In an order other than your post:
Yeah. Happens to me. Drop the basal. Too low a basal is not an issue if we test, no DKA with a low basal, just irritating sticky high BG. I spent too much of my life on too high a basal; I still hate the fact that I can’t remember the 1978 Reading rock festival, though bits have come back over the years. I am intensely hypo aware these days, though it’s not hypo; it’s rapidly dropping BG. Still works; if I correct at 180 and dropping fast I don’t hit 50.
Yeah, every time. Swimming when we do laps is the single exercise every part of my body hates. I can wear myself out easily with 20 lengths (10 laps) of our above group 33ft (10m) pool. Nothing hurts; it’s not like walking up 100ft of steep ascent which I do regularly and which can burn. Swimming is pure unadulterated exercise.
Take heart, drop basal, dive in.
So, on to lighter matters:
Roller or sprayer? Now I didn’t really paint until I was 50+. In my youth I might slap a paint brush against a wall in a repetitive fashion, or even a roller, but only when I was 50 did I find the joy of rollers on 6ft poles and mighty sprayers. I use a Magnum XR7 and it is a masterpiece, very much a Clint Eastwood sprayer; an older model requiring careful maintenance but very effective when used.
It’s also a golf cart, as are all sprayers in the world of painting (including HVLP); no exercise. The 6ft roller, particularly on a ceiling. That’s a whole different story! It burns. Not the legs, it’s the arms here.
I recommend sticking to swimming. It’s a lot more effort for a lot of less pain and, in my pool, with the caustics from the sun creating amazing patterns on the bottom it is way more interesting that watching paint dry (though, I admit, that is pretty interesting too, compared to some other exercise I won’t mention.)