Exercise and Your Skeletal System

The skeletal system is the basic structure of your body, which consists of various types of rigid bones. It basically helps generate movements of your body, offering a lever system and protects the internal organ systems and other tissues. It also acts as a large storage of minerals, which is important to the normal functions of the body. Bone marrow is a soft tissue within the bone. It produces your blood cells. The skeletal system offers structural support and helps transfer your body weight to the ground through the lower limbs. During any movement of your body, the skeletal system should work with your muscular system in a coordinated manner to generate the particular movement. This coordination is done by your nervous system. Your muscles contract or relax in a coordinated way to move certain bones producing specific movements. This also helps maintain the body position as you wish.

Your bones basically contain minerals (including calcium and phosphorus) and bone marrow. Your muscles attach to the different sites of the bones to make an efficient lever system. This complex lever system (musculoskeletal system) generates specific movements of your body. Your skeletal system protects the important organs, such as the heart, lungs, brain, spinal cord, kidneys, liver, spleen, and bowels. It acts as a storage for calcium. When your calcium levels are low, it releases calcium into the blood. Then, calcium is replaced, once the calcium level is normal. Some bones of your body consist of red bone marrow, which generates all kinds of blood cells, which include platelets, red blood cells, and white blood cells. This process is known as haematopoiesis.

Exercise, other physical activities, aging, and nutrition significantly affect the health of your skeletal system. Sufficient levels of physical activities and adequate dietary calcium help reduce the risk of developing osteoporosis, which is a disease characterised by loss of calcium and other minerals from the bones (low mineral density of the bones). Therefore, the bones will have tiny holes and will become fragile. They may easily be susceptible to fracture. The risk of osteoporosis can rise in any person irrespective of age.

How do you prevent or minimise the risk of osteoporosis? You should keep up the maximum bone mass by age 30 years and reduce the rate of mineral loss during the rest of your life. You can achieve the maximum bone mass by doing moderate-intensity physical activities, which need some structural support, like running, jogging, and walking. You should consume at least the minimal daily requirement of dietary calcium. Therefore, it is better you to know the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of calcium. If you consume an insufficient amount of calcium and do not exercise adequately when you are young, you cannot achieve the maximum bone mass. Therefore, exercise and nutrition are important to reduce the risk of osteoporosis in people of all ages.

A healthy skeletal system is also important for a good athlete and sport performance. Your bones contain red bone marrow, which produces red blood cells. This process is regulated by a hormone called erythropoietin, which is secreted by the kidneys. These red blood cells carry oxygen via the blood from the lungs to every tissue of your body. This is one of the important steps in aerobic energy production. Therefore, fitness for aerobic activities directly depends on the capacity to supply oxygen to working tissues of the body. If the number of red cells is high, oxygen delivery to the tissues will also be high and thus the cardiovascular fitness and performance in aerobic sports will improve.

Health-care professionals use recombinant human erythropoietin (rEPO) to reduce the risk of developing anaemia in patients with certain diseases because, rEPO helps improve the number of red blood cells. However, use of rEPO in athletes is illegal. If the athletes test positive for rEPO during their drug testing, sport governing associations will expel athletes from the competition.

Living at high altitudes and training at lower altitudes may help improve the number of red blood cells, hence the oxygen-carrying capability of the blood. This is known as altitude training and may be ethical and legal. Usually, high altitudes contain less oxygen. Therefore, red bone marrow produces more red blood cells to enhance the oxygen delivery to the tissues. This may increase the fitness for aerobic activities and sports at lower altitudes. Some athletes tend to sleep and rest at high altitudes and train at low altitudes irrespective of their living location.



Related Links:

Exercise and Your Muscles
Exercise and Your Cardiovascular System
Exercise and Your Respiratory System
Exercise and Your Urinary System
Exercise and Your Digestive System
Exercise and Your Nervous System