A new study established that acrobatic exercises increases the bone strength of adolescent girls. The study was conducted at the University of Athens in Greece by a team of researchers whose leader is Symeon Tournis.

Symeon Tournis said that bone density and bone strength is closely related with gymnastics. He also said that findings of the study show that rhythmic weight bearing exercise improves the bone health in girls.

Researchers have examined 49 girls aged between 9 and 13 years in terms of their bone health. Among these 49 girls, 26 girls follow rhythmic gymnastics for 2 years and 23 girls had follow only physical education training activities.

Researchers have taken into account few things like bone density, bone mineral content and cortical thickness (the outer shell of the bone) in each girl and noticed that cortical thickness and bone strength tend to show increase in those girls who had undergone intensive rhythmic gymnastics training.

Tournis said that, till date there are very less studies that support the association of bone density with weight bearing exercise.

He also claimed that this study is the first study in its own terms that examine the effect of long-term rhythmic gymnastics on bone geometry using marginal quantitative computed tomography (pQCT).

Bone density is the medical term which is used to measure the amount of matter per square centimeter of bones.

The study is published in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).