Top 10 Exercises for Diabetes Patients

Regular exercise helps control body weight, develop muscles, improve oxygen levels in the blood and regulate blood flow. Another interesting fact about exercise is that it effectively regulates blood sugar levels to prevent and manage diabetes.

However, before knowing about the best exercises for diabetes patients, individuals must learn about their effectiveness.

Physical activity, including exercises, enhances energy usage. This, in turn, increases glucose utilisation, thus bringing down blood sugar level.

Now, let us learn about the most effective exercises for this health condition.

1. Walking

An hour or 30 minutes walk 3 or 4 times a week is quite beneficial for diabetic patients. Walk down to a store rather than driving. Or, you can also take a tour of your neighbourhood to get exercise and fresh air. Once you have made it a habit, track your steps and take walks for a longer time. Studies have shown that walking significantly lowers blood sugar levels and body weight in type 2 diabetic patients.

2. Swimming

A fun way to control your blood sugar levels is swimming. This is one of the aerobic exercises for diabetes that relieves our joints and gives our hearts, lungs and muscles a thorough workout. It lowers cholesterol and burns unwanted calories. A 2017 study confirmed that aquatic activities limit our blood sugar levels substantially.

3. Cycling

Besides reliving your childhood nostalgia, cycling can be your ultimate fitness mantra to lower blood sugar levels. You can either use a stationary cycle available at the gyms or take at least 30 minutes to cycle 3 or 5 times a week. It will raise your heartbeat, burn calories, and lower sugar levels in blood without even affecting your joints like knees and elbows.

Studies state that diabetic neuropathy causes joint pain to people suffering from type 2 diabetes. Cycling can be a fitting cure to such joint pains.

4. Climbing the Stairs

Another ideal way to switch to a healthy lifestyle is by substituting elevators or escalators with stairs. This type of exercise for diabetes helps you burn calories quickly and makes your heart and lungs work faster. You can climb the stairs up and down for 3 minutes to shed off excessive blood sugar.

5. Aerobic Dance

The best thing about aerobic dancing is that it is a fun way to burn off extra sugar from your blood and maintain your weight.

For instance, Zumba is a total-body fast-paced workout that combines dancing and aerobic movements. It helps increase good cholesterol levels and lower harmful cholesterol levels.

6. Lifting Weights

Lifting weights is a proven way to control diabetes. It helps us build our muscle mass and burn calories efficiently. You can include weightlifting in your weekly exercise regime to grow your muscles and make your bones stronger.

Note: Seek professional help to understand your capacity to lift weights according to your body weight.

7. Exercises With Resistance Bands

Besides lifting weights, one of the most beneficial exercises for diabetes is workouts with resistance bands. It strengthens your muscles and boosts your immunity as well. Also, it provides modest advantages to blood sugar management for diabetic patients, according to recent research by the Canadian Journal of Diabetes.

8. Tai Chi

This ancient Chinese form of meditation has a positive effect on type 2 diabetes patients. In addition, the University of Florida claims that regular tai chi programmes lower blood glucose levels to control diabetes.

Also, patients with type 2 diabetes, if included in a supervised tai chi programme for 2 days every week for 6 months, can reduce their fasting blood sugar levels.

9. Yoga

Yoga lowers oxidative stress by reducing serum malondialdehyde, interleukin 6 and leptin levels and improving adiponectin levels. It also increases the insulin receptor numbers and the proportion of binding in diabetic patients.

The free fatty acids are lowered and indirectly help improve insulin to glucose ratio and insulin sensitivity. Also, type 2 diabetes patients suffering from migraines can opt for yoga as it improves cell-mediated immunity. You can also enhance your quality of sleep and mood by performing a sufficient amount of yoga every day.

Note: You can join a professional class to learn the correct postures and breathing techniques of yoga.

10. Pilates

Pilates has recently become quite popular and has significant benefits for women with type 2 diabetes. This fitness programme ensures to regulate your strength and balance optimally and simultaneously improve your blood sugar management.

Most of these enlisted exercises for diabetes require professional guidance for optimal results. However, there are specific exercises for diabetic patients which they can do at home. Keep reading.

1. Jumping Jacks

You can include 2 sets of jumping jacks with 10 jumps per set. All you have to do is on-site jumps with the synchronised movement of the legs and arms, spreading and closing.

2. Crunches

You can strengthen your abdomen and keep an eye on your blood sugar levels with crunches. 2 sets of 15 crunches each can be a great start.

3. Push-ups

You can also start adding push-ups to your daily workout regime to improve your health. Although push-ups are hard to continue, consider starting with at least 4 push-ups a set and complete 2 sets a day.

4. Rowing

2 sets of 10 rowing exercises with dumbbells can significantly contribute towards improving your health. Moreover, it helps to strengthen your back muscles as well.

Both aerobics and workouts with resistance bands positively affect people with diabetes. They reduce the HbA1c levels and insulin resistance. Also, people with diabetes who walk at least 2 hours a week have lower chances of developing fatal cardiac ailments. Also, those who walk for 4 hours a week have an even better chance of survival.

A Harvard study claims that diabetic women who spend a minimum of 4 hours for moderate or strict exercises are 40% less likely to develop any heart diseases.

Note: All these studies are conducted after considering essential factors such as body mass index, smoking and few other risk factors.

Among the discussed exercises, aerobic training maximises the mitochondrial density, insulin sensitivity, oxidative enzymes, rate of blood vessels reaction, the performance of lungs and heart output. 

Also, both type 1 and 2 diabetic patients working out daily have substantially lower cardiovascular mortality risks.

Exercises with resistance bands are beneficial to improve muscle and fat mass, mineral density, blood pressure, lipid profiles and others.

Exercises for diabetes also take care of the joint mobility of the elderly. Strengthening optimises the movement of the joints and flexibility without affecting the glycemic levels. 

These are a few of the several benefits of exercise for diabetes.

However, there are certain things to keep in mind while exercising if you are suffering from diabetes.

What are those?

Take a look.

Some of the exercises to avoid for diabetes patients are listed below:

• Decline bench press
• Equestrian
• Mountain biking
• Mogul skiing, etc. 

The biggest limitation of exercise for diabetes is that it may lead to lower blood sugar, named hypoglycaemia. Hypoglycaemia is a condition when your blood sugar levels are lower than the recommended range. Therefore, it is crucial for individuals who take insulin doses to control blood sugar levels to opt for blood sugar tests before starting their workout sessions. 

The acceptable range of blood sugar is between 90 and 250 mg/dL. Also, diabetic patients with more than 250 mg/dL of blood sugar should avoid high-intensity workouts. If it is below 70 mg/dL, you should consult a doctor.

The exercises for diabetes listed in this piece are some of the potential ways to control blood sugar levels. Keep these in mind and plan your exercise regime accordingly.