Sedentary lifestyle has become a major problem in the lives of modern people. However, through a simple exercise, you can train a muscle, which weighs only one percent of body weight, while sitting. Exercising this muscle can burn sugar and fat in the blood, reducing the negative effect of sedentary lifestyle.
A sedentary lifestyle has become an epidemic; Lack of exercise is the fourth leading cause of death
“Physical inactivity and sedentary lifestyle” have become another pandemic for years in the world, according to a Article published in the magazine Advances in cardiovascular diseases in 2021.
according to a trend analysisPeople’s estimated total sitting time increased by about an hour a day from 2007 to 2016. Other reports suggest that the average amount of time spent sitting by adults in the United States is probably much longer than estimated amounts. Can be seven to 11.5 hours daily.
Inactivity increases as people age. The situation is more serious for women than for men, and for high-income countries than for low-income ones, the lancet reported in 2012.
One of the consequences of physical inactivity and sedentary lifestyle is a significant increase in the risk of cardiovascular diseases, says a report published by Nature Reviews Cardiology in May 2021. The highest risk of cardiovascular disease is among people over the age of 65, who have lower levels of physical activity than people of all other ages, according to the report.
In addition, physical inactivity can also cause other diseases such as stroke, breast cancer, coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and colon cancer. The lack of physical activity has become the fourth cause of mortality; About 3.2 million people died due to insufficient physical activity, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
A Muscle of Only One Percent of Body Weight Can Activate the Metabolism of the Entire Body
Marc Hamilton, Professor of Health and Human Performance at the University of Houston, and his team recently published a surprising discovery in the diary iScience.
Although it weighs 1 kg, only about one percent of our body weight, the calf soleus muscle can do a lot to improve our metabolism, according to the article. If activated correctly, it can burn a lot of fat and blood glucose (sugar), as well as raise “local oxidative metabolism to high levels for hours.” hamilton wrote and your team
Most muscles get energy by breaking down glycogen, but soleus muscle uses mostly fat and glucose. Therefore, this muscle can contribute a lot to improving metabolism.
The soleus muscle is a long, flat muscle shaped like the soleus.
It extends from the back of the patella to the heel, forming calf muscle or triceps with two other muscles. It also has the larger physiological cross-sectional area (CSA) of the calf muscles. The soleus muscle also provides up to 71 percent of the strength of the triceps. Also, The soleus muscle helps us maintain the standing position.
Have curvy capillaries They contract relatively slowly and are resistant to fatigue. The soleus muscle is made up primarily of slow-twitch fibers, on average about 80 percent. In contrast, the gastrocnemius and lateral femoral muscles, which are adjacent to the soleus muscle, contain about 57 percent slow twitch fibers on average
Unlike fast-twitch fibers, which use up a lot of energy quickly during exercise and make people feel tired and need to rest, slow-twitch fibers use energy slowly and evenly, helping them keep working throughout the day. a long time without running out of power quickly.
Soleus muscle push-ups can control blood glucose and have anti-sedentary effects
People are sometimes forced to be sedentary. For example, some people need to work at a desk, and the elderly and disabled people with limited mobility may not be able to walk independently.
hamilton and his team has developed a way to use the special features of the soleus muscle, which can benefit people with sedentary lifestyle.
in hamilton’s experiment, the subjects were divided into two groups, all of which ingested 75 grams of glucose. The control group was sitting inactive and the experimental group was doing “soleus pushups” (SPU), the movement developed by Hamilton’s team. After three hours, his blood was analyzed. The team found that SPU activity could help the soleus muscle “raise local oxidative metabolism to high levels for hours without fatigue.” It can also reduce postprandial glucose excursion by 52 percent and hyperinsulinemia by 60 percent.
In another experiment, whole body energy expenditure for participants in the SPU group is 2.25 times greater than that of the seated inactive control group.
The oxygen consumption of the SPU group was more than double that of the control group because the SPU can consume a lot of fat and blood sugar.
Compared with the control group, the blood triglyceride levels of the subjects in the SPU group were also significantly lower.
In the experiment to test lower extremity oxygen uptake and energy expenditure, the team found that compared to walking and running on a treadmill, doing SPU can cause the muscles to consume more oxygen.
In addition, the movement of the SPU is much smaller than walking, but its power consumption is almost the same as walking.
This is because the soleus muscle can directly burn fat and blood sugar with oxygen, instead of breaking down glycogen for energy.
How to make the SPU
The SPU is actually very simple. You just have to sit down and move your heels:
- Sit with your feet flat on the floor and shoulder-width apart; their knees can bend between 70 and 90 degrees.
- Raise your heels while the balls of your feet remain on the ground; stay still.
- After lifting your heels to the highest point, let them drop naturally and touch the ground.
The SPU method effectively contracts the soleus muscle.
A tip for this exercise is that the knees should be bent between 70 and 90 degrees. Therefore, the soleus muscle can give more plantar flexion work, while the other calf muscles remain relaxed. As a result, the soleus muscle you can exercise more efficiently, according to the Hamilton report.
His team also explained that while the SPU resembles walking, their mechanisms are the opposite of each other. Due to the structure of the human body, the energy consumption of the soleus muscle is minimized during walking; that is, this muscle is the least used. However, the SPU method reverses the situation. It helps the soleus muscle to work and consume more energy instead of using the other two calf muscles.
To follow
Flora Zhao is a health reporter for The Epoch Times. Do you have a tip? Email her at: [email protected]
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