A weight-bearing, water-based exercise program for osteopenic women: its impact on bone, functional fitness, and well-being.

Objective: To evaluate the effects of a weight-bearing, water-based, exercise program designed for women with low bone mass.

Design: A test-retest cross-sectional, prospective study.

Setting: Community-dwelling women from a Canadian city.

Participants: Seventy-seven postmenopausal women, 50 to 70 years of age, with spinal or femoral bone density below the fracture threshold.

Intervention: Subjects exercised in a pool with waist-high water for 60 minutes, 3 days a week, over a 12-month period. Forty minutes of each session were devoted to successive jumps and muscular exercises designed to promote bone accretion, strength, and endurance.

Main Outcome Measures: Spinal and femoral bone mineral density (BMD) measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, functional fitness (flexibility, coordination, agility, strength/endurance, and cardiorespiratory endurance) assessed with the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance battery, and psychological states evaluated with Dupuy's General Well-Being Schedule.

Results: Spinal BMD decreased significantly (p < .001), whereas there was no change in femoral neck BMD (p = .90). Four of the parameters chosen to assess functional fitness, namely, flexibility, agility, strength/endurance, and cardiorespiratory endurance, were affected positively by the exercise program (all p values < .001). Psychological well-being also improved significantly after participation in the exercise program (p < .001).

Conclusion: The intervention was successful in improving the functional fitness and psychological well-being of the participants, despite a lack of effect on the skeletal system. Future studies are needed to identify water exercises that are safe yet exert enough stress on the bones to initiate a bone response.