the researchers had one group strength train and the other group carry on as usual without strength training. After eight months, the group that did not strength train had lost an average of 1.2% of the bone density in their lumbar spines in eight months, 1.2%. The group that had strength trains, though, they saw an increase of 3%. So not only did the women in their mid-60s who strength trained not lose the 1.2%, they actually gained 3% bone density in just eight months without hormonal intervention in their mid-60s. So here's the thing you could be a pretty active person who gets a lot of general activity out with your horses. Maybe you hike a lot, you take care of your nutrition, but you could still be losing bone density. But if you add strength training to that combination, now you make the magic happen. Now you're putting the stresses on your bones that signal them to keep remodeling and laying down new cells. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a lot. Even one session a week of beginner exercises will make a difference. You start with something that's appropriate for your fitness level. If that's just some really basic movements, like sitting at the edge of a chair and standing up again, or holding a light dumbbell over your head for a couple minutes, whatever represents an incremental challenge for you at this point, that is the place to start. And as you get stronger, we work up from there and your bones get more and more benefit. You can't just keep doing what you're doing and expect it to help, though, because your body doesn't need to adapt anymore to do those same familiar farm chores and things. You've got to add challenges that make your muscles stronger than they are now. Stronger muscles put more tension, they pull harder on your bones, and that is the signal that tells your bones to get it together, guys. We are not done here. Gaining strength is also going to help reduce your risk of fracture in another way. And that's that you're less likely to fall off in the first place. Most falls in non-equestrians are actually due to muscle weakness. Sometimes we tend to assume it's poor balance or vertigo, and that can be the case. But most often it's just that someone didn't have the strength to catch themselves when something happened. This applies in the saddle too. You are more likely to stick a spook or a stumble if your muscles are strong than if they are weak. Now you can support this process of building strength with good nutrition and getting plenty of sleep. By good nutrition, I mean you have to eat enough food. If you are trying to keep your weight under control and scrape by on 1400, 1500 calories, you are not giving your body the raw materials to protect your bones. You're also not giving your body enough fuel to build muscle. So you've got to eat more. And in most women, even small statured ones like myself, I weigh 120 pounds sopping wet, okay? I'm like 5'2. I'm talking about 2,000 calories a day, maybe more, even for smaller women. You have to eat enough food, and you also have to make sure that a lot of it is protein. Shoot for at least 90 or 100 grams of protein a day, bare minimum. More is better. Why? Because adequate protein supports your muscle gain. You are stimulating that muscle growth with the strength training, and then you're eating enough fuel to support it. And whatever builds muscle, builds bone. I'll say it again. Whatever builds muscle, builds bone. So if you want to strengthen your bones, strengthen your muscles. You do that by eating enough calories, don't undereat, and don't be scared of that. I know that that can be quite a paradigm shift, and I teach all about it in my Leaner Stronger Writer program, but you've got to eat enough food, including enough protein, and strength train at a level that is challenging for you. Train even one day a week, and you'll see results two or three days a week is perfect. This is a guaranteed formula. It will work. Do those three things consistently, and you will see a positive impact on your bone density. Hey, as I mentioned, today is my birthday, and if you want to give me a little birthday present, I would love it if you could leave a five-star rating for the podcast and a nice review. That really helps other people find the podcast. And it's such a gift to keep my creative energy up. And how about this? When you leave a five-star review, ask me a question right there in your review, and I will answer it on the podcast. You can ask me anything from, I don't know, my favorite horse color to something you want to know about rider fitness. Whatever you want to know. All right, that's it for today. Go do some strength training. Look me up if I can help you with that, because you can ride stronger in a day and longer in your life. Want to get more sweaty? Subscribe to my newsletter at the sweatyequestrian dot com slash newsletter. And remember, you have what it takes to be a full athletic partner for your horse. Saddle up strong.