I would say just as important as. At least to a point, all need a healthy amount of lean muscle mass. Without it should you have a serious illness or major surgery, your chances of survival drop. But, yes, lifting weights to strengthen bones is valid- and should be considered necessary for older adults who want to be healthy.
I worked with an elderly lady who was forced to retire after her hip cracked due to the simple task of walking. She was skinny-fat. I didn't keep in touch- but those sorts of injuries for the elderly typically pre-sage death.
The Most Important Benefit of Weight Lifting Isn't Bigger Muscles
Building buffness. Getting ripped. Toning up. No matter what it’s called, becoming more muscular is generally top-of-the-mind for any young person who regularly visits the weight room. Less thought about is another key benefit, one that’s not as easily seen but is more long-lasting and consequential: weight training is the best way to strengthen bones.
Remember the milk mustache?
For a long time, conventional wisdom, put in place by omnipresent marketing, heralded calcium intake as the key to strong bones. Recent large studies, however, show that supplementation of the mineral, often found in meat and dairy products, only has a modest effect on bone density, and doesn’t reduce fractures at all.
Lifting weights, however, does. The stress placed on bones by squatting, pressing, deadlifting, pulling, or doing pretty much any motion with added resistance kicks bone-synthesizing cells called osteoblasts into high gear. They start producing collagen, other specialized proteins, and hydroxyapatite — the bone mineral — and forming these raw materials into more bone for your spine, femur, tibia, and any other bones that are bearing the added weight. The result is a stronger skeleton, one more resistant to fracture.
As your skeleton is literally the foundational structure of your body, that’s a big deal. The average person loses about 1% of their bone mass each year after age forty. For about three million Americans each year, this decline eventually results in a potentially debilitating condition called osteoporosis, in which bones become so weak and brittle that a fall or even a mild stressor like bending over or coughing can cause them to crack. Two million osteoporosis-related fractures occur each year, sometimes resulting in permanent enfeeblement. According to Harvard Medical School, “six out of 10 people who break a hip never fully regain their former level of independence”.
Aerobic activities like walking, jogging, swimming, and cycling are all fantastic forms of exercise. Easily accessible and often recommended to older adults, they offer myriad health benefits. However, none come close to building bone like weight training does. And some, particularly walking, jogging, and cycling, can put older adults at risk of falls.
Strengthen the skeleton