Did you know your calves hide a second heart? The soleus muscle,...

Did you know your calves hide a second heart?

The soleus muscle, located deep beneath the calf, is often called the "second heart" because it plays a crucial role in pumping blood back to your upper body - supporting circulation and heart health

A 2022 study also found that stimulating the soleus can have significant benefits on your glucose metabolism⬇️⬇️

youtu.be/wSJClvkCznY

Blood flow from the feet back up is difficult because it has to fight against gravity

The soleus muscle helps to return deoxygenated blood back to the heart and prevents it from pooling in the legs

That's one of the reasons why sitting or standing for too long can be harmful

The soleus pushup is an amazing exercise for "pumping the second heart."

It's basically a seated calf raise that you can do while sitting

A 2022 study found that people doing soleus pushups for several hours saw a 52% lower glucose response and 60% less hyperinsulinemia after an oral glucose challenge

They did the soleus pushups for 270 minutes (4.5 hours)

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC94…

The soleus muscles are quite underrated and they ought to be activated frequently throughout the day to support circulation

Too much sitting is bad for many reasons, but you can counteract some of the metabolic harm by doing soleus pushups

Full video: youtu.be/wSJClvkCznY

All exercise can reduce visceral fat, but some exercise is more effective than others

A 2012 meta-analysis of 35 clinical trials saw that in 9 studies that compared aerobic exercise to resistance training (RT), 7 favored aerobic exercise, but didn't reach statistical significance

The 2 studies that favored resistance training didn’t reach statistical significance

Overall, aerobic exercise was much more effective in reducing visceral fat than resistance training, but it wasn’t statistically significant

Full video on the best exercise for reducing visceral fat: youtu.be/nC6Q-2Mh_Zo

Study: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21951360/