It will not be the panacea to the disease of sedentary lifestyle, but the news spread by the research team led by Professor Marc Hamilton, Professor of Health and Human Performance at the University of Houston, Texas, is excellent for those who have the misfortune of spending many hours at a desk. In fact, the classic office job has a negative impact on health, exposing you to various problems such as a greater risk of heart disease, diabetes and dementia. But here it is a small movement of the legs, just while sitting comfortably, could moderate some of the negative effects of staying still for a long time, keeping the muscle metabolism active. This is the discovery of the research group led by Professor Hamilton who has identified a simple exercise that can be performed while sitting. It all started with a study of a calf muscle called the soleus.
Better than intermittent fasting
The soleus is located under the twin muscles of the gastrocnemius and represents just 1% of our body weight but “it can do great thingsimproving the metabolic health of the rest of the entire body, ”says Hamilton who, in research published in the journal iScienceshowed how its correct activation can cause “a high oxidative metabolism, regulating blood sugar more effectively than any other method currently advertised as a solution to the problem, including exercise, weight loss, and intermittent fastinge”.
Like the soleus it burns metabolites
Oxidative metabolism, Hamilton explains, is the process by which oxygen is used to burn metabolites such as blood glucose or fat, but it depends, in part, on the muscle’s immediate energy needs when it is working. “We never imagined that the soleus had this kind of ability. It has always been there, but until now no one has ever researched how to use it to optimize our health. When activated correctly, it can increase local oxidative metabolism to high levels for hours, not just minutes, and it does so using a different fuel blend”.
Il professor Marc Hamilton
Fat burning
Hamilton found that, instead of breaking down glycogen (which is normally the type of carbohydrate that powers muscle exercise), activation of the soleus burns fat and other types of carbohydrates. “The dependence of the soleus on glycogen, lower than normal, helps him to work for hours without effort and without getting tired during this type of muscular activity, because there is a precise limit to the muscular endurance caused by the depletion of glycogen – he specified. ‘expert – . As far as we know, this is the first concerted work on developing a specialized type of contractile activity focused on optimizing human metabolic processes ”.
Soleus pushup: the exercise to do while sitting
The movement devised by Hamilton and colleagues is given by the so-called flexion of the soleus (soleus pushup) while sitting, an exercise that activates the muscle in a different way than when we are standing or walking. When sitting with the feet flat on the ground and the muscles relaxed, the heel rises but the front of the foot remains firm on the ground: when the heel reaches its maximum elevation, the foot is released back down. “Viewed from the outside, the soleus pushup may seem like a simple movement, but sometimes what we see with the naked eye isn’t the whole story. It is a very specific movement, which in this phase we have optimized through the use of wearable technology to have the maximum health benefits ”.
Unique characteristics of the soleus muscle
Tested on 25 volunteers, whose lifestyles varied from sedentary to active, the seated soleus pushup resulted in a 52% improvement in stabilizing blood glucose fluctuations and reduced insulin requirements by 60% when study participants were glucose drinks were given. The movement also seems to favor the burning of fats in the blood, in particular of the very low density lipoprotein (VLDL) which contributes to high cholesterol, increasing the metabolism of the soleus muscle in a way that keeps it active for hours. Looking ahead, the scholars are working on new publications explaining how to properly perform this movement without the laboratory equipment used in this study. The researchers also point out that the practice of the soleus pushup is not a new fitness tip but a powerful physiological exercise capable of exploiting the unique characteristics of the soleus muscle.