Build Strong Bones: The Power of Strength Training

You Can’t Eat Your Way to Strong Bones

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Photo credit Victor Freitas

We all know how vital minerals such as calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, and protein are for building strong bones, and I discuss this in detail in my podcast episode called Bone Health at Every Age: Part One. But nutrients are just half the story. Just as we need to give our muscles a reason to thrive by putting stress on them, so too do we need to give our bones, joints, and cartilage a physical signal to adapt, rebuild, and stay resilient.

You can take all the calcium, protein, and vitamin D in the world, but if you don’t give your skeleton a physical reason to use those materials, your body simply won’t deposit them where they’re needed most.

Movement, impact, stress, stimulus, pushing, pulling—those are the signals our bodies actually need to put those nutrients to work.

So while you can listen to my podcast episode called Bone Health at Every Age (Part 2: Movement, Muscle, and Mechanical Stress) for the fuller explanation of things, I wanted to also include this vital information for you right here in an article.

Hormones and Bone Loss

Before we dive into movement mechanics, let’s revisit why this matters so urgently, no matter what age you are right now.

• One in two women over fifty will break a bone because of osteoporosis. Osteoporosis literally means “porous bone”—it’s a condition where the body loses too much bone, makes too little bone, or both, making the bones weak, brittle, and far more likely to break.

• Peak bone mass happens in our late 20s to early 30s, and from that point on, our bodies naturally begin to lose bone density year after year. Whether you’re in your 20s or 30s right now, or you have people in your life who are, this is a conversation we have to start having early.

• During perimenopause, hormone fluctuations start throwing off bone remodeling. But when you hit menopause and the ovaries stop producing estradiol, that’s when bone loss hits its most aggressive, rapid pace. Women can lose up to 10% to 20% of their total bone density in those years surrounding menopause.

That sounds alarming, but there is hope! Let’s start with understanding what bone is made of so we can learn how to give our body the exact physical signals it needs to rebuild.

The Structure of Bone

Bone is living, dynamic tissue made of protein, minerals, and specialized living cells that continuously break down, rebuild, and respond to physical stress on our skeleton.

Over 90% of those cells are osteocytes—embedded deep inside your skeleton like little biological project managers. While the other 10% are busy tearing down old tissue or building new bone, osteocytes sit inside the tissue sensing every ounce of mechanical force you apply. When you lift, push, pull, or impact your body, these sensors feel that stress and order fresh reinforcement.

And that reinforcement isn’t just calcium—it’s collagen. Collagen is the master structural protein of the human body. It acts as the flexible steel rebar holding together your skin, tendons, joint cartilage, and the internal frame of your bones.

Think of collagen as the high-strength steel cables in a suspension bridge, and calcium as the hard concrete pillars. The concrete gives our bones their rigidity and strength, but the flexible steel cables give them pliancy—so they can absorb impact without snapping.

This brings up a massive misconception trending right now: the idea that you have to consume collagen to make collagen.

Are Vegans Missing Out on Collagen?

When people buy collagen powders, supplements, or bone broth, they are consuming the collagen extracted from animal connective tissue—specifically cow hides, pig skin, hooves, fish scales, and boiled carcass bones, because that’s where collagen resides. In other words, there is no such thing as vegan collagen: plants simply don’t make it. Collagen only exists in the connective tissue of animals.

So, are vegans missing out? Do we need to eat someone else’s collagen to make collagen in our own bodies?

The answer is absolutely no.

Our bodies make their own collagen. We don’t need to consume animal skin or bones to build and repair our frame. Instead, we just need to provide our bodies with the building blocks and the right physical signals to increase the production of our own native collagen. How?

1. Eat adequate plant protein: Protein provides the basic building blocks—those amino acids—that our bodies use to synthesize collagen. (Aim well above the bare minimum RDA baseline, as I discuss in Are You Eating Enough Protein? Part One and Are You Eating Enough Protein? Part Two)

2. Prioritize Vitamin C: Vitamin C is the essential helper required to link those amino acids together into stable collagen strands. Leafy greens, bell peppers, citrus, and berries give us what we need.

3. Provide physical stimulus: Collagen in our tendons, ligaments, and bones responds to stress and physical tension. Lifting weights and loading our joints signals our cells to synthesize and lay down fresh collagen. See below.

When you see products labeled “Vegan Collagen,” what you’re really buying are plant-derived amino acids and Vitamin C blended together as “collagen boosters;” i.e. to boost our body’s production of collagen.

But you need neither expensive supplements nor slaughterhouse waste. With plant protein, Vitamin C, and physical movement, your body has everything it needs to build strong collagen and resilient bones naturally.

Weight Lifting & Progressive Overload

You can see I have my priorities straight

Mechanically, bone is attached to muscle through our tendons. When we put load on the muscle, we also put load on the bone, tugging on the bone tissue and flexing it just enough to stimulate those osteocytes, the cells that build new bone.

To fire up those osteocytes through lifting, focus on compound movements that load your whole frame—such as squats and lunges, which drive force straight through your hips, femurs, and lower spine; deadlifts, which pull hard on your entire posterior chain and hip sockets; and overhead presses and push-ups, which load your arms, wrists, shoulders, and upper spine.

This means lifting heavy enough for that stimulus to take place—though you certainly don’t start at a weight that’s going to hurt you! Hearing “you have to lift heavy” can sound intimidating, but “heavy” is relative to YOU. It simply means a weight that feels challenging to your current baseline by the end of a set.

What you want to build into your routine as you progress is progressive overload—gradually increasing the demand on your muscles and bones over time. Because if you keep lifting the exact same weight forever, your body adapts to that load and simply stops being triggered to build new bone. When a weight starts feeling easy, you either add a little bit more weight or do a couple more reps until you are approaching fatigue.

And let me be the first to tell you not to fall into the trap of telling yourself, “I’ve never lifted weights before.” The truth is you have been lifting weights your entire life. You lift heavy bags of groceries, potting soil, toddlers, laundry baskets, and suitcases.

You are already lifting, and you are stronger than you think.

Plyometrics and Jump Training

An example of jump training; photo credit Vitaly Gariev

Plyometrics simply means jump training or fast, explosive movements that create impact, such as jumping jacks, box jumps, squat jumps, skipping, or simple high-impact stomping.

While lifting weights pulls on your bones through your tendons, high-impact movements hit your skeleton from the outside in. Every time your foot strikes the ground, a force wave travels straight up your ankles, knees, hips, and spine, flexing the bone tissue fast.

And don’t be overwhelmed thinking you need yet another training routine on top of what you’re already doing or planning for. Research shows that even just 10 to 20 jumps or stomps a day can significantly help preserve and build bone mineral density in your hips and femurs.

What About Walking, Running, or Tennis?

• Walking is fantastic for cardiovascular health, mental clarity, and blood sugar regulation, but walking alone is usually not enough to create the force needed to build new bone.

• Running is better than walking, but it is largely linear.

• Tennis, pickleball, and court sports involve lateral movements, sprinting, stopping, and explosive multidirectional loading, making them fantastic for bone building.

Keep walking—but just don’t rely on it as your sole bone-building plan.

Bones, Joints, and the Role of Hormones

Impact and heavy lifting give our bones the physical signal to rebuild, but they don’t work in a vacuum. Our hormones play a massive, behind-the-scenes role in how well your body actually builds and retains bone density and keeps your joints lubricated and pain-free.

I’ve experienced firsthand just how profound this hormonal shift can be—and how dramatically it impacts how your skeleton and joints feel day to day. (I go deep into my own personal experience and the exact story of what happened in this week’s podcast episode, so make sure to give that a listen if you haven’t already!)

In Part 3 of this series, we’re going to dive into hormone replacement therapy, and the benefits of putting back into our bodies what they are so sorely lacking in menopause. Stay tuned, and be sure to subscribe to get notified.

Please write your questions, comments, and experiences below. I’d love to know how I can help and what topics you’d like me to cover!

Before You Go…

Even with a nutrient-rich plant-based diet, we can thrive even more with thoughtful support. That’s where Complement comes in, I take Complement Essential as my daily multivitamin for B12, D3, iodine, zinc, and magnesium; Omega Complex for essential fats; and as part of my strength-training and muscle-building routine, I fuel up with their clean Organic Protein. With Complement and my nutrient-rich diet, I have everything I need to fuel my body, support my strength, and thrive so I can do my work in the world for animals — both human and non-human.

Complement your diet and and get 15% off everything you order—every time you order—using THIS LINK and the code: JOYFULVEGAN.

Additional Resources

👉 Connect with me 1:1 – Get personalized guidance whatever you are looking for, including a special discount when you purchase a 3-session package.

👉 Read A Year of Compassion – Daily inspiration to help you live with intention, kindness, and clarity.

👉 Check out my Recipe E-Books and my library of On-Demand Cooking Classes for recipes.

👉 Travel the World Vegan Style! I’ve partnered with World Vegan Travel to bring you the best in luxury, all-inclusive vegan trips around the globe. Whether I am personally hosting or not, every itinerary is curated for a high-quality, premium experience. Check out upcoming trips, and please remember when booking any trip to mention you heard about them from COLLEEN PATRICK-GOUDREAU. 😊

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