Isn’t it funny how life sneaks little reminders of time passing? It only feels like five minutes ago I was reading Just Seventeen trying to work out the best way to zap a zit (toothpaste does not work). And now here I am, a few years later, deep-diving into osteoporosis.

A student recently asked me what poses are safe for osteoporosis and it made me realise how many of us are quietly wondering the same thing.

Just A Women’s Thing?

Osteoporosis gets labelled a “women’s condition,” mostly because women get hit with the hormonal cliff-drop of menopause. Oestrogen is a brilliant little architect for bone strength, and when it dips, bones can thin faster.

But men aren’t off the hook, they just lose bone more quietly. Men’s testosterone declines gradually from their 40s onwards, and testosterone is converted into oestrogen inside bone tissue. Less testosterone = less oestrogen = weaker bones. Add in things like long-term steroid use (e.g. asthma medication), smoking, too much alcohol, and not enough movement, and men can be right in the danger zone too.

Put it in perspective:

1 in 2 women over 50 will experience an osteoporosis-related fracture
1 in 5 men will too

The difference? Women are screened more often. Men usually find out after something breaks.

What Actually is Osteoporosis?

If this were a pub quiz and I had to guess, I’d say something like: “Osteo = bone (as in the bone-cracking osteopath), and porosis sounds like porous… so bones getting holes in them?” I think we’d win the quiz as it’s not far off.

In slightly more scientific terms:

Osteopenia is the early stage of bone loss. The inner spongy structure of the bone (trabecular bone) starts to thin and lose connectivity, so there’s less internal support.
Osteoporosis is when that loss becomes significant enough that the outer shell (cortical bone) also weakens, making the bone more fragile and prone to fracture.

Our bones are constantly remodelling. Cells called osteoclasts break down old bone, while osteoblasts build new bone. In healthy bone, those two teams stay balanced. With age, hormone changes, or inactivity, the demolition crew starts working faster than the builders. Over time, more bone is removed than replaced, leaving a honeycomb structure that’s too open and brittle.

It’s not rare, it’s not a dramatic failure of the body, and it’s definitely not a “fragile old lady” thing. It’s simply the scaffolding inside the bones thinning out, often quietly and gradually.

Random Aside About Bones

You completely remake your skeleton roughly every 10 years. Your bones are never older than your dog.
The inside of your bones isn’t solid- it’s a honeycomb structure that adapts to the stress you put on it. (Or don’t.)
Astronauts lose up to 1% of bone density per month in zero gravity.
“Weight-bearing” doesn’t mean weights - it means load: gravity, pressure, and muscle pull. Yoga counts.

Why Menopause (and Modern Life) Matter

Menopause may open the door, but lifestyle can throw it wide open. When oestrogen drops during menopause, the balance between bone breakdown and rebuild shifts dramatically. Oestrogen normally acts like a regulator, keeping the demolition crew (osteoclasts) from working too fast. Without it, bone loss speeds up, particularly in the spine, hips, and wrists, where bone turnover is naturally higher.

The first five years after menopause are the steepest part of the slope, with some women losing up to 20% of their bone mass in that window. After that, the rate usually steadies, but the density lost in that phase is hard to regain without deliberate effort.

Oestrogen also affects how calcium is absorbed and how efficiently vitamin D does its job. That’s why strength training, nutrition, and yoga matter so much during this stage: they give the bones a reason to rebuild. The more load and muscle tension you apply, safely, the more your bones are stimulated to remodel. It’s the biological version of “use it or lose it.”

Modern life doesn’t help much either:

We sit too long and move too little.
Diets often miss key minerals.
Stress and cortisol chip away at bone health.
Gut issues can block nutrient absorption.

It’s a perfect storm for bone thinning, unless we consciously counter it through movement, breath, and awareness.

What’s Really Best for Bones

Ask any endocrinologist or bone specialist and they’ll tell you: there isn’t one magic exercise. Bone health comes from layering a few smart habits together.

Resistance or strength training. Lifting, pushing, or pulling against load two or three times a week is the most reliable way to build bone, especially around the hips and spine.
Impact or “weight-bearing” movement. Brisk walking, climbing stairs, dancing, even a few light hops. Those small shocks keep bones dense. (I sometimes wear a weighted vest when I walk the dogs, it makes a weight-bearing stroll more effective).
Balance and coordination. Anything that helps you stay upright: yoga, tai chi, functional movement, Pilates.
Nutrition and hormones. Bones need raw materials: calcium, vitamin D, magnesium, protein and a healthy hormone picture. (And let’s be honest: in the UK vitamin D probably means a supplement.)
Lifestyle. Decent sleep, stress that isn’t constant, not smoking, and not living on Sauvignon Blanc.

If you asked an expert to summarise it, they’d say something like: “Lift heavy, move often, eat properly, and don’t fall over.”

How Yoga Supports Strong Bones

Yoga doesn’t replace the heavy lifting or the brisk walking, though it’s a brilliant addition. It strengthens without jolting, improves posture, trains balance, and teaches your nervous system to stay calm under load, exactly what helps prevent the slips and stumbles that lead to fractures.

It’s also the one form of movement that asks you to pay attention. That awareness shifts how you move through everything: how you stand, pick things up, or even how you breathe when you’re stressed.

From Breath to Bone

Your breath and fascia are part of the same conversation. Slow, steady breathing tones the vagus nerve, lowering cortisol- one of the stealthier bone thieves. Meanwhile, fascia, that connective tissue web linking muscle and bone, responds to tension, stretch, and load. When you move mindfully, you fine-tune the mechanical pull through that web, sending subtle signals that keep bone cells active and engaged.

Yoga is essentially training your body to distribute load intelligently; not just building muscle, but improving how that force travels through the entire system.

The Long Game

Bone tissue isn’t dead scaffolding; it’s alive and hormonal. It produces osteocalcin, a hormone that talks to your muscles, brain, and metabolism, helping regulate strength, energy, and even cognitive function. Fragile bones aren’t just a local problem; they’re an early sign that other systems are running low on reserves. That’s why researchers now treat bone strength as a biomarker of longevity. A hip fracture after sixty isn’t just an orthopaedic setback, it changes mobility, mood, and even cognition.

So, when you’re in Warrior II or standing on one leg, you’re building the steadiness you’ll want to keep in ten/twenty years’ time.

You Don’t Need a “Special” Yoga Class

If you have osteopenia or osteoporosis, you don’t need a specialist class, you just need to understand how to work with your body rather than against it. You can absolutely stay in your usual class. The key is to adapt with intelligence, not fear.

Here’s how that looks in real life:

When the teacher says jump back, step instead, control beats momentum.
When you fold forward, lengthen your spine rather than rounding.
When you rise, hinge from the hips or place hands on thighs to come up flat-backed.
When you hear “go deeper,” smile politely and stay where you can breathe.

It’s not about doing less, it’s about moving with better mechanics.

How to Adapt Your Practice

What matters most isn’t which poses you do, but how you move through them. Osteoporosis isn’t just about fragile bones, it’s about how load travels through the body. Sudden flexion, jerky motion, or deep rotation sends force to the weakest link (usually the spine). Controlled, aligned movement spreads the load safely.

Here’s what to watch for:

Deep forward folds (the turtle-shell back): rounding under load compresses the vertebrae. Instead hinge from the hips, keep the spine long, and rest hands on blocks or thighs for support. Think reach forward, not down.
Transitions: Skip rolling up through the spine or with momentum = repeated flexion. Instead roll to one side and press up instead.
Crunch-style core work: same compression pattern. Instead focus on stability: bird-dogs, forearm planks, supported leg lifts, rather than crunches or roll-ups.
Strong twists and binds: torque at the lumbar spine can shear fragile vertebrae. Instead move/rotate from the ribs, not the lumbar spine. lengthen first, pelvis stable, then rotate.
Inversions (if balance is uncertain): the risk isn’t the inversion, it’s falling out. Otherwise, legs-up-the-wall dolphin, or supported bridge give the same benefits minus the risk.

Guiding Principle: Load the bones, don’t shock them. Avoid sudden, loaded spinal flexion or rotation. Build strength around the spine, not through it. If you hold that in mind, almost any class can be made bone-friendly.

Why It Matters (and What the Experts Say)

I am not a bone researcher, but I do like to dig around in what the experts are finding. Dr Loren Fishman’s studies at Columbia University found that yoga can improve bone density, but the secret isn’t the poses themselves, it’s precision and patience. His 12-pose sequence (Mountain, Tree, Warrior II, Triangle, Side Angle, Locust, Bridge, Twisted Triangle, Supine Hand-to-Big-Toe, Chair, Half Moon, and Corpse) works because every shape is loaded with awareness.

Other leading researchers such as, Professor Juliet Compston in Cambridge and Dr Robert Heaney in the US, reach similar conclusions: bones respond best to mechanical load, good nutrition, and balanced hormones. Yoga happens to train the first and support the last two through stress regulation and breath.

What the Yogis Say

In yoga philosophy, there’s a line from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali that sums up how we should approach any physical practice: “Sthira sukham asanam.” It means that every posture should balance stability (sthira) and ease (sukha).

It’s not just poetic, it’s structural advice. We build steadiness through mindful effort and find ease through breath and balance. In other words, the same principle that keeps a yoga pose steady is what keeps our bones healthy: strength supported by flexibility, effort balanced with recovery.

And in the End…

Flexibility gets the attention, but it’s strength that keeps us upright. Use your bones well, and they’ll keep showing up for you.

Photo by Ante Hamersmit on Unsplash