I have to quit running...

I had to stop running at age 58 due to osteoarthritis. Bought me several years before I needed hip replacements.

So far I don't think anyone has mentioned Schwinn Airdyne exercise bikes - which I swear by. You not only pedal but you push-pull with your arms. Better all-around workout.

Rowing: A couple of my friends (old, like me) who had to stop running use rowing machines (as well as exercise bikes). They both have none of the back problems that most old folks get. One of them used to compete, online, with others in his age group.

Street biking: Strongly urge caution. It seems like everyone I know who has done extended road biking including group rides has suffered bad crashes. With broken shoulders and collar bones and wrists. And they weren't osteoporotic.

I road mountain bike with my son until he got too skilled for me. He likes to shred and built the needed riding skills while I did not, But if he stuck with (safer) XC riding I might still be doing it. I have been to some of his MTB festivals and club trail building sessions and whatnot and these folks mostly seem like good people. If you are the type of person who enjoyed the comaraderie of the sport, you might get the same thing with other mountain bikers , maybe meet some people at work who ride too.

Crosstraining , or if you enjoy the gym , goes good with mountain biking too. Like 1/3 weights/1/3 running(or say rowing until you can run some) /1/3 riding.

Steven Riser wrote:

Thank you very much.

My diet has always been good, but it's been superb over the past few years as we've tried to figure out what was wrong.

What exactly do you consider superb?

If crashes are not a concern and you have good access to asphalt trails, get an elliptigo. They are the most pleasant substitute for running I have ever found.

Sorry bout your situation.

Test ride an ElliptiGO. They have several new models including a mountain bike version.

I'm in a similar situation and posted about it here:

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=9331810

I'm now at the stage where I'm traveling to see doctors as well, and am hoping to have a clear treatment path soon. Not sure who you've seen, but happy to share a few of the names that have come up in my research.

I'm scheduled to see Dr. Paul Miller in Colorado soon. He is an author on much of the current literature on osteoporosis treatment, and has experience treating young elite endurance athletes w/ idiopathic osteoporosis. In reading some of his case studies, Forteo has been used successfully with several of his patients returning to competition.

You might be interested in talking to Dr. Keith McCormick as well, if you haven't already. He's a former Olympic pentathlete who suffered multiple fractures from osteoporosis in his 40s and returned to competing in Ironman triathlons. He's written a book called The Whole Body Approach to Osteoporosis, which I found helpful. He also does remote consultations, so no need to travel to work with him.

Wishing you the best of luck as you figure this out. It's not an easy diagnosis.

Hey Steven,

Sorry about your tough draw here. Maybe something like this could help you?

From The Athletic (And to anyone not yet a subscriber it is the best few bucks a month you'll ever spend - excellent, excellent content.)

> David Lombardi Jun 27, 2019 - The Athletic

It’s off the beaten path now, amidst warehouses and abandoned railroad tracks a block away from Mandela Parkway, where the busy double-decker I-880 Cypress Structure once carved through West Oakland before it collapsed in the Loma Prieta earthquake three decades ago.

The DeFremery Swimming Pool, built in the Depression era, was here long before that freeway came and went. Its dark lobby, the faded lane markers on its walls and its 33-yard length — modern American lap pools are built at either 25 yards (short course) or 50 meters (long course) — make DeFremery somewhat of an Oakland relic.

But the antiquated pool is still very operational. In fact, it’s the little-known home of some of the most innovative training in sports, as several NFL players can attest. Invented in these waters, the Aquabred strength-and-conditioning program could represent the wave of the future when it comes to injury prevention.

“These guys are truly thinking outside the box,” said Kentavius Street, the 49ers defensive lineman who tore his ACL in 2018 and has spent the past several months supplementing his rehabilitation routine with underwater work. “They’re always pushing for something new. … Introducing your body to new movements in the water benefits everything you’re doing — new muscles, new joints. It’s something that working outside can’t produce.”

Eight NFL players have added Aquabred to their training regimens over the past year. That includes six Raiders (running back Jalen Richard, punter Johnny Townsend, running back DeAndré Washington, defensive linemen Arden Key and Johnathan Hankins, and safety Karl Joseph), the 49ers’ Street, and Los Angeles Rams cornerback Marcus Peters (an Oakland native).

On a sunny Friday afternoon in early June, Richard and Townsend dove in. So did the hulking Street — with a big splash, of course. Brandon James, a former Diablo Valley College swimmer who holds the national JC record in the 200-yard backstroke, and Egyptian swimmer Abdallah Mahgoub, who also swam for DVC and is gunning to compete in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, joined the NFL trio in the water.

“Everyone in this pool right now is elite,” Piankhi Gibson, the 26-year-old founder of the Aquabred, said as he eyed the group from the deck.

The group was not here to swim laps. Envision standard gym equipment — free weights, treadmills, medicine balls, even bench presses and squat racks — all submerged underwater. An athlete’s immersion here, Aquabred asserts, creates an environment that’s simultaneously suited for recovery and the types of strengthening that’ve been historically neglected by land sports. Gibson, a self-described autodidact, describes Aquabred as a “specific gravity training system” that strives to fully capitalize on water’s distinctive properties.

The program is still in its infancy, not part of any NFL team’s curriculum. But those involved believe that it’ll become a fixture on the sports training scene.

“And this works,” Richard said recently at the Raiders facility, noting that he felt less winded and healthier during the 2018 season, the most productive of his career, after Aquabred training. “It builds your lungs. It takes pressure off the body, relieving your body from gravity. It does what everybody says pool workouts do, but (Gibson) is taking it to a different level with the things we are able to do in the water.”

A central medical pillar is the basis of Aquabred’s potential in injury reduction, and it lies in the body’s all-enveloping fascial network, a sheet of connective tissue beneath the skin that attaches, stabilizes and separates muscles and other internal organs. The importance of this organ system — detailed further below — has exploded within the medical community in recent years, and Gibson is convinced that Aquabred holds an avant-garde key in targeting the fascia to build more durable athletes.

Gibson swam at Auburn University and started developing Aquabred in 2013. He met Stine growing up in Oakland. The two raced as youths in the city’s recreational league at DeFremery, stayed in touch over the years and eventually combined forces in this business venture.

So on this particular Friday, they were again back in a familiar place.

I hopped into DeFremery Pool, too, getting a fully submerged tour of the Aquabred program. I got to see NFL players and top swimmers — whose specialties and training focuses had long been on opposite ends of the athletic spectrum — all floating together in the same laboratory. Gibson has created a visually surreal world, one in which an NFL running back sees his training regimen enter the aquatic domain of someone like Brazilian Olympian Bruno Fratus, another Aquabred client.

“Water,” Gibson said of this surprising union, “is the great equalizer.”

Players use snorkels when initially going underwater for bike or treadmill work, which proves to be a particularly novel experience. The Raiders’ Key loves to yell “I’m going under!” before full submersion, Stine notes with a smile.

As a player advances in the program, he can ditch the snorkel and reach breath-holding depth, where water pressure is greater and work on Aquabred’s bevy of instruments becomes more challenging. Some of the workout details, such as reps and set counts, are proprietary, but the founders say that it varies from athlete to athlete, anyway.

“How can we make Kentavius Street’s weaknesses stronger?” Gibson asked as he began outlining Aquabred’s effort to build longer-lasting NFL players. “With these guys at the top of their game, there aren’t many new sensations you can introduce them to. They’ve already tried everything. They’ve already lifted 700 pounds.”

(Street has, in fact, squatted 700 pounds on land, and video of his Aquabred work is below.)

“The answer is the water,” Gibson said. “It’s a formula we want to teach strength-and-conditioning coaches. You have a high school swimmer next to an NFL running back, and the NFL running back is struggling to run on the treadmill. It’s a humbling sensation of, ‘wow, I have so much more to learn.'”

Water is 800 times denser than air, but it’s also more physically forgiving, since its buoyancy supports about one-third of equivalent land weight (300 pounds weighs roughly 200 pounds in water, for example). This offers athletes a “flushing” respite from heavy-impact training on land. And, since added pressure buoys circulation, it’s an ideal environment in which to develop breathing efficiency. For football players, whose mouthpieces necessitate breathing through the nose, this comes as an unexpected aerobic bonus.

During his workout, Street is as powerful as one might expect. The lineman launches off the shallow end floor with a squat — it has volcanic effects on the previously tranquil pool — and a heavy medicine ball goes flying at least 15 yards before displacing a good amount of the pool’s water on splashdown. He creates more violent waves when he pushes Gibson’s two custom-made circular plates back and forth against the water, and he powers hard on the submerged bike — sometimes for as long as 15 minutes.

Street is aiming to progress soon to this exercise, which Gibson showcases here: It involves explosive 235-pound squat presses off the pool floor, all combined with a flutter kick, an underwater movement that’s long been used exclusively by aquatic athletes.

As a former competitive club swimmer and coach, I have an added fascination with Aquabred. I had never expected to come across a place where swim training principles and some of football’s strongest linemen converge. So while Street, Richard and Townsend held their breath riding stationary bikes on the DeFremery Pool floor on that Friday afternoon, I swam to the bottom of the deep end and grabbed the 35-pound kettlebell lying there. It was time to try something new.

Momentary panic followed.

Clutching the kettlebell, I felt as if a magnet had sucked me onto the pool’s floor. The closest breathable oxygen was far above me, nearly 10 feet up, so roughly 18 pounds of water pressure hit every inch of my body and fought to keep me away from air.

It was unnerving, to say the least. Imagine feeling like a fish out of water, but in the water. At moments like this, instinct takes over. So I launched into a squat-based thrust off the pool floor followed by the undulation of dolphin kicks to propel myself upward.

But nothing came easy. The Saturn V rocket built momentum after liftoff. I didn’t. Not with that kettlebell fighting the tug-of-war with all its might. And in these few seconds of underwater struggle, as I kicked hard just to stay suspended in the same place, I appreciated an entirely new sensation — one that combined weightlifting’s demands for power with the immersive properties exclusive to water.

Muscles I didn’t know existed felt activated.

“Proprioception,” Gibson explained long after I dropped the kettlebell, shot back up to the water’s surface and sucked in a big breath of fresh air. “It’s your body’s sense of itself in space and movement. When completely covered in water, you have a complete understanding of where you are in space. You take that awareness, you increase the viscosity and resistance, and you engage with your core in a much deeper way.

“And the core is the epicenter of your body, especially as you get back on land. You feel more connected, you feel more agile and you can move a lot easier.”

There may be nothing that engages that core — and nothing that highlights the uniqueness of water — more than fighting 35 pounds of dead weight deep under the surface. Aquabred founder Piankhi Gibson, an Oakland native and former Auburn University swimmer, lifts on the submerged squat rack. (Courtesy of Dylan Stine

Gibson believes that within the context of this crossover and adjustment, water carries massive training and healing potential.

He points to a Washington State University study, which concluded that water workouts are the only path toward drastically improving respiratory endurance. He cites Aquabred’s own tracking of caloric output, which has found that an hour on an underwater bike or treadmill can burn about 500 more calories than the same duration of bike or treadmill work on land.

But most significantly, there’s the fascia, that all-enveloping layer of tissue that had long been discarded as extraneous tissue in the dissection of cadavers. Thanks in large part to the introduction of miniature cameras, which can probe under the skin and examine intricacies on an intercellular level, that’s not the case anymore.

The fascia has come into new focus, and Gibson discusses it with vigor.

“Fascia is this interconnected, hydrodynamic entity in our body that is revolutionizing the medical field,” Gibson said, citing the work of Dr. Robert Schleip and Tom Myers, two leading experts in the study of the fascial network. “They’ve said it’s the equivalent to finding a new element on the periodic table.”

Schleip’s book, “Fascia in Sport and Movement,” is the authoritative work on the subject. Gibson is quick to espouse Schleip’s key findings — especially the fact that fascia plays a flowing role in all functional movement, and that poor fascial hydration, lubrication and preparation are very often involved in injuries.

Perhaps the fascia had sailed under the radar because of how differently it operates — “it’s a living, breathing matrix, a web, innervated through our entire body like an organic internet,” Gibson explained — but these very same properties are the ones that make it so important in the understanding of athletic health.

“If a muscle is strong, just through standard weightlifting, but the fascia isn’t ready, that fascia is just going to shear off,” Gibson said. “When athletes get injured, a lot of the time, it’s because there isn’t that slide and glide in their tendon network. A little awkward fall, it looks like it’s not a big deal, but it’s a snapped Achilles.”

That’s opened the pivotal question here: How can the fascial network be targeted and trained to reduce the risk of injuries?

Myers’ 10 tips for fascial fitness emphasize the importance of fascial elasticity, hydration and a focus on interconnectivity (as opposed to isolating specific muscles) during workouts.

“Once I learned that the fascia was hydrodynamic,” Gibson said, citing this realization as Aquabred’s aha moment, “it only made sense to perform hydrodynamic movements to target the system holistically.

“The best, most efficient way to engage the fascia is to be completely covered in water. How do we target the system as a whole? We think the answer is Aquabred. We think the answer is the water. It’s a different set of rules in the water.”

Seek out the full article on The Athletic

For myself, I have found that swimming is a suitable alternative to running. Both require a certain level of consistent attention to the activity. But I can also get in a "flow zone" with both and feel extremely satisfied. Approach your new activity with the same love and care and attention, and you should be fine. Don't lose heart.

I have liked aqua biking and think it could be awesome for you. Offers a very easy, distributed resistance. The next day, you feel the fatigue of running, especially going up stairs, but there is zero soreness. I even looked at setting one up at my house using and IBC container. IBC are usually about $100 on craigslist, hold 250 gallons, cut the top off, buy an old spinning bike, and you're set.

Get a Bemer PEMF machine. Use it every day. Recheck bone density in 3-6 months. PEMF is a standard thing used in orthopedics all the time to help stimulate bone growth.

This seems like great information. To make a long story short my own comeback started with walking.

Even that was hard on the triple injury I had sustained. Just walking caused me to re injure myself. Time

and consistency has gotten me to the point where I'm running again. But I have to balance and be consistent

like never before. Walking is running slowed down. I see it as a way to re-build bone density IF you can work

it in slowly. OP should talk to the experts and then become one yourself.

Start paddling!

Kayak racing is great, ridiculously challenging and extremely intense.

Start with a cheap rotomolded version and move up to faster boats.

Its all the exercise you’ll ever need and hurts (but not slamming) as much if not more than running a hard half marathon.

There are races all over the country, the SUP races are short and usually feature fit young folk and post race beer.

Canoe races feature old people and talk about the days of yore.

Get paddling!

I've got a similar issue, but it doesn't affect my running.

I'm not actively fracturing. The DEXA results show I have low density in my spine, slightly low in my pelvis, and normal in my femur. Low density does not equal week. Make sure you get 1000+mg of Calcium, plenty of Vitamin d & k, as well as B-vitamins. Weight training and weight-baring activity helps. Get ample sleep and reduce stress too.

I also have elevated blood calcium, so I basically have an absorption issue. I think medically-administered fasting is my next move. I'm 19, so I have over a decade of bone building left.

That sucks man.

I'll echo the cycling (with caution), paddling, and nordic skiing suggestion, largely depending on your geographic region. Pretty much anything where you'll get to see yourself progress and race sometimes will probably scratch the itch to some extent. Plus, being in your 30s a new sport will give you a couple years of big PRs like you haven't experienced since high school. Not a perfect substitute, but it's something. Keep your head up and good luck.

Or if you want to stay on the track scene, learn to throw.

Alternate Perspective wrote:

Or if you want to stay on the track scene, learn to throw.

+1 to this unique suggestion

I'd also like to suggest hiking

Maybe..... wrote:

I'd have thought some load bearing stuff may be good for bones. Can you not still run, but not to a point where you would introduce possibilities of fractures ?

Maybe a balance of running + cycling ? Switch to triathlon or something, and reduce running load ?

The OP's mistake was ever going to a doctor in the first place.

All they want to do is screw people up, so they'll think they have to keep going back.

YeppRowSki wrote:

I live in a cold-winter area too and bought a concept2 rower and a skierg over the last couple of years. In my home gym I have those, plus a bike on trainer, plus a treadmill. I go through long stretches in the winter of mixing 30-45 mins of rowing with 30-45 mins of skiiing in an afternoon. Complimentary to each other and less than $2000 for both. I have never for even a moment regretted buying those machines nor the treadmill. Gold, and something to consider as you move away from running.

I got a Skierg a year ago too, and use it every day.

I also have and use a treadmill and a road bike on a trainer.