You may want to sit down for this—on the wall, that is. If you are looking for the single best set of exercises to lower your high blood pressure, isometric exercises such as wall sits and planks may be the way to go. That’s according to a systematic review and meta-analysis just published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. This analysis found that performing such isometric exercises over time was associated with on average a 8.24 mmHg decrease in systolic blood pressure and a 4 mm Hg decrease in diastolic blood pressure.
That was more than the 4.08 and 2.50 mmHg decreases seen with high-intensity interval training, the 4.49 and 2.53 mm Hg decreases with aerobic-exercise training such as running or cycling, the 4.55 and 3.04 mm Hg with dynamic resistance or weight training, and the 6.04 and 2.54 mmHg decreases with combined aerobic and weight training. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should do nothing but planks and wall sits (or wall squats). Don’t just sign up for the plank-only classes at your local gym. The other types of exercises did show associations with lowering blood pressure as well. But this does suggest that you may want to add something isometric to your weekly exercise routine.
For this meta-analysis, a team from Canterbury Christ Church University (Jamie J. Edwards, Algis H.P. Deenmamode, Megan Griffiths, Oliver Arnold, Jonathan D. Wiles, and Jamie M. O’Driscoll) and the University of Leicester (Nicola J Cooper) searched for randomized controlled trials that were published between January 1990 and February 2023 and reported changes in systolic and diastolic blood pressure after some type of exercise intervention that lasted at least two weeks. Ultimately, they identified 270 such trials that included a combined total of 15,827 participants.
Isometric exercises are where you tighten a specific muscle or group of muscles for a period of time. The word isometric begins with the prefix “iso,” which sounds like “I so” rather than “me so” and means “equal.” It ends with “metric,” which means “measure” as in the “metric system.” In isometric exercises, your muscles remain at “equal measure” as in they don’t really change their lengths. Therefore, if you are looking to go from a Harry Styles body to a Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson body, such exercises ain’t going to do the trick. Isometric exercises are not going to really build bulk. Instead, they are better at building and maintaining strength. Tensing your muscles for a period of time and then allowing them to relax could over time improve blood flow through those muscles as well and, in turn, reduce your blood pressure.
Another advantage of isometric exercises is that they are relatively simple to do. You don’t need to purchase any expensive equipment. To do a plank, all you need is a floor or the ground and gravity. To do a wall sit, otherwise known as a wall squat, you really don’t need squat besides a wall. If your house or apartment doesn’t have any floors or walls then you may want to consider moving to one that does.