When we look at lowering blood sugar or even wanting to lose weight, there's one thing we are told to do time and time again. This is to be more active. For some people the thought of doing any form of exercise is horrible and makes them feel very negative about the whole thing. And there are those that do or have enjoyed some form of activity but are struggling to find time to fit it in within their lives. Like many people the thought of doing any form of exercise or activity for hours at a time also makes me feel dread. When I was in my early 20’s I came across Arthur Jones and the high intensity strength training movement. To this day I still train this way. I am not here to tell you to do this, though if you are interested in it please feel free to leave me a comment with any questions.What I do want to introduce you to is the 80/20 workout. This was something I was thinking about while I was a diabetic educator and during one of my sessions, going over exercise, I realised that what is being asked, for most people is alien and they have no interest or clue, so their eyes would glaze over when exercise was mentioned. The 80/20 workout is very simple to implement and fit into your life. So simple in fact you might think it wont work for you. But it will.
Every upper body muscle
We can pretty much hit all the upper body muscles in one go. This is done with a simple press-up. I know right. When someone does a bench press, you are usually only using your chest, triceps and shoulder muscles to move the bar. A press-up, when done correctly, can use every muscle in the upper body. Abdominal, chest, the entire arm, and some back muscles.To do this you just need to find a position of press-up you can do 1 repetition with. This can be the wall, a counter top, table/chair or the floor. When you lower your chest you want to squeeze your back muscles for a second (or longer if you like) then press back up. Just start with 1 a day. Anyone can do just one press-up anywhere at any time. Now, 1 press-up a day won't make you super jacked or strong, what it will do is help get you used to doing something everyday. Once you’re used to doing it everyday, you could then aim to do 10 a week, or 10 a day or however you would like to structure it to fit around you.
Never skip leg day
Same approach can be done for the lower body. To activate all the muscles from your core/lower back all the way down to your ankles, I give you the humble squat. This is the king of lower body movements, simple yet powerful.To do a squat, you will need to stand with your feet shoulder width apart (men) or hip width (ladies) hold your belly button as tight to your spine as you can, like you're trying to touch your back with it. Then lower yourself as low as you comfortably can, hold for a second then stand smoothly, don't bounce up.If you have knee problems or don’t feel confident with the squat. Grab a chair and sit and stand on it. Again, 1 repetition is all you're aiming for here until you feel confident with it and you can then start making it more challenging.
Don’t rush this. Take your time. Progress once you feel ready to. The idea here isn’t to make you a bodybuilder, it’s to help develop your muscles, make them more insulin sensitive, so they can store more glucose in them and not in the fat cells.A good rule of thumb here is, once you can do a total of 40 repetitions in one go, make it more challenging. Then start back at 1 rep and build it back up that way.I do get asked when should they do these, normally I just tell people to do them when you find yourself standing around waiting for something, like the kettle boiling, of when you have food in the oven, during an advert while watching tv, or in the 4-5 seconds before your next Netflix show starts lol.
If you have further questions please add them in the comments.
If you’re interested in wanting a simple way to lower blood sugar and potentially lose up to 5lbs of fat without dieting click here
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