How much weight lifting is required to build bone?

@fearfracture, I started HRT at about 10-11 years out of menopause. I was about 63 at the time and had just finished my 2 year course of Forteo. I weighed all of my options for a follow up treatment, deciding that HRT offered the best opportunity for a more natural bone remodeling process. I decided to take whatever risks (and benefits!) were associated with it vs. the risk of more osteoporosis drugs (for now anyway). It is difficult to assess long-term safety since there are no studies to support that, just observational. In the 4ish years I've been on HRT, I've pretty much maintained my density. I'm a really "fast loser" so maintaining is pretty terrific for me. As you've mentioned, bioidentical is essential and an estradiol patch at the lowest dose of .025 is supposed to effective for protecting bone. Because it is a very low dose, I would think there is also a little less risk involved. If you have a uterus, you must take progesterone and make sure that it is bioidentical as well in the form of micronized progesterone, not synthetic progestin which is what most conventional doctors will prescribe as that is what you will get from the pharmacy and through insurance coverage. I'm not sure if micronized progesterone is even available through conventional pharmacies as I have to get it from a mail order compounding pharmacy. It is pure with no fillers (unlike the pharmaceutical which has peanut oil in it. why??) and the cost is pretty reasonable at about $35 a month.

I have an upcoming appt with Dr Felice Gersh to get a perspective from her on my protocol. I plan to discuss whether I should have some testing done at this point, like a uterine ultrasound, to make sure all is well. Also will discuss whether I should continue taking progesterone daily or begin cycling that which from what I understand is a safer regimen (though you have to contend with some monthly bleeding). I will also get her perspective on long term use. She's an integrative gynocologist/MD and has been at this a really long time. She's very well versed on the research and has her own observational experience over decades in practice prescribing HRT. I'll report back on what I learn from her.

I'm not sure but I just keep trying to go up in small increments. My shoulders I don't tax too much but my back/hips I'll work on harder. I bought 20lb weights after a year and use them for rows and a single tricep move. I can't use them for any other move yet but working on chest for a few. I can't see me going higher than that at this time but want to keep the bone responding. If I see improvement next year, it will motivate me to do more.
I've looked on many sites and pretty much it's what is challenging for you. If it's too easy, you aren't taxing the bones, too hard to do more than 3 or 4 reps, too heavy. They also say to use body weight also, mix it up. Also no momentum, use slower movements.
https://americanbonehealth.org/exercise/bonesense-on-osteogenic-loading/

wondering if that's a typo on the 4.2 x body weight you mentioned? That's just not possible. For me, that would mean lifting 520 lbs.

That is incorrect. As soon as you move a force that is equivalent to 4.2 x BW you have exceeded 4.2 x your BW. To lift 520 lbs would require more force than 4.2 x your BW. How much more? It depends on how fast you're moving it (and what planet you're lifting it on but let's assume you've chosen Earth). Squat force calculators estimate the force to be 2834 Newtons which is approximately 637 pounds. So you've overshot and are actually lifting 4.9 x your body weight.
At your body weight you would only need to lift about 403 lbs to create a force equivalent to 4.2 x BW. However, this would not create the correct load because the direction of that force would not necessarily be ideal to achieve your goal (creating bone growth).
Osteogenic loading is based on isometric holding (not lifting) a force equivalent to 4.2 x your BW as measured at the hip. How do you get 4.2 x BW to vertically load into the hip? 1. You can't be bending the hip at the time because that would direct mass in the wrong direction and not simulate bone growth. 2. You can't be moving the weight because that causes more than 4.2 x BW force to be imparted to the hip. 3. Ideally you would stand still and have someone place that 520 lbs on your shoulders. Personally I would suggest finding a resistance machine that does isometric exercises. These are exercises where you push against a plate that doesn't move but the force plate measures how hard you are pushing. (FYI, there is a chain out there providing this type of exercise and physical therapy clinics sometimes have these isometric machines).
For context, I can easily generate a force greater than 8 times my body weight (134 lbs) at the hip but I cannot do a squat with a 45 lb bar. I am leg pressing 200-240 lbs for 8-10 reps after 6 weeks of isometric training. Before starting this training my leg press was limited to 140 lbs.

I guess it's rather late to be commenting on this thread but I hadn't noticed it before. On exercise and how much resistance to use I keep encouraging people to look at the three LIFTMOR trials. They are in my opinion the best studies done using exercise with heavy resistance to build bone. The studies appear to be well done and they get significant gains with their protocol. One of the trials compared the LIFTMOR protocol to a Bio-Density machine (like OsteoStrong). LIFTMOR did better. You can search in this forum for some discussion of this and the studies are all available on the internet. Plus the lead researcher Belinda Beck has interviews and the like on Youtube and other websites. Best of luck

I think most doctors don’t know how to treat osteoporosis, especially in women! You can’t eat or drink calcium & expect it to get into bones!! In fact I purchased K2 vitamin to get calcium out of my bloodstream because it leads to bone breakage‼️hope this helps!!

What exactly will help. I need to get in the ball fast.