Exercise that helps control your blood pressure doesn’t have to be about sweating through a cycling class, adding up miles clocked on a brisk walk or pumping iron in the weight room.
According to Mayo Clinic, a different form of exercise – isometric exercise – is gaining attention for its role in helping lower and control blood pressure.
Dr. John Hoyle, a cardiologist with Health First Medical Group, says that for many years the accepted thinking was that aerobic exercise was the gold standard, but opinion has changed.
“Although any exercise is beneficial, we’ve been learning more about which type of exercise benefits specific issues, and isometric exercise has a measurable impact on lowering blood pressure.”
Most people have some sense of what isometric exercise is. Medical News Today defines it as any exercise that involves holding a static position using muscular pressure for a long period of time.
Evidence suggests the constant tension on the muscles may help improve muscle endurance.
When a muscle remains contracted, blood flow naturally decreases. When the contraction is released, the return of blood flow sends metabolic signals that tell the blood vessels to relax. The net result is lower blood pressure.
As WebMD puts it, imagine squeezing a tennis ball for 30 seconds. When you hold an isometric pose, your straining muscles constrict the surrounding blood vessels. Partially pinching off blood flow this way while flexing causes a buildup of anaerobic metabolites (substances that inhibit the flow of oxygen).
Dr. Hoyle explains that this form of exercise is achievable for more people than many others because it doesn’t require any special equipment or location and there’s a comfort level when doing it.
“Isometric exercises can be done at home, many of them sitting in a chair. Often people are uncomfortable going to a gym, so they just don’t go.”
Healthline, a website that provides health advice and wellness information, gives examples of isometric exercises. They include:
- Wall sits, in which you stand about 2 feet away from a sturdy wall, lean your back against it and bend your knees and lower your bottom down so that your knee joints form a 90-degree angle. Your body position should resemble the same posture you have when sitting in a chair.
- High plank hold, in which you start in a kneeling pushup with your hands shoulder-distance apart, push your hands into the ground and straighten your knees, pushing down into the balls of your feet to raise your body into a high plank position.
- Side plank, in which you lie on your side with your legs straight, keeping your hips, knees and feet stacked. Bend your left elbow and place your forearm on the ground under your shoulder, lifting your torso and hips off the ground.
- Low squat, in which you stand with your feet slightly more than hip-width apart, slowly pushing your hips back into a sitting position while bending your knees. Lower yourself until your butt is slightly below knee level.
Sitting at a desk, you can place your palms against each other, fingers upright, and press as hard as you can without straining or pain for a count of 10, and then interlock your hands in front of your chest with your elbows up and try to pull your hands apart, working many of the same muscles two ways. You will immediately feel your heart rate increase.
A complete list of exercises, as well as instructions about how and how often to do them, can be found on the Healthline website.
We do isometric exercises in many of our daily activities. Carrying a bag in your hands with fingers gripped around the handle is an isometric exercise for the hand and forearm muscles.
Dr. Hoyle advises that exercising three or more days a week is most beneficial, and that consistency is a plus. “You don’t have to do each exercise every time,” he says. “There’s enough variety so that you can switch around.”
People with heart valve issues may not be appropriate candidates for isometrics. “If you fall into this category, be sure to discuss it with your doctor before embarking on an exercise program,” says Dr. Hoyle.
Everyday Health, which produces health and wellness content for consumers and medical professionals, adds that caution needs to be used when individuals with preexisting poorly controlled hypertension or heart disease perform isometric exercise, as there can be an excessive temporary rise in blood pressure and increased strain on the heart resulting in heart damage or heart attack. Because of this, it’s important to breathe during isometric exercise, as holding your breath can result in very high spikes of blood pressure.
“Treating your hypertension is a multi-pronged effort,” says Dr. Hoyle. “In addition to exercise, it requires a healthy diet and appropriate medication.”
The benefits of exercise and cardiac health have been recognized since the 1960s, explains Dr. Hoyle. “Back in the 1950s, anyone who had heart surgery was advised to get lot of bed rest.
“Then, in the 1960s, research supporting the benefits of exercise in the healing process started to evolve. As worldwide studies involving thousands of people have proven its effectiveness over the decades, exercise has become a major component of cardiac care.
“Using isometric exercise to control blood pressure is beneficial, easy to do, and appropriate in all stages of life.”
John Hoyle, MD, is a board-certified Health First Medical Group cardiologist with a Master of Public Health degree from the University of North Carolina. He obtained his MD degree from East Carolina University School of Medicine in Greenville, North Carolina, and completed a fellowship in cardiology from Wake Forest University School of Medicine, where he also did his residency in internal medicine. He is accepting new patients at HFMG-Gateway, 1223 Gateway Dr., Melbourne. You can call 321-434-3100 for an appointment.
