More Intense Doesn’t Always Mean a Better Workout for Blood Sugar

Work Smarter, Not Harder: When it comes to workouts, most of us have been told that more effort and pushing harder means more benefit. But a new study is challenging that logic, at least when it comes to blood sugar control. Instead, how a workout is structured might matter more than its intensity.

The Study: Researchers had participants complete four sessions. Two were hard workouts matched for total effort — one broken into intervals with recovery periods and the other was sustained at a steady pace throughout. They also included a moderate workout and a rest day for comparison. Both hard sessions demanded the same effort from the body, but only the interval workout improved insulin sensitivity compared with the rest day, and produced better results than both the moderate and high-intensity continuous workouts.

The Takeaway: Nonstop intense effort didn’t beat a workout alternating bursts of work with recovery. That interval pattern (hard effort followed by recovery) may do more for insulin sensitivity than one sustained push, so you might not have to grind through an entire session at max effort to improve your blood sugar.

Keep in Mind: This was a small study of 10 healthy, already active adults, so researchers still don’t know if the pattern holds for people with insulin resistance or diabetes.