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Since everyone’s harping on the previous paragraph and saying “they’re just trying to sell us stuff!!” I figured I should put this quote in a top-level comment as an anti-inflammatory aid.
No magic, no cost, no special anything.
It's not easy, and most people can't do it, but it works. And even if some magic product helps you lose weight, you will still need to follow the above rules anyways.
It's like many smokers, they can't quit until they almost die, but then they just magically can quit, cause it's life and death. No magic product/idea, just time to make a change.
"It's not as simple as simply doing a heel lift or raising your legs when you're sitting or shaking your leg or fidgeting. It's a very specific movement that's designed where we use some technologies that aren't necessarily available to the public unless you're a scientist and you know how to use it." This has a bit of a 'smell' that I can't quite put my finger on.
The actual quote from the article - “The soleus pushup looks simple from the outside, but sometimes what we see with our naked eye isn't the whole story. It’s a very specific movement that right now requires wearable technology and experience to optimize the health benefits,” said Hamilton. This is a statement around how to activate the soleus itself, and its an accurate statement for the majority of the population.…
But I’m pretty sure you can just touch the lower, outer part of your ankle (where it’s documented in the picture) to find out if you’re flexing the right one. Thinking about pointing my toes helped.
I think people are right the difficulty is oversold.
If you don't read much exercise science, it's worth noting the paper says "It is important to note that volunteers in Experiment I (Table S1) were typically sedentary (verified with an objective tracking device), and none of them had a high aerobic cardiorespiratory fitness (determined by treadmill VO2max or the maximal oxygen consumption test)." A common pitfall of exercise science is that almost anything works wonderfully on untrained sedentary subjects. Wait for replication.
So, how do you perform a soleus pushup?
In brief, while seated with feet flat on the floor and muscles relaxed, the heel rises while the front of the foot stays put. When the heel gets to the top of its range of motion, the foot is passively released to come back down. The aim is to simultaneously shorten the calf muscle while the soleus is naturally activated by its motor neurons.
> Instead of breaking down glycogen, the soleus can use other types of fuels such as blood glucose and fats . Glycogen is normally the predominant type of carbohydrate that fuels muscular exercise. > When the SPU was tested, the whole-body effects on blood chemistry included a 52% improvement in the excursion of blood glucose (sugar) and 60% less insulin requirement over three hours after ingesting a glucose drink. T…
Not a biologist, but I would wonder why only this muscle would be capable of this. Metabolizing fats is a complex process.
Sedentary overweight people tend to become very inefficient at metabolizing fat. At anything higher than a slow walking pace, for example, they will begin the cutover to glycogen and turn down fat metabolism.
I believe the press release is saying that the soleus muscle is unique in that it does not have a readily accessible store of glycogen. So even in sedentary people that are normally extremely inefficient at metabolizing fat, exercising the soleus will force their body to metabolize blood glucose and fat. Normally it takes months or even years of slow and steady exercise to make a sedentary overweight person effectively metabolize fat while exercising at an intensity high enough to trigger serious metabolic improvements. So if true, the soleus muscle would be a magic shortcut to this process.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're saying it's difficult to explain how to isolate the muscle. For example, two simple ways to lift only your heel from a sitting position are: 1. Push down with the ball if you foot 2. Lift up with your hip/quad They look the same, but are completely different. Do either of them activate the Soleus? Do neither of them?
^ This. Its not snake oil, its a statement from a scientist who attaches musculoskeletal monitoring equipment to people on a regular basis and knows exactly how capable the average person is at activating specific muscles on command.
"Basically terrible".
It took me a really long time to work out what exactly the fuck "activate your core" meant.
Never mind "activate this muscle you have never thought about before".
So just tap your foot in a weird way and you can keep your metabolism high?