Best exercise for type 2 diabetes (according to research)
If you have type 2 diabetes, you have almost certainly been told to exercise. What rarely follows is the detail: which type of exercise lowers blood sugar the most, how much of it you need, and when to do it. The research answers all three, and the answers are more specific than “move more”.
If you are just starting out, our beginner’s guide to exercise for type 2 diabetes covers the first steps. This article is about what the evidence says works best once you are ready to build a real program.
Doing both aerobic exercise and resistance training lowers HbA1c more than either one alone.
Combined training beats either type on its own
The single clearest finding in the research is that doing both aerobic exercise and resistance training produces a larger drop in HbA1c, your three-month average blood sugar, than doing either alone. Aerobic exercise on its own typically lowers HbA1c by around half a percent. Resistance training produces a similar reduction. Combine them and the effect is larger again, commonly in the range of 0.6 to 0.8 percent.
That number sounds small until you put it in context. A reduction of that size is in the same territory as adding a glucose-lowering medication, and it comes with benefits that medication does not deliver: more muscle, better blood pressure, improved mood, and a lower cardiovascular risk. We explain the mechanism in more detail in how exercise lowers HbA1c.
Aerobic exercise is the foundation
Aerobic exercise, anything that raises your heart rate and that you can keep going, improves how sensitive your body is to insulin. The target supported by the evidence and by national guidelines is about 150 minutes a week of moderate activity, spread across most days rather than crammed into one. Walking, cycling, swimming, and running all qualify. The best one is the one you will actually repeat.
Resistance training is the multiplier
Muscle is the largest site in the body for clearing glucose from the blood. The more muscle you have, and the more you use it, the more places that glucose has to go. Resistance training, lifting weights, using bands, or loaded bodyweight movements two to three times a week, builds and maintains that muscle. For people with diabetes, who lose muscle faster with age than the general population, this is not optional. It is half the program.
When you exercise matters more than people think
Timing is an underused lever. Moving after a meal, even a 10 to 15 minute walk, blunts the spike in blood glucose that follows eating. The same walk taken after dinner does more for your glucose than it would at another time of day. If you take only one new habit from this article, a short walk after your largest meal is a strong candidate.
Break up long periods of sitting
Sitting for hours on end raises blood glucose independently of how much you exercise otherwise. Interrupting it helps. Standing up and moving for a few minutes every half hour, a few squats, a lap of the office, a short walk, measurably improves glucose control across the day. You do not need a gym for this. You need to not stay still for so long.
The best program is the one you keep doing
Every comparison of exercise types comes with the same quiet caveat: the benefit only exists while you keep training. A perfect program you abandon in three weeks beats a flawed one you sustain for years, never. Intensity you can repeat, scheduled at a time that fits your life, supervised closely enough that you stay safe and progress, is what turns the research into a lower HbA1c on your next blood test.
How an Exercise Physiologist helps
An Accredited Exercise Physiologist builds the specific combination of aerobic and resistance work that suits your fitness, your medications, and your other health conditions, then progresses it as you improve. We check how your glucose responds, adjust for medications that affect your heart rate or hypo risk, and report your progress to your GP. Many people access this through a Medicare chronic disease management plan; see our guide to Medicare funding for how that works.
Beachside EP is based in Mordialloc and works with people right across Melbourne’s bayside southeast, from Mentone and Cheltenham to Chelsea, Aspendale and Carrum. You do not need a referral to start, and most people are covered through Medicare, NDIS, DVA or private health. See the areas we serve.
Learn more about Exercise Physiology for diabetes at Beachside EP