Do you know exercise is the most effective way to control your blood sugar level? But it is the point to ponder what type of exercise is more beneficial for diabetes?
So, you would hear the advice of finding the pavement or the treadmill for exercising more. Yes, some stairs of houses play a vital role in maintaining your blood sugar level even without using any additional medications. Everyone with diabetes needs a high intensity strength training with some diet changes to get rid of insulin and blood sugar problems without taking medications. You can try the exercise that is more interesting for you that will help you beyond just making your blood sugar better.
In this article, you may learn how strength training helps control your blood sugar level and which is more effective strength training or resistance training.
Why Exercise Matters for Diabetes Management?
It is true that there are endless health benefits that are associated with exercise. But the most important for all of this is the improved blood sugar level; due to strength training. Blood blood sugar level can be controlled by increasing sensitivity to insulin. But it might only help you regulate glucose levels in your blood. It also helps you:
- Lose weight.
- Reduce fatigue.
- Reduce cardiovascular health risks.
- Increase HDL cholesterol levels and lower LDL cholesterol levels in your blood.
- Improve your mood.
- Increase strength.
- Reduce risk of falls and broken bins.
- Improve balance of body.
- Reduce risk of cancer.
- Improve libido and sexual performance.
The list does not end here, it has much more but you can enjoy all these benefits of exercise just by incorporating some lifestyle recommendations to your daily life.
Why Exercise is Important for Controlling Blood Sugar Levels?
Exercise is considered part and parcel of your life if you have diabetes because it is your body’s cue that you need to absorb sugar (glucose). That’s why when you don’t perform a strenuous exercise you get no cue and as a result, sugar just stays in your blood stream. Your body, unfortunately, continues absorbing sugar and keeps out your blood after storing a large amount in your body’s different options in the form of fat.
When it comes to exercise, experts explain the whole thing briefly as: exercise is actually a tool to stimulate your muscles so that they start feeding the glucose stored there to reduce insulin receptors. But another type of receptors that do not need insulin also are produced that help transport sugar into your muscles. You can understand it by a lock and key model. In this case insulin is a key that fits in into the lock of a door i.e insulin receptor. They help you turn, open and pass through the door.
So try to consider that insulin is a key, insulin receptors as a lock and sugar is you, insulin fits into the receptor and sugar passes into your body. However, if you have diabetes, you may experience a gum stuck into the lock holder that’s why the key no longer fits intuit or functions properly. Now, you will think about making more doors to pass out and some of them should be without locks.
This is the thing exercise does for you. Especially strength training teaches your body that it doesn’t require insulin to absorb sugar. This excuse is the trigger to this process to incur.
What is Strength Training or Resistance Exercise?
Strength training is another name used for resistance training. Sometimes it is called weight lifting. Don’t confuse weight training with body building or trying to bulk up.
Many strength training and resistance ring exercises don’t include weight lifting techniques. But swimming has two properties i.e. aerobic and resistance. Pilates is also an example of strength training that usually focuses on your core abdominal muscles.
Why Is Weight Training Necessary for Diabetic People?
There are many reasons that make this exercise special for the people having diabetes but some of the most important causes are:
- It affects your insulin sensitivity and insulin absorption more than aerobic exercise.
- It has a great influence on your basal metabolic rate (BMR).
- Increased BMR leads to weight loss because Weight TRAINING keeps your calorie intake constant.
- It contributes a lot in increasing lean muscle mass along with increasing your strength.
- Lean muscle as being insulin-sensitive tissue helps in your insulin sensitivity.
- Last but not least, weight training along with resistance training maintain your elevated blood sugar levels following meals.
Type 1 Diabetes and Strength Training
Strength training is beneficial for both type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. But additional considerations for 1 diabetes should be kept in mind. This is because you may avoid hypoglycemia. So, if you have diabetes, try to adopt a healthy lifestyle including exercise like strength training and dietary changes that can help control your blood glucose.
It is a misfortune that people with type 1 diabetes are usually recommended to take more in supplementary or medicinal form because it isn’t good at all. Unchecked insulin use in type 1 diabetes, combined with a sedentary lifestyle can lead to some serious health challenges dealing with type 2 diabetes. Development of insulin resistance and abrupt weight gain are some of its examples.
Strength training helps improve your basal metabolic rate and isu sensitivity for both with type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes.
Does Resistance Training Play Role in Controlling Your Blood Sugar?
After doing a lot of research and several clinical trials, the experts conclude that resistance training in type 2 diabetes is quite beneficial. Although it’s slow, it works.
Studies show that resistance exercises influence the concentration of hemoglobin A1c. After incorporating strength training to your workout regimen, you will notice that your hemoglobin is reducing by approximately 0.5 – 15 on average. This may exceed this range if you keep adding resistance exercises with aerobic exercises. Thus you can achieve more benefits along with blood sugar control. More benefits include insulin sensitivity, less fat, more muscles, reduced inflammation and cholesterol.
But the most important point is that resistance training first focuses only on your muscles. Therefore, in initial days you may notice nothing special in your body composition. But over time you start noticing that there’s a large difference between the sugar levels in the morning with fasting and sugar levels after taking meals.
How to Get Started?
Strength training exercises usually are performed in a gym, or a community center or a home. People generally prefer to stay at home because they feel more comfortable. But the one factor that can disturb your exercise routine at home is lack of motivation. Home is your comfortable place, you can find many ways to skip your edge. But at the gym there are many factors that motivate you to exercise. In addition, your home is full of distractions but the gym is just for exercise.
In many communities, people have established their research centers where community people go to do exercise. But joining the gym can provide you all types of facilities and equipment that are required for perfume exercise properly. The trainers there teach you how-to use the variety of equipment safely and also hold you accountable so that you remain stick to your goal. This means a physical space created especially for exercise either in your home or gym can help improve your exercise routine that can lead to maintaining your blood sugar level.
What Type of Strength Training Exercise is Good for You?
Resistance training usually focuses on your muscle groups. The rite, initial 1-2 sessions are just for muscle stretching purposes. But after a few days you can perform all types of exchange precisely.
At the start, the main focus is the upper body. According to physical trainers and gym experts, shoulder presses with hand weights, rowing with hand weights, bicep curls, triceps extensions, chest flays with hand weights and shoulder pull downs are best exercises for the upper body. Studies also show the old style sit ups and push ups are also an excellent exercise for starting strength training. The next step is to focus on lower body exercises. It is a hard decision to perfume lower body exercises at home because you need more equipment and guidance for a physical trainer to do these exercises safely with any injury.
In expert’s opinion, the most effective forms of strength training are hamstring curls, squats and leg extensions. You can do these exercises on simple weight machines by using resistance bands. If you can’t go to the gym or afford gym training, several inexpensive books are available in stores and online. These books or e-books demonstrate these exercises. The videos are also available that help you keep the resistance bands used to perform such exercises to introduce your blood sugar.
How Much Weight Should be Lifted and How Frequently?
After achieving a master rank in strength training, you can move towards weight lifting. Weightlifting is essential for muscle growth. Initially, you feel muscle fatigue after performing the same exercises. For a regular workout session, you need to do 8-10 exercises with three sets of each. Try to perform these workouts 2 to 3 times a week because weight lifting for many repetitions is effective for toning your muscles but it doesn’t contribute to building strength.
Special Consideration for the People Who Have Heart Surgery
Almost all people can perform strength training exercises, but some considerations and limitations are still associated with it. Sometimes, it requires avoidance of some particular types of strength training especially if you have a past injury or surgery.
If you have any of these, but still need to perform resistance exercise, talk to your physical trainer. They would provide you sufficient advice on excise safety with an injury or surgery.
But if you had a heart attack in the near past or had heart surgery recently either for a pacemaker or bypass, you are not allowed to do such strenuous and hard exercises. Your cardiologist can guide you better if these exercises are good for you. They also can advise you what exercises are good and how to affirm them safely. Although most exercises are safe, it is safe to wait curfew weeks after a heart surgery.
Special Consideration with Insulin Use
People with type 1 diabetes have some special considerations regarding resistance training. These exercises actually help control your blood sugar level when performed correctly. But it is not necessary that every person with type 1 diabetes responds in the same way to these physical activities. Therefore, everyone should have their own preferences and safety rules. Self-monitoring can help you identify what’s right for you.
If you have type 1 diabetes and are going to start strength training exercise, you should start slowly and keep checking your blood sugar levels frequently to determine how your body is responding to these physical activities.
In addition, timing of your workout is another important factor. Timing relative to your meal intake decides how much insulin sensitivity is good for you. When you do exercise 2 to 3 hours after your meal, your rapid acting insulin dose is reduced by 75%. This is higher than the required percentage. Doctors usually recommend to reduce it 50% along with the intake of insulin supplement.
Moreover, experts also say that the effects of strength training for controlling blood sugar could usually change over time. At start, the change doesn’t appear prominent then after your work intensive i.e you start weight lifting or using resistance bands or increase the number of repetition, the changes become visible and more prominent.
In addition, resistance training also increases BMR, the use of your long-acting insulin usually needs to be lowered to avoid hypoglycemia.
In short, consistency is the main content of exercise sessions and the timing of their sessions relative to your meal timing.
Conclusion
Strength training is a part of resistance exercises. It contributes a lot in reducing blood sugar level in your body especially if you have diabetes type 1 or 2. These exercises not only help build strength but also promote bone health, improves insulin sensitivity, reduces hemoglobin A1c, and improves mobility among other health benefits.
One can perform these exercises at home easily but for proper equipment and resources a gym is a better option.
