Why You Should Be Lifting Weights if You Have Type 2 Diabetes

Lifting Weights May Make Managing Type 2 Diabetes Easier

Diabetes is marked by the body’s inability to process glucose and use insulin efficiently, but strength training can help with those issues in various ways.

Burns Up Blood Sugar 

Strength training relies primarily on the body’s glycolytic, or glucose-using, metabolic system for energy. “As we go through a strength-training workout, we use stored muscle glycogen for fuel,” explains Nick Occhipinti, CSCS, an exercise physiologist based in Red Bank, New Jersey. “Once this stored muscle glycogen runs out, we start to mobilize extra glycogen from the liver and from the blood. This helps to directly decrease blood glucose as well as deplete stored muscle and liver glycogen stores, giving blood glucose a place to go next time we eat.”

Improves Glucose Storage 

Your muscles serve as storage facilities for consumed sugar and carbohydrates. “Trained muscle has a higher capacity to store blood glucose in the form of glycogen, aiding in lowering blood glucose,” he says. That means lowered blood sugar levels and easier glucose management.

Spurs Weight Loss

In people carrying extra weight, losing 5 to 10 percent of your body weight can improve A1C scores, the two- to three-month average of blood sugar levels, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. Apart from burning calories during your workouts, strength training promotes fat loss by increasing levels of lean muscle mass. “Muscle is one of the few metabolically active tissues in the body at total rest,” explains Occhipinti. “This means that even as we sit around and watch football or sit at a desk and work, the muscle we have on our body is serving to burn calories.”

Targets Harmful Belly Fat 

Abdominal fat, also called visceral fat because it resides in and around the body’s visceral organs, exacerbates insulin resistance and complicates blood sugar management, he says. He explains that, in addition to storing energy, visceral fat cells produce chemicals and hormones that inhibit the body’s effective use of insulin. Fortunately, research has shown that high-intensity resistance training, when combined with moderate endurance training and a restrictive diet, is effective at reducing visceral fat levels in people with metabolic syndrome (also known as insulin resistance syndrome).

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Strength Training Helps Protect Against Diabetes Complications

By improving insulin health and lowering high blood sugar levels, strength training helps guard against some of the complications of type 2 diabetes. But it also takes on diabetes complications in other ways, too.

Improves Heart Health 

Type 2 diabetes is a leading risk factor in the development of heart disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fortunately, strength training increases levels of HDL (“good”) cholesterol in the body while reducing LDL (“bad”) levels, according to Occhipinti. Research has shown it also helps lower high blood pressure (hypertension).

Boosts Bone Density

While people with type 2 diabetes often have normal bone mineral density scores, they are at a heightened risk of bone fracture, according to one study. Weight-bearing strength training, especially performed from a standing position, builds strength in the bones of the legs, spine, and hips to reduce the risk of bone breaks, says Audra Wilson, RD, CSCS, a bariatric dietitian and strength and conditioning specialist at the Northwestern Medicine Metabolic Health and Surgical Weight Loss Center at Delnor Hospital in Geneva, Illinois.

Prevents Age-Related Muscle Loss

Building muscle through strength training directly combats the muscle loss that can occur through the decades. According to the ADA position statement, type 2 diabetes is an independent risk factor for accelerated declines in muscle strength. Research has linked severe age-related muscle degradation, called sarcopenia, to loss of physical function and increased risk of falls, hospitalization, and early death.

Reduces the Risk of Peripheral Neuropathy and Vision Loss 

“When we have chronically high blood sugar, glucose molecules start attaching themselves to everything, including our red blood cells. This can prevent healthy blood flow in many places in the body where we have very small blood vessels,” Occhipinti says. It just so happens that the eyes and nerves of the hands and feet have these small vessels. When these areas don’t get the blood flow they need, peripheral neuropathy and diabetic retinopathy can result. Strength training improves blood flow to reduce the risk of these complications, Occhipinti explains.

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6 Tips for Starting to Strength Train with Diabetes

The ADA suggests that people with type 2 diabetes engage in two or three strength-training sessions per week, on nonconsecutive days. Here are some strategies to help you get the most benefits from your strength-training sessions.

1. Talk to Your Healthcare Team

As with any exercise program, check with your healthcare team before starting a weight-training regimen. It’s especially important to discuss your blood sugar management. “People don’t typically associate strength training with low blood sugars, but some patients will have significant impacts on blood sugar with strength training,” Wilson says. Your doctor may recommend testing your blood sugar level before, during, and after exercise, as well as eating carbohydrates around workout time to prevent or address hypoglycemia, she says.

2. Ask for Help 

“To gain more health benefits from physical activity programs, participation in supervised training is recommended over non-supervised programs,” Wilson says. For some guidance, consider working out with a certified trainer or joining a weight-training class. These are offered both in person and online.

3. Focus on the Body’s Largest Muscle Groups

Work on your glutes, hamstrings, quads, lats, traps, and chest. Some of the best strength exercises to target such groups are compound, multijoint movements such as squats, lunges, deadlifts, hamstring curls, rows, lat pull-downs, chest presses, and push-ups, Occhipinti says.

4. Follow a Plan

Mapping out what you want your workouts to look like can help you make and keep a routine, Wilson says. If you plan to strength train two or three times per week, you’re better off making all of your workouts total-body workouts. However, if your strength training is going to be more frequent, such as four or five days per week, alternating between upper- and lower-body workouts, or push-and-pull workouts, can help ensure that each muscle group still gets the recovery time it needs, she says. Every now and then, try new variations of your favorite exercise or alter the number of sets or reps you are doing to keep your workouts, and results, progressing.

5. Prioritize Recovery 

Giving yourself one, if not two, days in between working a given muscle group can help give it time to repair, Wilson says, while still training it with sufficient frequency to adapt and grow. Great options include foam rolling, stretching, and low-intensity cardio like walking or cycling.

6. Consider Multiple Tools

Yes, barbells, dumbbells, and weight machines can be useful strength-training tools, but they aren’t mandatory, Occhipinti says. Resistance bands, filled duffle bags, and other household items are effective in loading the muscles and are especially great for helping you get in more at-home workouts.

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