A short warm-up ‘priming exercise’ could help people with diabetes exercise for longer.
Sports scientists at Liverpool Hope University have discovered how the ‘VO2 kinetics’ – the time it takes for the body to glean the additional energy needed for exercise – is much slower in people with Type 1 diabetes.
They discovered how a short ‘priming’ warm-up exercise, which involved a six–minute burst of hard pedalling on an exercise bike, just before a training session actually sped up the VO2 kinetics, making it much easier for people with Type 1 to get the energy they needed.
In fact, ‘critical power’ – the highest intensity before the onset of fatigue – was boosted in diabetes patients by around 8 per cent.
That, say the academics, could help people with Type 1 diabetes exercise at higher intensities and for longer, potentially warding off heart disease.
