Aerobic vs anaerobic exercise

We went to a talk organised by Roche a couple of weeks ago. One of the things the sports nutritionist talked about was the different types of exercise, and the ways in which they affect blood glucose levels differently.

Aerobic exercise will decrease blood glucose levels, whilst anaerobic will increase them.

I wasn’t watching Samuel’s swimming lesson last week but he got three quarters of the way through and was low, so ate four glucose tablets and was then sky high two hours later.

I have been watching him at his lesson this week and he has made it through to the end without going low. He was mainly doing steady lengths of the pool, so I would say that was mainly aerobic, but they finished with some short sprints. The sports nutritionist at the talk suggested that short sprints at the end of an athletics session would restore levels and so it will be interesting to test him now, and see where his levels are at.

Hopefully we won’t have the rollercoaster of last Monday night!

Update: He was 4.6 straight after and 6.0 half an hour after that. Both well within limits. That’s an interesting comparison to last week where he dropped to below 3 and then swung to over 12. I think we should look at asking Sam’s instructors to have him finish with a couple of sprints every week, to bring him back up!