Expert: Dianne M. Buxton - 11/21/2008

Question
Hello,

I'm a 57 yr. old reasonably fit breast cancer survivor (IDC stage 1) who is taking an aromatase inhibitor for a total of 5 years (I have 2 more years to go). A side effect of this medication is bone loss, and my bone scans do show osteopenia. As well, osteoporosis runs on my mom's side. I eat a very healthy diet, take calcium and magnesium and use low-fat organic dairy products daily, don't smoke or drink, and walk and ride a bicycle. I'd like to know if ballet is considered a weight-bearing exercise (like jogging or walking). (I'm considering taking adult ballet lessons...I took ballet for 4 years as a kid, and got on pointe.) If so, would ballet be considered mild weight-bearing exercise (like walking) or intense weight-bearing exercise (like jumping rope)? Same questions for roller skating in a rink (I skated a lot in my 40s and want to resume that too).

If these questions are outside your field of expertise, what type of expert should I ask?

Thank you!

Liza

PS: Can you recommend a ballet training DVD for adults which would be beginner/intermediate level (I'm "rusty") and which would focus on barre (both sides), and which would have music? Thank you!


Answer
Hi Liza. I am not an expert in this specifically but let's see what I can find out.

Firstly, I have just asked my chiropractor. She said that ballet would be excellent for the legs, because the exercises put a lot of pressure onto the leg bones, just by the nature of ballet movements and ballet positions. But for the upper body, you would want to add weight lifting.

While I think that ballet brings as much to the soul as to the body and that you should do it if you love it, you can also add weight lifting in a careful way. I think you would enjoy reading "Slow Burn" by Frederick Hahn, with the M.D.'s Eades and Eades. It has 40 pages of clinical but simple explanations about healing with super-slow motion weight exercises that are easy to learn and available at seriousstrength.com. It discusses different ways of exercising and how slow motion with weights stimulates a cascade of enzymatic events which build the anti-aging Type II muscle fibers. As you have had other health issues I just think you'd like this information and could associate it with all your health goals. Slow motion weight lifting is also excellent for preventing joint strains and sprains.

And below is a chart, outlining exercise regimens for 'beginner', intermediate' and 'advanced' exercising. Ballet does not make it into the 'advanced' exercise list, whereas jumping rope does. You'll see that weight lifting fits into all 3 categories. Here's the link I found:

http://www.bonebuilders.org/bbchart.htm

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/  is a link to the Dr. M. Eades blog, where you will find a lot of health issues discussed by this cutting edge doctor, and his wife's blog is a link at the top of his. He also provides a link to Serious Strength.

As for ballet class DVDs, I have viewed many and been mostly disappointed. Especially, unfortunately the ones for adults. They run through exercises in a sloppy way leaving lots of chance for injury. The best item I've found is The Ballet Bible. I got it at http://www.theballetstore.com It has an amazing volume of detail, going through the barre exercises with plenty of explanation. It also has video demonstrations - it is a download to your computer.

I have not found any that are an actual class you can follow.

I hope you can find a good adult ballet class. That will take you pretty far before you start finding it too easy! Since you have done point work, you know already that a lot of good hard bone-building work is ahead of you.

Well I hope that's not too much! The short answer would be, yes, ballet is good, add some weight lifting for the upper body!

All the best, Dianne Always feel free to ask any further questions.

Nov. 28. Hi Lisa. I hope you don't mind an unsolicited extension of my answer - I just came across this link about PH balance and how it affects our bones.
http://www.naturalnews.com/Report_acid_alkaline_pH_1.html

It's a good read!