MUST GO ON!’
“You’ve got to get the blood circulating and when people are just sat at home watching the TV you just have to set aside time to do it. Just any form of exercise is good.”
“You’re getting the blood pumping around, it’s releasing endorphins in the brain which is the happy drug and you feel a lot better after. So I think it’s just about encouraging people to keep moving, keep doing stuff. Getting up and down out of the chair 10 times will help.
“Dancing to music, I think, helps people to get up and out of the chair and there is no better time for doing it than at home. If you are from the era where you used to do The Twist, as long as you’re not on a slippery surface and you are wearing socks on your carpet you can twist.
“The secret is putting music on that you actually love or maybe what you used to dance to. Or waltzing around by yourself is good. You can pretend to have a partner if you’re home alone.”
He jokes – although it is true: “My cardboard cut out is readily available on Amazon. It’s life-size and you can dance around with that, it’s only light, it’s cardboard.they’re hilarious.”
He adds: “I did a dance around the fire with a shovel the other night. We had lots of stuff from the garden that we needed to burn so I did a fire dance. It was to The Prodigy... Firestarter.”
Craig became involved with The Royal Osteoporosis Society because both he and his mother have suffered with bone-related conditions.
His mother Beverley June Horwood has suffered with incurable and painful rheumatoid arthritis and he has undergone two hip replacement operations as a result of osteoarthritis.
“Osteoporosis is preventable. When you consider one in two women and one in five men over the age of 50 will get osteoporosis it’s alarming. It can be avoided by building a bone bank for the future.you need to build up this bone bank for the future up until the age of 23 and then you’re less likely to get it.”
Weight-bearing exercise along with a balanced diet and vitamin D from the sun all help build bone density. Building strong bones before the age of 23 will help later in life and means that, for many, osteoporosis can be avoided.
Craig has taken part in a number of awareness campaigns and has teamed up with the Duchess of Cornwall, the president of ROS, on various occasions, including dancing the cha cha cha together at an event.
Julia Thomson, a nurse and clinical director of The Royal Osteoporosis Society, says: “We should all have it at the back of our minds that we need to be keeping active during this lockdown.
She is urging people to “think about their bone health now and try to replicate the sort of steps they might be doing in a normal environment and just be more conscious about not sitting in the chair all day” warning that people “will lose bone if they don’t keep active”.
She suggests: “Perhaps getting up every hour and having a walk around and even setting a timer. People really need to remember to keep themselves active.
“We are all losing bone as we get older, we are all losing bone once we get past 30 so that process will speed up if we don’t keep active.
“These exercises are really good for strengthening muscles and bone health.”
●Visit theros.org.uk or call the free osteoporosis helpline, 0808 800 0035