You heard that right – isometric exercise is superior to all other forms of exercise for lowering blood pressure! This includes all forms of cardiovascular exercise and all other forms of strength training exercise. Many studies have shown this including a large meta-analysis which showed that isometric exercise is as effective as blood pressure drugs for lowering blood pressure.
Isometric exercise compresses the blood vessels (particularly the veins which old over 60% of your blood). If you think of your blood vessels like a garden hose, think of what happens when you pull on both ends of a rubber garden hose - the inside diameter shrinks - and this means increase pressure is required to get the same amount of blood through the center. However if you push both ends of the hose together towards the center (like isometric exercise) the diameter actually increases and you need less pressure to move the same amount of blood!
In addition, isometric exercise has side benefits - not side effects like drugs! For example - isometrics improve joint health, improve muscle imbalances, improve performance, and are very safe and time efficient!
A simple routine done 3 times per week can provide big benefits. Just do the following three exercises 3 - 5 times per week holding each one for 30 -90 seconds:
Wall Sit
Plank
Side Plank
To learn how to do these simple exercises and more check out this short article with links to exercise videos: https://www.healthline.com/health/fitness-exercise/isometric-exercises#exercises-to-try or here: https://redefiningstrength.com/isometrics/
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