Physiotherapists at the Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, asked children with an average age of 14 to perform a ten minute warm up of star jumps, side lunges and skipping twice a week before their PE sessions. At the start of the eight month study the children could only manage around 50 jumps but by the end they could do 300 and their bone and muscle strength had improved significantly as a result.

Approximately 80 percent of bone mass is accrued in the first 20 years of life and especially around puberty because of circulating hormones so, according to this new study, children should be encouraged to jump and skip as often as possible to boost the health of their bones.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 1st, 2008 at 3:50 am and is filed under Children's Health, General Health, In the News, Osteoporosis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.