Short exercises for BG drops

[Subby]

What tips can you share with us about short exercises to help "encourage" your insulin into action and your blood glucose to drop? I am thinking it would be great to hear of exercises that:

Are 1 to 5 minutes long
Can be done anywhere, work, home, etc
Require no or next to no extra equipment (something small like an exercise band might be ok - the emphasis is on "anywhere")
Can be done by pretty much anyone, ie, 50 pushups in a minute doesn't count :)

And your experience on how they affect your blood glucose.

I wish I had some to share but I dont! It's a few posts recently that got me thinking it would be great to have a couple techniques to try. As an exercise newbie, I am at a bit of a loss where to start.

[shiftzor]

Why would you want to encourage your insulin into action with a 5min exercise? For me 5minutes of anything would do nothing to my bg, when I head into town on my bike my bg hardly moves and the same with walking. I have to do something energetic like 4 hour bike ride or 2 hours of badminton or workout etc.

5 minute exercises:
Press-ups
Sit-ups (don't do crunches waste of time)
Jogging on the spot
err
Jumping up and down? (Touch ground then jump or twisting body)
Beep Test (http://www.brianmac.co.uk/beep.htm) - never tried it as a diabetic
Random exercises (http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk/exercise/take_5_plan/level_1.htm)
Lifting a pint glass - huge bg variance (alcohol) :(
Changing channel on the tv with remote. – negligible effect on bg :D

Stretches are important but wont effect your bg. I always want to do some exercise when I’m high, but I find it’s hardly ever possible unless I have loads of time to waste, not dark and I don’t need sleep. ;) Good luck with your quest.

[Subby]

Why? Here are the reasons I seem to have every day...

When you are at work or busy otherwise and can only get a short break.
When you don't have the energy or stamina to do a longer period of exercises.
When you just don't feel like exercising right then but want to get things flowing and the insulin moving.

It's not a replacement for real exercise, that's not what I'm after. Just little metabolism kickers. I like your ideas... I will have to try jogging on the spot. I assume skipping would be good too eh? I wonder if these are the most appropriate, considering they don't use the muscles that much. Would it be better to do more anerobic exercises?

I find that 5 minutes on an exercise bike can be very useful to "kick" my novorapid into action. But, of course you need an exercise bike around.

[1type2go]

GREAT Ideas


Subby

You can not find a better alternative than a Good skip rope for portability, heart rate and coordination.I suggest looking at ones from an athletic supplier

My rope,... well I have some I've made and one I've bought,has bearings in the handles and a spring protector (hits the ground) for outdoors
you must preserver when starting,once you get the hang of it

Wham it'll bring BG into range in no time

Donovan

[Emm]

Subby - I too have found just 5 minutes on the exercise bike works great for lowering the BG - and it has a lasting effect too. So it doesn't always take the full 30 minutes of exercise to get the job done :)

I ride for 5 mins or so any time I have a higher carb breakfast, like this morning when I wanted two pieces of toast and we only had wheat thick slice (I'd normally have thin sliced grain bread). Worked a treat! (the toast sucked though!)

I was really realllllly pleased to find short exercise bursts work :) I guess it depends on the type of exercise. On that note, I've also found that jogging on the spot helps, if I keep it nice & calm & gentle. Anything quick & rough seems to do nothing or even raise my BGs.

Sometimes I just lie down on my bedroom floor and do whatever comes to mind at the time... crunches etc. So long as I'm off my butt and doing something, it has to be better than nothing!

[owlyn]

Anything less than 20 minutes will cause your BG to rise. During the first 20 minutes of exercise, your liver starts dumping glucose, as it assumes you will need fuel now that you are doing physical work. After 20 minutes, the insulin starts to work, and by 30 minutes, you've broken even. Despite what some others have said here, unless you are physically unable, you shouldn't exercise for less than 20 minutes.

[Subby]

Thanks owlyn. While I definitely respect these theories and findings, this is not in keeping with my experience with my body in certain scenarios. Naturally (I think) I will go by what is a practical reality for me: short burst exercise seems to be a great BG lowerer at certain times.

If really high (say 15+ mml/l), all exercise seems to make it worse - I avoid, except maybe a gentle walk.

But here's a scenario where a short burst seem to work for me the great majority of the time.

If I'm creeping high towards dinner (say 10 - 13 mml/l), I take my bolus of novorapid and defer my meal. I've learnt that at this stage even if somewhat active (eg, light housework) the novorapid will sit and wait... and wait... my BG can continue upwards for 2 hours before slowly turning the corner. Injection site issues have been disqualified through careful testing and multiple delivery methods.

But if I let the bolus sit for 10 or so minutes, then do a 4 minute intensive on the exercise bike, I can get a drop back to 7 within 20 minutes. This allows me to eat my dinner at a good BG at about 50 minutes after bolus, rather than at a dubious (say 9, 10) at the 2 to 3 hour mark.

Whether the liver dump is occurring or not I do not know, it may be that it is but being outgunned by my body's increased utilisation of the introduced insulin. I do have a question, how much glucose does the liver tend to store? Might this get depleted at some stage through the day, if it dumps a few times?

So anyone thinking about this kind of burst exercise, heed the theory that it may send you high, but I personally think it is worth a go once or twice to see, (carefully), because it may just become a valuable tool!

Thanks for the ideas guys! I will definitely get some jump rope. Anyone had experience with those pilates resistance bands? I just got some, great for the man-bag, and I'm looking for some good tricks with this in mind.

[JediSurfer]

I don't do any kind of exercise is my numbers are above 10mmol/L as the chance of muscle damage is too great.

I have only found that longer or seriously strenuous exercise has a positive effect on my BG's and insulin needs throughout the day.

You can avoid the liver dump by using single molecule carbs ie sports drink or glucogel before and during exercise with a small bolus to cover it.

Everyones metabolism works differently and the best thing to do is figure out what works best for you through trial and error. Try a few different work outs and test and log all insulin, carbs and effects on bg levels.

[xMenace]

I believe this is the post that triggered this thread http://www.diabetesforums.com/forum/type-1-diabetes/26398-high-blood-glucose-very.html#post310699

We're not talking get-the-heart-rate up types of exercise. We want simple exercises to increase teh bllod flow to the injection site, I think.

[johgn]

Dropping that quickly seems a little dangerous to me in that it takes at least a little bit for meters (& you're brain for that matter) to catch up to what is really happening. If you went low you might pass out before figuring what is happening.

[SharpTail]

There is no question that you need to be cautious and know how your insulin works under those conditions. From the experience I have had with the Technosphere Insulin it is used up fairly rapidly even under normal conditions. Also a good thing about it is that it seems to "bottom out" very gently. I know it can't happen like this, but the insulin almost seems to know when the BG is getting close to a critically low level. I think actually that the short period of action is the reason I have not had a bad hypo since the trial started in the summer of 2006.

However, JediSurfer mentioned his concern about the risk of muscle damage and I had not thought about that. Do you think that what I was doing to rapidly drop the high blood glucose with and hour of aerobic exercise is safe?
Pat

[Emm]

Anything less than 20 minutes will cause your BG to rise...

I know that's 'technically' true - yet I keep on having great success with just a quick gentle dose of exercise. Perhaps the key is that it's gentle? Or perhaps I just don't do things the normal way!

I have to agree with other posts here too - exercise is never ever good if you're too high. For me that point is about 10mmol - officially I think it's about 13mmol (so I was told anyway) that it starts to become very unhealthy for exercise. But when I'm high I don't feel like getting off my butt anyway! It's a great time to have a jab and sit around like a couch potato. Blergh :p

[BlueSky]

Anything less than 20 minutes will cause your BG to rise. During the first 20 minutes of exercise, your liver starts dumping glucose, as it assumes you will need fuel now that you are doing physical work. After 20 minutes, the insulin starts to work, and by 30 minutes, you've broken even. Despite what some others have said here, unless you are physically unable, you shouldn't exercise for less than 20 minutes.
My experience of this is quite different. 20 minutes of anaerobic might push blood glucose up, but 20 minutes of aerobic exercise always brings my blood glucose down very quickly. It flattens out after 20-30 minutes, presumably because the body switches into fat burning mode.

I don't exercise to bring blood sugar down. It is too much like hard work ;) . If I wanted to bring blood glucose down quickly, like before a meal, I would do a correction shot into a muscle and exercise that muscle. It more than halves the time taken for blood glucose to drop.

[Subby]

Dropping that quickly seems a little dangerous to me in that it takes at least a little bit for meters (& you're brain for that matter) to catch up to what is really happening. If you went low you might pass out before figuring what is happening.

Not sure which drop you are referring to here. The drop I get from my little bike exercise - it can be fast but I often get more extreme drops from tail end hypos etc if the insulin "hangs around" - and without warning. So to encourage it to get moving and know it's dropping, and have food lined up, usually gives me a better experience. Of course there are always hypo risks, key being the level of intensity and length and knowing how you react to certain exercises and how much to do. (and the emphasis on controlled, short bursts)


I know that's 'technically' true - yet I keep on having great success with just a quick gentle dose of exercise. Perhaps the key is that it's gentle? Or perhaps I just don't do things the normal way!


Yes, I agree, although gentle is a vague word too, that could be a walk at 2 metres an hour :) And the intensity and strength of exercises will be different for people too, so this is tricky to define and agree on. To be a useful insulin kicker for me, I just need to get it is to feel like I am about to push myself physically, but don't actually push, if that makes sense. I am used to this because that's how I tackle my CFS without exhausting myself. Getting the heart rate up a notch and a little muscle involvement (thanks for the muscle damage point) and a short burst.. those seem the parameters for me that work with little side effect. In my scenario, this really isn't intense at all.

Again, I agree to warn against any kind of heavy exercise as soon as you get elevated.

[joel_h]

My experience of this is quite different. 20 minutes of anaerobic might push blood glucose up, but 20 minutes of aerobic exercise always brings my blood glucose down very quickly. It flattens out after 20-30 minutes, presumably because the body switches into fat burning mode.

I don't exercise to bring blood sugar down. It is too much like hard work ;) . If I wanted to bring blood glucose down quickly, like before a meal, I would do a correction shot into a muscle and exercise that muscle. It more than halves the time taken for blood glucose to drop.

Resistance exercises with IM injections will drop glucose at a crazy rate. This type of exercise temporarily jacks up insulin-sensitivity. More so than cardio.

[Subby]

Any sugestions or experience with resistance exercises for the beginner? (and for a good sensitivity kicking?) Bearing in mind the muscle damage factor with slightly or moderately elevated blood sugars, do you think resistance exercise ok if not overdone? I suppose that is one advantage with aerobic.. not weight bearing, less muscle damage... correct?

Sorry for all the dumb questions, I have never been able to get my head around exercise theories.

[JediSurfer]

My most frequent type of exercise is power-walking as fast as possible without actually running. I have a problem if my BG is high where i get severe pain in my muscles and legs. I also become breathless very fast. But try it see how it works for you.
I find also if I exercise for a short time before I eat and then inject the insulin is absorbed faster than if i inject, eat and then exercise. Always inject in the legs when using this method seems to work best for me.
A five minute power-walk is enough to get the blood flowing nicely. But plenty of testing is required as BG's can change rapidly. I tend to find slightly elevated BG's after a walk and will drop after about 20 minutes or so. as with any exercise replacing the bodies stored glucose within 45 minutes is essential to being able to perform at the same standard each day.

[joel_h]

Any sugestions or experience with resistance exercises for the beginner? (and for a good sensitivity kicking?) Bearing in mind the muscle damage factor with slightly or moderately elevated blood sugars, do you think resistance exercise ok if not overdone? I suppose that is one advantage with aerobic.. not weight bearing, less muscle damage... correct?

Sorry for all the dumb questions, I have never been able to get my head around exercise theories.

I've never heard of elevated blood sugars causing muscle damage. I think if it were so, I'd have experienced it. But n=1.
___http://home.comcast.net/~st1ckysw33t/2-16_1.jpg___

I'm 37, type1 since 1983. I typically run mid 5's in hbA1c. I have no kidney problems, neuropathy, ...no signs at all. (Knocking on wood)

It may not be for everyone but, I honestly believe most type1s and especially type2s can gained tighter control with simple resistance stuff. It doesn't need to be fancy.

[Subby]

Thanks Joel, and congrats on your consumate control.

Bluesky has a great post about this issue here http://www.diabetesforums.com/forum/type-1-diabetes/26479-development-of-ketones.html#post311808 Sounds like we can put the muscle damage issue at rest, it appears this theory may be outdated and the damage occurs with lack of insulin in the body rather than through ketoacidosis or high BG. A key may be to be sure you have a suitable dose in you before exercising, which most of us would do already, right?

I will get to it with my resistance tubing and see what happens :)

[JediSurfer]

KTD, dehydration and muscle wastage?

[Subby]

Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean... are you talking about other possible effects of exercise when high?