It’s not fancy. It requires no gym membership or special equipment. It’s not dramatic – it’s even boring to watch.
Although it enjoyed a lot of publicity when it first came out in the 1950’s and 1960’s, you don’t hear of it much these days.
People are still doing this type of exercise, but nobody uses the official name for it any longer. Many exercise beginners know and perform planks, but don’t realize planks are just one example.
Yet, when scientific studies pitted this type of exercise against others (cardio and resistance), THIS type of exercise lowered high blood pressure more than anything else.
NOTE: all exercise, when done moderately on a regular basis, helps lower blood pressure.
If you are already physically active in a sport you enjoy, DON’T STOP.
Just add this type of exercise to your routine. It takes only a few minutes a day, a few days per week.
Isometrics.
What are Isometric Exercises
Their true beginnings are probably lost in the mists of time. Innumerable coaches have trained athletes by having them strain to “wrestle” a tree or “pick up” a boulder.
An isometric exercise is one where you must push or strain against or hold an unmovable object. It may seem counter-intuitive, because we normally think the purpose of lifting or pushing is to move an object.
Yet, when we use our muscles to exert force, that’s a stress that – when done regularly – can spark our muscles to adapt to that stress, making the muscles stronger.
In the 1950’s, two German scientists, Dr. Erich Albert M�ller and Theodor Hettinger, discovered that if a muscle contracts with less than one-third its full strength, it does NOT gain strength. But, if it contracts with a force greater than one-third its full strength, that muscle becomes larger, bigger and stronger – even without actual movement.
In other words, what’s important is the force. Those two scientists wrote an athletic training manual based on isometric exercises.
An exercise is isometric to the degree you apply force to an unmovable object. You contract the applicable muscles as hard as you can, but you don’t move.
You might “push” a wall. Or hold a weight in a certain position. You are exerting force with muscles, but you and the unmovable object remain motionless.
Isometric exercises are effective at increasing strength, but are normally only a part of an athlete’s training protocol.
For more questions about how to use isometric exercises as part of your athletic training, see your coach.
My concern here is to help people use isometric exercises to lower blood pressure.
Dangers of High Blood Pressure
When your pressure’s too high, it means the force of your blood being pumped through your arteries is too high. It’s damaging the walls of your arteries.
In fact, high blood pressure is the most serious of all biomarkers. It can lead to:
* Strokes
* Heart attacks
* Kidney problems (hypertension damages the tiny, fragile components of your kidneys, and can lead to dialysis)
* Vision problems
* Dementia
* Metabolic syndrome
What Causes High Blood Pressure
Our blood pressure reacts to a large number of factors. Other things – besides exercise – also affect it.
Having a healthy blood pressure is so important, you want to look at all the factors that may affect you, and make a plan to do what you can.
* Age – one factor we can’t control
* Smoking – stop
* Ingesting a lot more sodium in your diet than magnesium and potassium
(The most common source of sodium in American diets is salt, and that’s why experts advise us to eat less salt. However, many processed foods contain large amounts of sodium under a host of different names. Most will have some form of the word “sodium” in them. Example: monosodium glutamate sulfide, or MSG, a flavoring famously used in Chinese take-out restaurants.)
* Excess alcohol – stop
* Family history – another factor we can’t control
* Obesity – excess weight tends to raise blood pressure
A Meta-Analyses of Exercise vs Hypertension
In one, the researchers examined results of 270 separate studies. Between all these studies, scientists tested just about every kind of exercise against hypertension.
Out of all exercises, from resistance training to HIIT to cycling, it was IET – Isometric Exercise Training – that came out on top.
Not all isometric exercise training is equal, however – or is equally effective at lowering blood pressure.
Scientists tested not just IET overall, but specific types:
1. Handgrip
2. Leg extension
3. Wall squat
The study subjects who used an isometric handgrip lowered their pressure, but not by as much as those who used isometric leg extensions.
And they didn’t reduce their pressure by as much as the people who practiced wall squats.
Clearly, isometric exercises work better the more muscles are involved.
How to Perform Isometric Wall Squats
Warning: this is not for everybody. If you have strength or balance issues that make you unable to safely brace yourself against a wall, use a small chair or footstool to keep yourself stable.
Place your back against a wall, then lower yourself to a position where you’re sitting, only you don’t have a chair. You’re maintaining your balance by bracing your feet against the floor so your back is pushed to the wall, keeping you upright.
In the studies, subjects who performed isometric wall squats lowered their systolic (higher) blood pressure reading by ten points – which is great.
If that is too difficult or risky, find ways to push your legs and arms without moving them. There’re a host of relatively easy and safe options.
Timing
Hold the motionless position from one to two minutes. NO MOVING.
As you gain strength, gradually increase the time you hold the position.
Rest a few minutes. Repeat.
Perform a total of four sets in one day.
Do that two or three times per week.
Also: Don’t depend on exercise. Reduce the sodium you eat and increase the magnesium and potassium by eating many more fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans and seeds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isometric_exercise
https://www.quora.com/Whatever-happened-to-isometrics-Its-barely-mentioned-these-days-Are-people-still-doing-them
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-pressure/symptoms-causes/syc-20373410
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDR_B3Lwg3Q
Edwards JJ, Deenmamode AHP, Griffiths M, et al. Exercise training and resting blood pressure: a large-scale pairwise and network meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. Br J Sports Med. 2023;57(20):1317-1326
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FayRla5_BrQ
Morita H, Abe M, Suematsu Y, et al. Resistance exercise has an antihypertensive effect comparable to that of aerobic exercise in hypertensive patients: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Hypertens Res. Published online November 28, 2024.
