Increasing muscle mass is beneficial for weight loss because lean body mass is an essential part of good health. Additionally, maintaining muscle mass as you age reduces the risk of falls and fractures by improving quality of life.
According to a new study from the University of Toronto, you don’t have to spend countless hours in the gym to stay strong and improve your health. On the contrary, this activity, which lasts only two minutes after a meal, can help you maintain muscle mass as you age. Read on to find out what it is and why you should add it to your daily routine.
Sitting too long is bad for your health.
Regularly sitting for long periods of time, whether at a desk, on the couch watching TV, or driving, can have devastating effects on your health. Prolonged sitting can lead to metabolic syndrome with symptoms such as high blood pressure, blood sugar dysregulation, excess body fat, high cholesterol, and an increased risk of chronic diseases, including heart disease and cancers. Given the risks that sitting poses to your health, it is essential to move your body more to prevent adverse health effects.
Sitting too long without regular exercise can cause muscle tissue to break down. This is detrimental because maintaining lean muscle tissue is essential for health. ” When you’re sedentary, signals to build muscle aren’t sent because you’re not performing any actions that tell your body that you need new muscle tissue.“, explains Rachel MacPherson. ” Conversely, when you get up and move more – such as walking or performing weight-bearing activities – messages are sent to use amino acids to build and maintain muscle. »
New research indicates that this practice promotes muscle building.
A recent study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology examined the effects of breaking prolonged periods of sitting, a common occurrence in workplaces, to determine whether it would increase the ability of muscles to use amino acids (the building blocks of protein) from food to help them repair or replace damaged proteins.
The researchers found that interrupting prolonged sitting with intermittent exercise-also called ” activity snack – can stimulate muscle protein synthesis (MPS), the process of building new muscle by your body. They concluded that two minutes of walking or bodyweight squats can effectively increase SMP.
Daniel Moore says: We found that reducing the time spent sitting with hands-on activity snacks allowed more of the amino acids our participants ate to be used to rebuild myofibrillar contractile proteins, which are the main proteins that contribute to body size. our muscles and are those that allow our muscles to generate force. »
“Activity snacks” after meals help regulate blood sugar.
Daniel Moore and his research team have also found that active snacking after a meal improves blood sugar control and allows for more efficient use of amino acids to help maintain muscle mass and quality.
« We know that prolonged sedentary periods impair the body’s ability to filter sugar from the blood after a meal.“, explains Daniel Moore. ” However, breaking up this sedentary period with brief bouts of activity, such as two minutes of moderate-intensity walking or getting up and down from a chair 15 times (for example, bodyweight squats), can improve how our bodies remove sugar from our meals. »
Do these exercises after your next meal to boost muscle mass.
If you want to build new muscle or maintain muscle quality while improving blood sugar control, try the following two-minute activities after your next meal. MacPherson suggests making walking lungesof the sissy squatsbodyweight standing calf raises, planks, burpees and push-ups (normal, against a wall or incline).
Daniel Moore recommends exercises that work the leg muscles, since this is the largest muscle group in the body. ” Brief bouts of walking and sit-to-stand exercises are the examples we used in the study, but you can also walk up and down stairs or do single-leg lunges. However, people can consider higher intensity exercises or full-body exercises, such as push-ups or jumping jacks. »
Another great way to distribute the time spent sitting during the workday is to use the method of Technique Pomodoro, an effective time management tool that improves productivity and disrupts sitting time by working in 25-minute increments followed by a five-minute break. Instead of scrolling through social media or grabbing another cup of coffee, use your five minutes to make ” active snacks« .
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