When it comes to exercises, regardless of what form of physical activities it is, we need to understand that during the actual physical workout, our body condition differs greatly as compared to our normal body condition. In order to bridge the link between the normal body condition and exercise condition, the only way is through proper warming up and cooling down exercises. Osteoporosis is the medical term which is used to describe bones with lots of big holes. Osteo refer to bone, while porosis refers to containing pores. It is known that all human bones do contain holes and osteoporosis refer to having more and bigger holes or pores than what is desired. It is the thinning of the bones with reduction in bone mass due to depletion of calcium and bone protein. Taichi, when practiced using the right intensity, postural aligned and applying the correct biomechanical principles, provide a good form of weight bearing exercises and is effective in creating stress to the bones and thus strengthening it. Taichi provides a good form of weight bearing exercise, since it emphasizes a lot on the weight transfer of the body natural weight against gravity. In Taichi, you perform a series of slow, rhythmic and graceful controlled body movements while your body remains erect and anatomically aligned.

By doing so, we activate the agonist/ antagonist/ synergist muscles in the correct firing sequence to support body mass in the direction of gravity. Muscle operating eccentrically create stress on the bone; the phenomenon of resistance training. The intensity of the weight bearing exercise in Taichi is increased by either lowering of the posture or including weights during the Taichi practice. In this way, the bones will be forced to work even harder and more effective. Proper guidance and monitoring by professionally well trained Taichi coaches is strongly recommended for such high intensity Taichi weight bearing training. Sufficient calcium & vitamin D intake is also necessary in conjunction to the Taichi weight bearing exercise. Many of the women in their late forties and fifties are either not willing or unable to engage in regular high impact exercise. They are actually in a fast bone loss phase of their lives, when efforts to slow bone loss are actually very important.

Unlike many other forms of exercise, Taichi is suitable to people of all age, gender and races. In fact, Taichi is particularly beneficial to the elderly and people with impaired motor skills since Taichi emphasizes correct posture alignment and balance, the exercise may be a safer alternative for women with fragile bones than other high impact physical activities.
The specific exercises create sufficient loading on the bones (bone re-modeling), and do not create unnecessary stress on the joints through improper posture misalignment.

When coupled with the right intensity of Taichi training, together with correct postural alignment and the activation of the eccentric strength, it will then result in the optimal effectiveness of improving overall bone mass. While walking is considered as a form of weight-bearing exercise, research has shown that walking program for up to one year have generally not been very effective in preventing bone loss, especially for the healthy individual. The main reason is that walking does not actually impart a very high loading force onto the bones; neither does it represent a unique loading stimulus. Nevertheless, this does not exclude the possibilities that long term habitual walking for many years helps to preserve loss of bone mass. Both fundamental and locomotive skills do not develop automatically, it need to be given the opportunity and time to practice. Taking running for instance, children often like to run around more than walking when they were young, as compared to more specific locomotive skills such as striking, balancing, throwing, receiving which needs to be given time and opportunity to practice and develop. According to the research done by American Council on Exercise (ACE), one of the most effective exercises in working the Butt or the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius and the hamstring is the lunges. The Lunge is also a very effective exercise for the legs as well. It involves functional stability, balance and overall body coordination and proper posture alignment, which is very useful for muscle development and conditioning. Whether we want to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight, it is important to understand the connection between the energy our body takes in (food consumed) and the energy our body uses (physical activities). In order to lose weight, we need to use more calories than we take in. To maintain a healthy weight, we need to balance the calories we use with those we take in. If we take in more calories than our body needs, we will put on excess fat. If we expend more energy than we take in we will burn the excess fat. When we talk about fitness, it actually comprises of many components. In general, the fitness components can be classified into Health Related and Performance Related fitness components.

Health related fitness components are the fundamental fitness components to assess if one is physically fit, examples of health related fitness components comprise of body composition, cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance and flexibility.

Performance related fitness components are more specific to the nature of the sports involved and some of the examples are power, speed, quickness agility, balance, motor skills etc. Certain sports require more priority on one particular fitness components than the other, for instance, in long distance running, cardiovascular endurance is of higher importance while having agility and power is not the main priority. This is important to be taken into consideration when designing the training program so that the correct fitness components are being well developed. Muscle soreness or discomfort that occurs 24 to 48 hours after exercise is normal, especially if the exercise involved a great amount of eccentric movement (for instance running down slope, high intensity resistance training,) or activities which you are not conditioned fully. The recommended approach to this kind of pain is to rest followed by continued moderate exercise and stretching. There are times when the pain or discomfort is more problematic and indicative of a real issue.


The underlying principle is that we should try to avoid forcing our body to work physically too hard when the body is already feeling pain or soreness. The "no pain, no gain" theory is history and does not have any scientific proves. Feeling pain or discomfort is the body's way of communicating to us that a potential injury exists.