[[{“value”:”High blood pressure comes up with a lot of my clients over 60, and most of them have been told the same two things: walk more and cut back on salt. Plenty of them have been doing exactly that for years.
I’ve been a personal trainer for four decades, and for the last 25 years I’ve been training the next generation of fitness professionals at TRAINFITNESS. Walking does help, but some types of strength work, including holds where you barely move at all, can bring readings down faster than most people expect. These five at-home exercises can help you bring your numbers down alongside your daily walk.
RELATED: 4 Daily Exercises That Build a 6-Pack in 21 Days After 60
The Biggest Obstacle Is Fear
The most common problem I see is fear. A lot of clients arrive convinced that any real effort will send their pressure up dangerously, so they’ve spent years steering clear of anything that feels like hard work. The worry is understandable, but it usually leaves them with a body that hasn’t been asked to do much in years.
Most of them are on one or more blood pressure medications as well, and the medications bring their own complications. Some cause light-headedness when you stand up quickly, which makes people wary of anything on the floor. So I teach everyone to come up slowly after floor or seated work, and to pause a moment before walking off.
Beta blockers cause a different problem: they keep the heart rate down. A heart rate monitor or a pulse check tells those clients very little about how hard they’re actually working. I judge their effort by breathing and by how they look.
Beyond the medication, the usual picture is long hours sitting, extra weight around the middle, stress, and sleep that could be better. And because walking has been the only advice on offer for years, nothing in the week is holding on to muscle.
Safety Comes First
If your blood pressure isn’t under control, or you get very high readings, chest pain or dizziness with exercise, see your doctor before starting any of this.
Never hold your breath during the holds. Straining while holding your breath pushes your pressure up sharply, so breathe steadily or count out loud instead.
And don’t stop or change your medication without talking to your doctor, even if your readings come down.
RELATED: 5 Morning Exercises Women Over 65 Need to Keep Their Core Strong
Why Holds Beat Walking Alone
Walking lowers blood pressure, and I tell every client to keep doing it. These exercises add to it, and the two work as partners, each doing a different job.
Regular exercise makes the blood vessels more flexible and better at widening, and that brings resting pressure down over weeks. Holding exercises, what trainers call isometrics, work the muscle without any movement: a wall sit, or a firm grip squeeze. While you hold, the working muscle squeezes the blood vessels running through it. When you let go, blood rushes back through and those vessels widen.
Done regularly over a few weeks, that seems to help the vessels relax more at rest. Holding exercises have done well in recent research on blood pressure, often better than people expect compared with walking or other aerobic exercise. They also ask a lot of the body in a short time: two minutes of wall sitting does more for the thighs than most strolls manage.
Walking alone often falls short after 60, and the reasons are simple. It’s usually too gentle to be much of a challenge once the body has gotten used to it. It depends on the weather, joints can limit how far you go, and it does nothing to hold on to muscle, which you need to stay active with age.
What You’ll Need
Everything here can be done at home. You’ll need a resistance band for two of the five, and a tennis ball, a soft stress ball or a rolled-up hand towel for the grip work. The rest you can manage with a wall, a chair and a bit of clear floor.
RELATED: 5 Home Exercises That Restore Thigh Strength Faster Than Treadmills After 65
Wall Sit
The wall sit is a holding exercise for the biggest muscles in the body, the thighs. The squeeze and release on the blood vessels in such a large muscle group is thought to be part of why it’s done so well in blood pressure research. You need a clear stretch of wall and nothing else.
How to Do It:
Stand with your back flat against a wall, feet hip-width apart and about two feet from the wall.
Slide down until your knees are bent to a comfortable angle. A shallow sit is fine, and it doesn’t need to be 90 degrees.
Keep your knees over your ankles, where you can still see your toes.
Breathe steadily through the hold, counting out loud if that keeps you on rhythm.
Stand up slowly at the end, and pause a moment before you walk off.
Avoid These Mistakes:
Don’t hold your breath and strain. It pushes your pressure up sharply. If you catch yourself grunting, you’ve probably stopped breathing.
Don’t go so deep that you can’t keep your breathing steady.
Sets and Reps: Start with holds of 30 to 60 seconds and build toward 2 minutes. Do 4 holds, resting 1 to 2 minutes between them.
Form Tip: Pick a depth that feels hard by the end of the hold, but where you can still talk.
Handgrip Squeeze
The handgrip is the other holding exercise, and the easiest of the five to fit into a day, because you do it sitting in a chair. It also has the longest track record of research for blood pressure. A tennis ball, a soft stress ball or a rolled-up hand towel all do the job.
How to Do It:
Sit tall in a firm chair with the ball or towel in one hand.
Squeeze at a moderate effort, about a third of your hardest squeeze, a level you could keep up for 2 minutes.
Hold the squeeze for 2 minutes, breathing steadily.
Relax, then swap hands.
Avoid These Mistakes:
Don’t squeeze as hard as possible for a few seconds. Aim for a moderate, sustained squeeze at about a third of your maximum.
Sets and Reps: Do 2 holds of 2 minutes on each hand, resting 1 minute between holds.
Form Tip: If you catch yourself holding your breath, you’re gripping too hard.
RELATED: 4 Standing Exercises That Flatten Menopause Belly Faster Than Crunches After 60
Band Chest Press
The band chest press is the moving strength work, for the upper body. Regular resistance training also brings blood pressure down over time, and it holds on to the muscle that people over 60 gradually lose.
How to Do It:
Wrap a resistance band around your back at shoulder-blade height, holding an end in each hand at chest level, elbows bent and pointing slightly down.
Stand tall with one foot slightly in front of the other.
Press both hands forward until your arms are straight, breathing out as you push.
Return slowly to your chest over 2 to 3 seconds, breathing in.
Avoid These Mistakes:
Don’t hold your breath on the push. Breathe out on the effort, every rep, and it becomes a habit within a session or two.
Don’t let your shoulders shrug up toward your ears as your arms tire.
Sets and Reps: Do 2 to 3 sets of 10 to 12 reps, resting about a minute between sets.
Form Tip: Keep the shoulders down and the neck long.
Band Side Steps
The side steps work the hips and glutes, the muscles you use pushing up out of a chair and climbing stairs. Because the legs keep working continuously, it lifts the heart rate a little while it builds strength. It helps balance as well, which I keep an eye on with every client over 60.
How to Do It:
Loop a light resistance band around both legs just above the knees. Around the ankles is harder, so start at the knees.
Stand alongside the kitchen counter, feet hip-width apart and knees slightly bent.
Step sideways with one foot, keeping tension on the band.
Bring the other foot in to hip-width, without letting the band go slack.
Take 10 steps one way, then 10 steps back.
Use the counter for support whenever you want it.
Avoid These Mistakes:
Don’t let your feet come fully together. It takes the tension off the band, so keep a little width between the feet throughout.
Don’t rock your body side to side to swing your legs out.
Sets and Reps: Do 3 rounds of 10 steps each way.
Form Tip: Keep the upper body still. The legs do the moving, and the trunk stays over the hips.
RELATED: A Dietitian Flags 6 Sugary Cereals, Including One With Nearly Half a Day’s Added Sugar per Cup
Brisk Marching Intervals
The marching intervals are the aerobic part of the routine, and they’re where walking-type exercise still earns its place. Alternating brisk and easy minutes gets the heart and lungs working harder than a steady stroll manages. And you can do it in your kitchen whatever the weather is doing outside.
How to Do It:
March in place or around the room at an easy pace for 2 minutes to warm up.
March briskly for 1 minute, lifting the knees and swinging the arms, to the point where you can talk but not sing.
Drop back to an easy march for 1 minute.
Finish with 2 minutes easy to cool down.
Hold the kitchen counter throughout if balance is a concern.
Avoid These Mistakes:
Don’t go flat out on the first brisk minute and leave yourself with nothing left. The brisk minutes should feel strong but sustainable.
Don’t stop dead at the end. Let the last few minutes get gradually slower.
Sets and Reps: Repeat the brisk and easy minutes 5 times, between the 2-minute warm-up and cool-down.
Form Tip: Judge the effort by your breathing. If you’re on beta blockers, ignore your heart rate, because that medication holds it down.
How Often to Do This
Keep the week simple. Do the two holds, the wall sit and the handgrip, three times a week on non-consecutive days: Monday, Wednesday and Friday, or whatever pattern suits you. Both together take about 15 to 20 minutes once you count the rests.
Do the band chest press and band side steps two or three times a week. They can go into the same session as the holds, which keeps the strength work down to three short sessions a week.
March on most days for around 15 minutes, and keep your usual walks going on top of that. When the weather keeps you indoors, the intervals do the same job at the kitchen counter.
Go smaller in the first two weeks: shorter holds, fewer intervals, and a lighter band if you have one. Build up toward the full numbers as the holds feel steadier and your breathing stays even.
Check your blood pressure at home a few times a week, with a home monitor, at the same time of day, sitting down and rested for a few minutes first. Taken the same way each time, the readings will show you the trend, and that trend is what your doctor will want to see as well.
RELATED: 5 Exercises That Undo 10 Years of Slouching Faster Than Yoga After 65
What to Expect
Straight after a session, your reading can come out a little lower and stay that way for a few hours. That’s a normal response to exercise, so don’t read too much into any single reading. Look at the direction over the weeks instead.
With the holds done three times a week plus the rest of the routine, many people see their home readings start to come down at around 4 to 6 weeks. By 8 to 12 weeks there’s usually a clearer trend. How far the numbers move varies with medication, weight, salt, alcohol, sleep and stress.
Exercise works alongside all of those, and alongside your medication. Your medication stays as it is unless your doctor changes it. If your readings come down, take the numbers to your doctor and let them decide what happens next, because any change to the medication is their call.
If you stop training, expect the readings to drift back up within a few weeks. The vessels lose the regular squeeze-and-release work, and the effect on them fades.
The post 5 Exercises That Lower Blood Pressure Faster Than Walking After 60 appeared first on Eat This Not That.”}]]