BEST EXERCISE FOR DIABETES

Living with type 2 diabetes can be challenging, but the good news is that you have an incredibly effective tool at your disposal: exercise. Regular physical activity can have a profound impact on managing type 2 diabetes and improving overall health. We have discussed in previous blog on the benefits exercise and how it can help manage blood sugar levels. 

In this blog post, we will further explore the numerous benefits of exercise for individuals with type 2 diabetes and what types of exercise specifically help. 

Exercise has both immediate and long term benefits for our health and for blood glucose management. These benefits can be gained from a variety of different exercise forms. We are going to focus on the two most common forms of exercise prescribed to people with type 2 diabetes.

Aerobic Exercise
First up is cardiovascular or aerobic exercise, which can include walking, running and cycling that focusing on raising our heart rate for consistent periods of time. 

This form of exercise requires a large amount of energy production throughout. As a result our cells require a constant source of glucose as we are completing it. Our muscles then constantly take in glucose from our blood having an immediate lowering effect to blood glucose levels. Making this an amazing way to lower high blood glucose levels if you have a high reading throughout the day. 

Aerobic exercise also helps to manage and control the risk of heart disease, one of the most common disease linked to diabetes. Our heart is like any other muscle in our body, and requires strengthening. And this form of exercise is the best to strengthen it. By keeping your heart strong, it will improve blood flow, improve blood pressure and increase your exercise capacity and tolerance as well. 

Resistance Exercise
​Next up, resistance training. This is any training that utilizes a resistance you work against. This could be using weights, bands, springs like in pilates or even your body weight. The best types of exercises are what we called compound exercises, these utilise multiple muscles and joints at the one time (e.g. push ups and squats). Better yet, combining two exercisers together like a squat with a bicep curl. 

​The great benefit of this type of exercise is that it builds our bodies muscles strength and size. This can help long term blood glucose management as with increase muscle mass and size our body starts to require more energy to maintain these changes. Due to this our resting metabolic rate increases (the amount of glucose our body needs when resting increases) - leading to reduced blood glucose levels as our muscle require more throughout the day to maintain themselves.

This form of exercise, like our aerobic exercise, requires our muscles to take up glucose from the blood to produce the energy it needs to complete the movement. So it too can have an more immediate lowering of blood glucose levels. 
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These are two amazing forms of exercise that can help those with diabetes to control and manage their blood glucose levels. And what's even better, is that these forms of exercise are also the best to help prevent diabetes as well. 

How much should I be doing?
The best starting point is to look at meeting the Australian Guidlines for Exercise and Physical Activity, which we have discussed previously. But a combination of both aerobic and resistance exercises throughout the week will be most beneficial for both immediate and long term management and control of diabetes. 

The best thing about exercise, is that we don't need specialised equipment to get started. You can start with aerobic exercises like going out for a walk around a local park, or just around the block. For resistance training it can be exercises like squats, push ups and step ups. As Exercise Physiologist we can help you get moving and stay active with exercise programs that are designed specifically for you, taking into account of your unique goals and needs. ​

There are many ways you can see an EP at Simply Stronger. ​

• We work with you to understand your goals and motivation to develop a home based exercise program you can implement yourself.
• We can even come to your home to help build your program or train with you their.
• We can build you a gym program for use at your local gym and help you to progress it at your pace.
• Come and train with us at Simply Stronger in our 1:1 sessions or small groups.
• Combine these approaches.

Take control of your health and book in to see an one of our EPs today. ​

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