The standard exercise advice given to Australians with osteoporosis is: walk more, do some light weights, avoid anything jarring, be careful.
In 2017, a research group at Griffith University on the Gold Coast published a trial that showed this advice to be, at best, a waste of everyone’s time.
The LIFTMOR trial
Belinda Beck and colleagues ran the LIFTMOR trial — Lifting Intervention For Training Muscle and Osteoporosis Rehabilitation. It was published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research in 2018.
The participants: postmenopausal women with low bone mass — osteopenia or osteoporosis. The average age was around 65. These were not athletes.
The intervention: eight months, twice weekly, thirty minutes per session, of high-intensity resistance and impact training (HiRIT). Specifically:
- Deadlift
- Overhead press
- Back squat
Performed at more than 85% of one-repetition maximum. Five sets of five repetitions. Plus jumping chin-ups with drop landings for impact loading.
Deadlifts and squats at 85% of maximum. In 65-year-old women with osteoporosis. Supervised.
The results
The HiRIT group showed significant improvements in lumbar spine bone mineral density — on the order of 3% — and improvement at the femoral neck, compared with a control group performing a low-intensity home program, which lost bone.
They also improved substantially in functional measures: leg and back strength, functional performance tests, and — notably — height, likely reflecting improved posture and reduced thoracic kyphosis from stronger spinal extensors.
Adverse events were minimal. The intervention was well tolerated in a population routinely told that heavy lifting would break them.
The follow-up trial, LIFTMOR-M, applied the same protocol to older men with low bone mass and found comparable benefits.
Why it works when walking doesn’t
Bone follows Wolff’s law: it adapts to the loads placed upon it. But bone is a stubborn adapter, and the stimulus has to exceed a threshold to trigger remodelling.
Three variables determine osteogenic stimulus:
Magnitude. The size of the load. Walking generates ground reaction forces of roughly 1 to 1.5 times bodyweight. This is well below the threshold required to drive meaningful bone formation at the hip and spine in an adult.
Rate. How quickly the load is applied. Rapid loading is more osteogenic than slow loading — which is why impact matters.
Novelty and direction. Bone habituates. Load applied in unusual directions, and varied over time, produces greater response.
Walking fails on all three. It is a wonderful thing to do — for cardiovascular health, mood, glucose control and joint health — but as a treatment for low bone density at the hip and spine, it is essentially inert.
Heavy deadlifts, by contrast, apply very large loads directly through the spine and hip. That is exactly where osteoporotic fractures occur.
The 70-kilogram question
Should a 70-year-old be deadlifting 70 kg?
For many, yes — eventually, and with the emphasis on eventually.
A 70 kg deadlift for a 70 kg person is approximately bodyweight. That is not an extreme load in absolute terms; it is comfortably within the range achieved by participants in the LIFTMOR-style protocols after several months of progressive training.
But the number is the destination, not the starting point. The path runs: movement competence with a broomstick or light kettlebell, then a trap bar or barbell from blocks, then progressive load over months under supervision. Nobody walks in and lifts bodyweight in week one.
The critical caveat, repeated because it matters: this research was conducted with direct, expert supervision. The safety record is a function of the supervision, not despite it. Attempting a heavy deadlift program unsupervised with osteoporosis is not what the evidence supports.
What about vertebral fractures?
This is the appropriate concern. Loaded flexion is the mechanism that fractures osteoporotic vertebrae — sit-ups, rounded-back lifting, loaded forward bending.
A properly executed deadlift is not spinal flexion. It is a hip hinge with a braced, neutral spine. The distinction is the entire safety argument, and it is why technique instruction is the first several sessions rather than an afterthought.
The complete bone health picture
Resistance training is the lever with the largest effect size available to you, but it is not the only one:
- Protein adequacy — bone matrix is largely collagen
- Calcium and vitamin D — check status with your GP
- Medical therapy — bisphosphonates, denosumab and anabolic agents have strong fracture-reduction evidence and are a conversation for your doctor. Exercise complements them; it does not replace them in high-risk individuals.
- Fall prevention — bone density reduces fracture risk; not falling reduces it more
Book a bone health assessment
If you have osteopenia or osteoporosis and you have been told to walk and be careful, you have been given advice that the Australian research does not support.
At Longevity Physio Studio in Eagle Heights, Mt Tamborine, we assess your current capacity, teach the hinge and squat properly, and build load progressively over months.
Serving Tamborine Mountain, North Tamborine, Canungra and the Gold Coast hinterland. Book an assessment.
