In today’s world, most of our office work revolves around sitting in front of laptops and computers. Sometimes, too much sitting without any physical activity can be disturbing to our health. With this in mind, Marc Hamilton, who is a professor of Health and Human Performance at the University of Houston, has found a new way to scale up muscle metabolism even when you are sitting for hours. He has introduced a novel method known as “soleus pushup (SPU)” that has the capability to effectively activate your metabolism during sitting. However, the research study has been published in the journal “iScience.”
It should be noted that the soleus muscle contributes to only 1% of our body weight, but when used effectively, it may become considerably helpful in burning the fat in your body by activating the metabolism process during extensive periods of sitting. The findings of the study are promising as they state that the soleus pushup method is more effective than doing intense exercises, intermittent fasting, and whatnot. Through this technique, your blood glucose homeostasis can be easily activated by incorporating “oxidative metabolism.”
However, Professor Hamilton says, “We never dreamed that this muscle has this type of capacity. It’s been inside our bodies all along, but no one ever investigated how to use it to optimize our health, until now. When activated correctly, the soleus muscle can raise local oxidative metabolism to high levels for hours, not just minutes, and does so by using a different fuel mixture.” He further stated, “The soleus’s lower-than-normal reliance on glycogen helps it work for hours effortlessly without fatiguing during this type of muscle activity because there is a definite limit to muscular endurance caused by glycogen depletion.”
The tests for SPU indicate a 52% efficiency in blood glucose levels. Not to mention, there was also a 60% decrease in the insulin level three hours after consuming a glucose drink. But all of this doesn’t mean that it’s okay to not move or do any physical exercise. Of course, if you want to remain fit and healthy, you have to add a dose of exercise to your daily life. The professor said, “As far as we know, this is the first concerted effort to develop a specialized type of contractile activity centered around optimizing human metabolic processes.”
To that end, according to the research study, “While seated with feet flat on the floor and muscles relaxed, the heel rises while the front of the foot stays put. When the heel gets to the top of its range of motion, the foot is passively released to come back down. The aim is to simultaneously shorten the calf muscle while the soleus is naturally activated by its motor neurons.”