A Simple, Effective Exercise Nearly EVERYONE Can Do... Anytime!

Have bad knees or hips? Too out-of-shape for exercise? Don't have enough time? If you're interested in improving your post-meal glucose levels, this may be the ticket...

THE PROBLEM

Many people, especially older adults, have prediabetes or diabetes.  People also sit for long hours (9-11 hours a day is common). When we sit, our muscles are inactive and don't burn much energy. This inactivity is linked to health problems like type 2 diabetes and heart disease.    

THE SOLUTION?

An article in the scientific journal iScience investigated the Soleus Push-up (SPU) in 2022. You can find the original article here. The researchers focused on a specific muscle in the lower calf called the soleus. It's a "slow oxidative" muscle, meaning it's built for endurance and using fuel efficiently. The soleus is small, only about 1% of body weight, but it has special features that might make it good at using fuel from the blood, like sugar (glucose) and fats (lipids). The researchers developed a specific exercise done while sitting: lifting the heel while keeping the ball of the foot on the floor, activating the soleus muscle intensely. This is called the "Soleus Pushup" (SPU).  

In the study, they had people do SPUs for 270 minutes (4.5 hours) while sitting. They measured how much energy people burned and took tiny muscle samples (biopsies) from the soleus and thigh muscle to check the muscle's stored sugar (glycogen). They also measured fats (VLDL-triglycerides) in the blood.  

They also had different people drink a sugary drink (like a glucose tolerance test) and measured their blood sugar and insulin (a hormone that helps control blood sugar) for 3 hours. People did this test once while sitting still (sedentary control) and again while doing SPUs at two different, low-intensity levels.  

WHAT THEY FOUND:

People, even those not very fit, could do SPUs for hours without getting tired or feeling cramps. The soleus muscle used very little of its stored sugar (glycogen) during the long SPU session. This is different from typical exercise where muscles burn a lot of glycogen. It means the soleus must be using fuel from the blood instead. Doing SPUs during the sugar test dramatically improved blood sugar control. Blood sugar spikes after the drink were much lower (around 52% lower) when doing SPUs compared to just sitting. This happened even at the lower SPU intensity. The body needed much less insulin (about 60% less) to control blood sugar during SPUs. High insulin levels (hyperinsulinemia) can be unhealthy long-term. SPUs also lowered the levels of certain fats (VLDL-triglycerides) in the blood. Even though SPUs don't burn a huge amount of total calories, they significantly increased the amount of sugar (carbohydrate) the whole body burned. The small soleus muscle became the main tissue burning sugar during the test.   This study suggests that activating the soleus muscle with this specific SPU method while sitting can powerfully improve the body's ability to handle sugar and fats, even without typical "exercise" levels of effort or burning lots of calories. Because the soleus uses fuel from the blood (glucose and lipids) instead of its stored glycogen during SPUs, it can keep working for hours and have a big impact on blood levels. This might be a new way to help manage metabolic health, especially for people who sit a lot.

HOW TO DO THE EXERCISE

Here are the basics of this exercise:  

• The exercise is performed while sitting comfortably in a chair.  

• Your knees should be bent, with feet flat on the floor positioned under your knees.  

• The movement is an isolated plantarflexion, meaning you lift your heel off the ground while keeping the ball of your foot on the floor.  

• The primary muscle activated is the soleus, located in the lower calf. The activation happens as your ankle moves upwards (heel lifts).  

• The metatarsophalangeal (MTP) joint, where the toes meet the foot, bends along with the ankle movement.  

• It's performed without added external resistance.

• Focusing on increasing the range of motion (how high you lift the heel) is more effective for activating the soleus than increasing the rate of contractions.  

AN ADDITIONAL STUDY

Another, similar study on prediabetics was published in 2025 in the journal Sports. You can find the original article here.

What they found:

• Doing Soleus Push-ups while taking the sugar test significantly lowered the participants' blood sugar levels compared to when they were just sitting. On average, blood sugar levels after the sugary drink were about 32% lower when doing the exercise.  

• Nobody reported fatigue, cramps, or other problems doing the exercise for the two hours.  

This small study suggests that the Soleus Push-up exercise could be a helpful tool for people with prediabetes to improve how their body handles sugar after eating. Because it's simple, can be done while sitting, doesn't require equipment, and doesn't seem tiring, it might be an easy way to add muscle activity into daily routines, like while working at a desk or watching TV.