The Once-A-Week Exercise That Can Lower Your Blood Pressure

And no, it’s not a marathon session, either! It’s just 4 reps, with 2 minute rests between.

Here’s how:

All in all, it’s just another sit in the wall

This is about “wall sits”, also called “wall squats”, but it’s an isometric exercise, i.e. it’s just about holding the position, not going up and down. It’s the one where you have your back to the wall and maintain an as-though-seated position; it works your lower body.

Which muscles specifically it works depends on your brain-muscle neural connection; for most people it’d be mostly your quads, for some it might work the glutes more. Either way, it’s an exercise that’s done without movement.

Recent research has shown how much this helps! Specifically, it was a study involving 100 adults with normal to high-end-of-normal systolic blood pressure of 120–140 mmHg.

Initially, the participants completed four weeks of home-based isometric exercise consisting of four wall-sit sessions (two minutes each) separated by two minutes of seated rest (actually seated, not more wall sit holding), done three times a week.

After four weeks, all groups completing the program had significant reductions in systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and mean arterial pressure compared with the control group.

Then, during the next four weeks, participants continued the exercises three times, twice, or once a week, while another group stopped exercising completely.

The results:

• Three times weekly: participants exercising three times a week maintained their blood pressure reductions and had the largest systolic blood pressure reduction, at 13.73 mmHg from the beginning of the study; they also maintained improvements in total peripheral resistance and heart rate variability.
• Once or twice weekly: after eight weeks, both groups maintained significant reductions in systolic blood pressure and mean arterial pressure, but not diastolic blood pressure; systolic blood pressure was reduced by 6.56 mmHg with once-weekly exercise and 6.95 mmHg with twice-weekly exercise.
• Stopping exercise: participants who stopped after the initial four weeks saw their blood pressure return to levels that were no longer significantly different from those of the control group.

You can read this paper in full, here: Isometric exercise training and blood pressure control: exploring the dose-response to training frequency in a randomised controlled trial

And if you’d to know more about wall sits, swing by: 9 Reasons You Should Do Wall Sits—and How To Get Started

And if you don’t love the idea of wall sits specifically, then you might want to consider: What Happens To Your Body When You Plank 1 Minute Every Day ← for an alternative isometric exercise that’s also great for this

Want to do more to lower your blood pressure?

We wrote a main feature on this before, because a lot of people focus on the wrong thing:

Hypertension: Factors Far More Relevant Than Salt

It’s also not surprising that many people err, because of: What Most People Don’t Know About Blood Pressure

And if you want more ideas than we’ve given so far, then here you go: 10 Ways To Lower Blood Pressure Naturally

Take care!