Football 'good for bone health'

Published on 05 Mar 2010

Adults who play football on a regular basis are likely to benefit from improved bone health, new research suggests.

A study of 20 to 47-year-old women, all of whom played football twice a week, revealed that they showed noticeable increases in bone density in both their left and right tibia (shin bones) after 14 weeks.

Participants - none of whom had ever played football before - also showed improvements in calf muscle mass and strength, and in postural balance.

The women also completed a 16-month training programme, which found that playing football over an extended period of time was associated with an increase in bone mineral density throughout the body.

Researchers observed that the benefits seen in football-playing women were greater than those recorded in a group of similar-aged women who did running instead of football.

Lead researcher Associate Professor Peter Krustrup, from the Department of Exercise and Sports Sciences at the University of Copenhagen, commented: "During soccer training and games, the players perform many sprints, turns, kicks and tackles.

"This combination of actions helps achieve a variable bone impact that appears to provide a better stimulus to bone mineralisation than running."

The findings are published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, alongside another study involving a group of 65 to 75-year-old men.

Researchers found that men who had played football for most of their lives tended to have similar balance and muscle strength to 30-year-old untrained men and were far less likely to fall than older men who had not played football.

"It is well known that the risk of falls and fractures increases with age as a result of weaker bones, poorer balance and attenuated ability to trigger rapid muscle force, but the present results suggest that soccer - and possibly other ball games - is an effective training method to reduce bone weakening," Professor Krustrup concluded.

A spokesman for the Arthritis Research Campaign said that regular exercise was essential in maintaining healthy joints and bones, but added that more needed to be done to reduce the likelihood of sports injuries which could have serious long-term effects and increase the risk of osteoarthritis in later life.

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