Whether you live with type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, prediabetes or any other type of diabetes, you can benefit from improving your insulin sensitivity.

The four workout videos in this post can help you do just that.

Your insulin sensitivity is how effective your body is at using the insulin it produces (if you have insulin production) or you inject. The better your insulin sensitivity is, the less insulin, Metformin, or other diabetes drugs do you need to manage your blood sugars.

Improving your insulin sensitivity can make your overall diabetes management easier in both the short and the long run, and exercising is one of the most effective ways of improving your insulin sensitivity.

Workouts for Improved Insulin Sensitivity

The workouts in this post are resistance training workouts. Resistance training simply means that you put your muscles under tension. This can be done using your own body weight or external resistance such as dumbbells or resistance bands.

If you’re new to resistance training, I suggest you start with the home bodyweight workout (video 1). When that’s no longer challenging, move on to using resistance bands or weights.

 

Instructions

I will demonstrate each exercise and tell you how many sets and reps to do, typically 3 sets of 10-15 or 12-15 repetitions (reps) for each exercise.

That means that you’ll do one exercise for 10-15 or 12-15 reps, rest for 30-60 seconds, do 10-15 or 12-15 more reps, rest again, and then do the last set of reps.

The reason why I’m giving you a range is that you should pick a weight that really challenges you but still allows you to do the target reps. For example, If you can only do 9 reps, the weight is too heavy, and if you can easily bang out 15, it is too light.

Of course, you probably don’t have dumbbells of every different weight at home, so use whatever you have. If you only have light dumbbells and 15 reps feel too easy, just keep going for as many reps as you can.

When you do resistance workouts, please remember that you may see an impact on your insulin sensitivity 24-36 hours after your workout, so be diligent about watching your blood sugars. If you aren’t used to resistance workouts, I really recommend you read my post about how resistance training affects your blood sugar before you do this workout.

And always listen to your body and stop if you feel pain. If you’re not used to exercising and doing a whole workout in one go is too much, just break it up into smaller sessions.

4 sessions of 5 minutes are just as effective as one session of 20 minutes. 

 

The Workouts

Home (Low Impact) Bodyweight Workout

Home Resistance band Workout

Home Dumbbell Workout

Gym Workout

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