One move to lower your blood sugar while sitting in your chair

Blood sugar control is very important for diabetics, and in this report we offer a very simple exercise that can help with this and also help lower blood fats.

Before we go into details, we want to emphasize that what we offer here is for guidance only and is not a treatment for diabetes or a substitute for consulting a doctor and taking treatment.

The exercise was presented by Dr. Mark Hamilton, a professor of health and human performance at the University of Houston in the United States, in a study published in September 2022 in the journal iScience.

The University of Houston said in a report on the study that this discovery is groundbreaking.

How does this exercise lower blood glucose?

This exercise moves a specific muscle in the body.

What is this muscle that, when moved, can lower blood glucose?

The answer is the soleus muscle in your calf. Although it makes up only 1% of your body weight, it can do a lot to improve the metabolic health of the rest of your body when activated properly.

And the soleus is one of 600 muscles in the human body, and it is the posterior leg muscle that extends from the bottom of the knee to the heel.

What is the exercise called

It is called Soleus Pushup (SPU), which effectively increases muscle metabolism for hours even while sitting.

How effective is this exercise?

According to the study, the ability of SPU to maintain elevated oxidative metabolism to improve blood glucose regulation is more effective than any of the common methods currently promoted as a solution, including aerobic exercise, weight loss, and intermittent fasting.

What is oxidative metabolism?

Oxidative metabolism is the process by which oxygen is used to burn metabolites such as blood glucose or fat, but it depends in part on the immediate energy needs of the muscle as it works.

“We never dreamed that this muscle would have this kind of ability,” Hamilton said. “It’s been in our bodies all along, but no one has looked at how to use it to improve our health.”

“When properly activated, the soleus muscle can increase local oxidative metabolism to high levels for hours, not just minutes, and it does so with a different fuel mix,” he added.

The soleus press activates the soleus muscle differently than standing or walking.

Glucose Utilization

The study showed that the contribution of glycogen in sole feeding is negligible. Instead of breaking it down, the sole can use other fuels such as blood glucose and fat. Normally, glycogen is the predominant type of carbohydrate that fuels muscles during exercise.

He added, “The sole’s reliance on glycogen helps it work effortlessly and without stress for hours during this type of muscle activity because there is a specific limit to muscle endurance due to glycogen depletion.”

When the soleus push-up was tested, the systemic effects on blood chemistry included a 52% improvement in blood glucose (sugar).

The new approach to maintaining soleus metabolism is also effective in doubling the normal rate of fat metabolism during the fasting period between meals, lowering blood lipid levels.

Soleus muscle activation

Building on years of research, Hamilton and his colleagues developed the Soleus Press, which activates the soleus muscle differently than standing or walking. This exercise is designed to increase oxygen consumption more than these other types of soleus activities, while also combating fatigue.

How do you exercise Soleus Pushup

Sitting with feet flat on the floor and muscles relaxed, the heel is lifted while the front of the foot remains in position.

When the heel reaches the top of its range of motion, the foot is passively released downward. The goal is to simultaneously shorten the calf muscle at a time when the soleus is normally activated by motor neurons.

While the soleus push-up may look like walking (even though it’s performed while seated), it’s actually quite the opposite, according to the researchers. When walking, the body is designed to reduce the amount of energy expended by the way the sole of the foot moves.

Hamilton’s method flips that on its head, making the sole use as much energy as possible over a long period of time.

“The pressure on the sole looks simple from the outside, but sometimes what we see with the naked eye is not the whole story,” Hamilton said. “It’s a very specific movement that currently requires technique and experience.”

But the researchers stress that this isn’t a new fitness tip or a new diet for this month, but a powerful physiological movement that takes advantage of the sole’s unique characteristics.

Regardless of a person’s level of physical activity, excessive sitting has been shown to increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes, dementia and more.

More than half of American adults and 80% of people over the age of 65 have metabolic problems caused by diabetes or prediabetes.

A low metabolic rate while sitting is particularly troublesome for people at risk of developing age-related metabolic diseases such as metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes.

“All 600 muscles combined typically contribute only about 15% of the total body’s oxidative metabolism within 3 hours of carbohydrate ingestion,” Hamilton added. “Despite the fact that the soleus muscle represents only 1% of body weight, it is able to increase the metabolic rate during soleus squeeze contractions to double, sometimes even triple, whole-body carbohydrate oxidation.”

“We are not aware of any current or promising drugs that come close to increasing and sustaining whole-body oxidative metabolism to this extent,” he continued.