Jeremiah Farias (00:00.046)
Did you know that lifting weights can be a game changer when it comes to managing type 2 diabetes? In today’s video, we’re diving into how resistance training can help you improve your blood sugar levels, improve your overall health, and get you on track to reversing your type 2 diabetes. And be sure to stick around to the very end because I created a free resource that I’ll share with you that you can use to get started with resistance training.

Hi, my name is Jeremiah Farias. I’m a functional registered dietitian and I help adults suffering from blood sugar dysregulation issues, conditions like type two diabetes and pre -diabetes using a bio -energetic approach to optimize cellular energy production. I dive into the science and mechanisms involved in optimizing overall health and blood sugar metabolism while also providing you with practical takeaways. I hope you enjoy today’s content. First, what is resistance training? According to doctors, Stu Phillips and Richard Wynette, resistance training is a form of periodic exercise.

whereby external weights provide progressive overload to skeletal muscles in order to make them stronger and often result in hypertrophy. So what does this mean? The external weight that they’re referring to can be free weights like dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells. It can also be machines, resistant bands, or finally one’s own body weight as providing that external weight and allowing for the concept of progressive overload, which I’ll discuss in a moment.

Progressive overload is the concept where one is increasing the load that they’re lifting or moving over time. This load can be through increasing the amount of reps, weights, or even potentially sets that someone is doing. And by continuing to increase either reps, sets, or weights, overall increasing volume, this is going to lead to positive adaptations, namely muscle hypertrophy or muscle growth.

Because there are numerous ways to perform resistance training and a number of modifications that one can make, I argue that most people, except for a small minority because of severe health conditions, can benefit and perform resistance training. We’ll discuss getting started with resistance training near the end of this video, but first, let’s dive into what are the benefits of resistance training. The three benefits that I’ll briefly review are first, increasing and preserving muscle size and strength, especially as one ages. The second,

Jeremiah Farias (02:13.006)
is increasing bone mineral density, and third is increasing type two muscle fibers. But why should we care about preserving or increasing muscle size and strength? We should care because skeletal muscle is the primary sign of postprandial glucose disposal and is responsible for up to 90 % of insulin -stimulated glucose uptake. What this means is first, when we consume carbohydrates, those carbohydrates are broken down into glucose.

The glucose is going to enter the bloodstream and the more muscle mass one has and the healthier, more active one’s muscle tissues are, the better those muscles can uptake glucose out of the bloodstream and decrease the likelihood of someone experiencing a spike in blood sugar. Resistance training is not only going to allow someone to preserve and build muscle tissue over the long run,

it’s also going to have some acute benefits. Specifically, resistance training results in profound improvements in insulin sensitivity and of course glucose uptake. So this will allow someone to immediately avoid experiencing a spike in blood sugar, but also even up to 24 hours allow someone to have better blood sugar control. Lastly, here’s one other study that suggests the more muscle mass someone has and builds through resistance training.

the better they can dispose of excess glucose. So having sufficient muscle mass clearly improves blood sugar control. But does having low muscle mass pose a problem? Let’s see what the literature says. Unfortunately, low muscle mass is associated with the pathogenesis of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. So lower muscle mass is a risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance.

This also leads to the importance of type two muscle fibers, and we’re going to discuss the benefits of preserving and increasing type two muscle fibers right now. So type two muscle fibers, also known as fast twitch muscle fibers are necessary for coordination, balance, and even increasing and maintaining proper bone mineral density. It is actually the atrophy or loss of these fast switch muscle fibers, which increases one’s risk of falling and sustaining a fall related injury.

Jeremiah Farias (04:24.366)
This is because the person lacks the coordination to catch their step, catch themselves if they were to miss a step. Additionally, if one were to fall because they lack type two muscle fibers or fast twitch muscle fibers, they’re more likely to break a bone when they do fall because of the presence of either osteopenia or osteoporosis. Osteopenia is the weakening of bone tissue and osteoporosis is the bone tissue has weakened already significantly and they’re left with now

brittle or weak bones. As you can imagine losing type two or fast switch muscle fibers is a bad thing. So because resistance training helps with increasing and preserving muscle size and strength, increasing bone mineral density and increasing type two or fast switch muscle fibers, one is going to have better glucose control, reduce the likelihood of experiencing a fall related injury, falling in general and even breaking a bone.

It appears that resistance training is a non -negotiable for those that are wanting to optimize their overall health and improving not only their longevity, but also their health span. In a moment, we’ll discuss how we can get started with resistance training. But before diving in, let me know in the comments if you currently do resistance training as a form of exercise. So how often should we do resistance training to experience its many benefits, especially when it comes to optimizing muscle mass and muscle growth?

To answer this question, we’re going to refer to an incredible resource written by Dr. Brad Schoenfeld. The title of his book is the science and development of muscle hypertrophy. Dr. Brad Schoenfeld is regarded as one of the foremost authorities in muscle hypertrophy and his book is not only beneficial for those that are just getting started with resistance training, but also even for those that are more advanced. For the sake of this video, we’re going to be focusing on the frequency and volume recommendations for those that are just getting started with resistance training.

Based on Dr. Schoenfeld’s research, he recommends training anywhere from 2 to 3 times per week and hitting around 10 to 20 sets per muscle group or muscle per week and the rep ranges can vary anywhere from 1 to 20 or more repetitions. And finally, rest periods anywhere from 60 to 120 seconds long. Don’t worry if you don’t know what this means. I’m going to give you examples of where to start and eventually work up to. Now is a great time to mention a free resource that I created for you.

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It walks you through how to construct a full body workout. Full body workouts allow you to train both lower and upper body in one workout so you are as efficient with your time as possible. The exercises listed in this resource are hyperlinked so you can click and watch a demonstration of the exercises along with definitions of terms like reps, sets, supersets.

and more. The link to get that free resource is going to be in the description below. If you’re someone who’s already subscribed to my newsletter, you can check your email. You should have already received a link to download it. Now to use this resource, you’ll notice that it’s three pages. So this is the first page. This is the second page. And finally, the third page. The second page is where we’ll be putting our attention and focus. So it’s titled, Creating a Full Body Workout. And it has multiple steps, just three steps actually.

The first step is choosing one to two lower body movements. Then you’re going to be picking one vertical pushing movement and one vertical pulling movement. And finally, you’re going to choose one horizontal pushing movement and one horizontal pulling movement. The vast majority of these movements are known as compound movements. This means that they recruit multiple muscle groups at a time versus just one muscle group. Let’s say like a bicep curl.

There’s nothing wrong with working one muscle group at a time, but I consider isolated movements more valuable for those who are no longer beginners and have built a foundation of strength and muscle from consistent full body resistance training workouts and are now trying to increase the size of specific muscles. If you are new to resistance training, I would recommend easing into it and starting very slow to not only avoid injury, but also avoid excessive soreness.

The last thing I want for someone to do is dive into resistance training. They’re very excited because they want to gain all the benefits from it, but they push their bodies too much and then they again injure themselves and they have to stop and they feel discouraged. And a really quick disclaimer, always consult your doctor before making any changes to your exercise program or routine, especially if you have any chronic or reoccurring conditions or are in a higher risk population.

Jeremiah Farias (08:57.934)
Let’s now look at how I would recommend starting and progressing in a resistance training program over an eight week period. So as I mentioned, if you’re just starting with resistance training, you want to be fairly conservative and ease into any sort of change in exercise. And so with week one, I have it very simple and you have three exercises. You have a lower body movement, a vertical pressing movement, and then a horizontal pulling movement and

The sets are anywhere from one to two. You can do one if after feeling or doing the first set, you’re feeling it and that is sufficient. And the rep ranges also vary. You know, you see six to 20, eight to 12, eight to 12 at various weights. You obviously have to adjust based on where you’re at.

And the rest periods can be anywhere from 60 to 120 seconds long. You may need less rest when you’re first starting because you’re not lifting or using as much weight as someone who has more experience. And so if it ends up being 30, 45 seconds, that’s perfectly fine. And you can complete this workout anywhere from one to two times during that first week based on how you’re feeling and how you’re recovering. Weeks two to four.

I’ve added two more movements. And so this is now a full body movement and just move my camera here and full body workout that we have here. And there’s the lower body movement, the vertical push pull and the horizontal push pull. Same thing. One to two sets of variety of rep ranges. Same thing with the rest period, whatever you need to perform well. And you can do this full exercise or this full workout.

anywhere from one to two times during the week based on your recovery. Now weeks five to six, I’ve added another workout entirely. So.

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two full body workouts. I’ve also increased the sets that you’re doing. So instead of one to two sets, it’s three or four sets and a variety of rep ranges and the same rest period. I would just do this on one day. Let’s say it’s a Monday and then you can do this workout on a Thursday or Friday, allowing enough time in between the workouts to recover. And then finally we’re at weeks seven to eight. I’ve added a third workout. So

You can do this, for example, on a Monday, this workout on a Wednesday, this workout on a Friday, varying rest periods, three to four sets, any number of reps, and again, just completing one workout on those particular days of the week. And finally, in the future, moving forward, if you’re doing the amount of workouts that I shared on weeks seven through eight,

You’re going to end up training three days per week, hitting around nine to 12 sets per muscle group, and using a combination of rep ranges, which is going to be based on the literature, based on the research that Brad Schoenfeld and his colleagues have done, that’s going to be sufficient to support muscle growth and hypertrophy. If you’re not currently doing resistance training in the fashion that I described, you should now have better idea of where to start. Resistance training offers…

numerous benefits for those with diabetes and other blood sugar dysregulation issues. And if you need more hands -on guidance with your diet, lifestyle, and exercise, you can apply to work with me. I provide more tailored guidance to those I work with one -on -one and modify diet and exercise based on one’s current state of health and their overall life circumstances. The link to apply will be in the description below. It is clear a healthy diet is crucial for blood sugar metabolism and getting enough protein is especially important for building muscle, which is why I created a video

reviewing how much protein do you need to optimize health and improve your blood sugar control. I’ll link to that right here. If you enjoyed today’s video, please be sure to hit that like button, share it with someone you believe would benefit from it. Also subscribe and turn on notifications so you don’t miss any future videos. Take care and I’ll see you next week.