Why Jumping Mice Make Us Want to Do Burpees

BY ROBIN

Jump­ing jacks, burpees, wall jumps. What do they all have in com­mon? Jump­ing! What’s jump­ing good for? Build­ing bone den­sity to keep bones strong.

At least that is what some Japan­ese sci­en­tists found when they stud­ied jump­ing mice. Yes, pic­ture it. How cute is that? But it’s also inter­est­ing. It turns out that after jump­ing up and land­ing 40 times dur­ing the week for 24 weeks the mice had a sig­nif­i­cant increase in their bone den­sity. Yay, mighty mice!

Although sci­en­tists aren’t exactly sure why cer­tain exer­cises boost bone mass, the grow­ing con­sen­sus in the sci­ence com­mu­nity seems to be that bones need big bursts of force at a pretty high inten­sity to get the mes­sage to grow, accord­ing to this NY Times blog. Learn more about this jump­ing mice the­ory and see other Best Exer­cises for Healthy Bones »

What’s your favorite boot camp exer­cise that involves jump­ing? Share your opin­ion by click­ing the “Com­ments” link above this post!

Strength Training Does More Than Bulk Up Muscles

It may reduce depres­sion, give older peo­ple bet­ter cog­ni­tive func­tion, boost good cho­les­terol and more.

By Jean­nine Stein, Los Ange­les Times

Strength train­ing has strong-armed its way beyond the realm of bodybuilding.

A grow­ing body of research shows that work­ing out with weights has health ben­e­fits beyond sim­ply bulk­ing up one’s mus­cles and strength­en­ing bones. Stud­ies are find­ing that more lean mus­cle mass may allow kid­ney dial­y­sis patients to live longer, give older peo­ple bet­ter cog­ni­tive func­tion, reduce depres­sion, boost good cho­les­terol, lessen the swelling and dis­com­fort of lym­phedema after breast can­cer and help lower the risk of diabetes.

“Mus­cle is our largest meta­bol­i­cally active organ, and that’s the back­drop that peo­ple usu­ally for­get,” said Kent Adams, direc­tor of the exer­cise phys­i­ol­ogy lab at Cal State Mon­terey Bay. Strength­en­ing the mus­cles “has a rip­ple effect through­out the body on things like meta­bolic syn­drome and obesity.”

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