Acute Glucose Responses Following Short Bouts of Combined Arm and Leg Cycling

Abstract

Abstract BACKGROUND Prolonged and chronic sedentary behavior (SB) contributes to negative health problems including cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Research has shown that short bouts of exercise throughout the day can minimize the negative cardiovascular and metabolic effects resulting from SB. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of combined arm and leg cycling (CALC) on glucose metabolism. We hypothesized that short bouts of CALC would decrease the 60-min blood glucose (BG) area under the curve (AUC) and decrease BG at specific time points in a dose-dependent manner, when compared to a control (CON) trial. METHODS A repeated measures design was used with participants (n = 30) completing baseline assessments and three experimental trials: CON, a 1-min exercise bout (1M) and a 5-min exercise bout (5M). During the exercise trials, participants performed CALC at a self-selected speed on an Assault™ Air bike. Participants completed a 60-min oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) immediately postexercise. Moreover, blood was sampled pre-exercise and every 15-min post-exercise. The CON trial followed the same experimental procedure; however, participants did not engage in any exercise. The analyses were a one-way repeated measures MANOVA to identify differences in BG at the individual time points between the trials and a two-way mixed ANOVA to identify differences in the AUC during the 60-min OGTT between trials by gender. RESULTS There were significant differences in the BG values when comparing the 5M and CON at 0-min (p = 0.034), 15-min (p < 0.001) and 30-min (p < 0.001) and when the 1M bout is compared to CON at 30-min (p = 0.017). The 5M and 1M bouts were significantly different at 0-min only (p = 0.045). There were also significant differences in the total area under the curve (tAUC) between CON and the 5M bout (p = 0.001). There were no significant differences in incremental area under the curve (iAUC) between the three trials. CONCLUSION Short bouts of CALC significantly reduced BG values up to 30-min post-exercise and reduced the tAUC, compared to performing no exercise at all. This mode and duration of exercise may aid healthy, able-bodied individuals in achieving benefits to glucose metabolism.