Blood pressure is a measurement of the force of your blood pushing against the walls of your arteries. The human heart beats about 60 to 70 times a minute when at rest. While exercising causes your heart to pump more quickly, it can actually lower your resting heart rate. Sit-ups are type of muscle-toning exercise. Because sit-ups do not increase your heart rate, they lower your blood pressure more quickly than doing cardiovascular exercises.
Benefits of Exercise
Exercising regularly and often makes the heart stronger. A healthy heart is capable of pumping more blood while exerting less energy. If your heart works less to pump blood, the force on your arteries is lowered and your blood pressure goes down. A sedentary person who starts an exercise regimen can lower his blood pressure by 5 to 10 mmHg, according to MayoClinic.com, which is equivalent to taking a blood pressure medication. Regular exercise also helps prevent weight gain, which causes high blood pressure.
Types of Exercise
The best kind of exercise for lowering blood pressure as cardiovascular, or aerobic, exercise, which forces your heart to beat faster. Examples of cardio exercises are running, jogging, jumping rope and swimming. Sit-ups are a strength-training exercise that helps tone abdominal muscles. You need to do about 30 minutes of moderately intense aerobic activity five days a week along with muscle-strengthening exercises two days a week to get the most health benefits, including lowering your blood pressure. Circuit training is a type of exercise regimen that combines a series of cardio and muscle-strengthening activities interspersed with a limited amount of rest. The goal of circuit training is to target many muscle groups and increase your cardio endurance.
Studies
In 1992, researchers from the University of Ohio in Cincinnati assigned 26 healthy females to a low-intensity, circuit-training program. The women had no formal exercise routine prior to the study. After the six-week program, the volunteers experienced a significant drop in resting blood pressure. In a 2000 meta-analysis of the effect of resistance exercise, such as sit-ups, on lowing blood pressure, University of New Mexico fitness expert Len Kravitz reported that strength-training exercise can decrease blood pressure slightly, by 2 to 4 percent.
Considerations
People in studies who have experienced decreased blood pressure from strength-training exercises worked out, on average, two to five times per week for 14 weeks. The duration of their workout was 20 to 60 minutes. They did an average of two sets of 10 exercises with five to 50 repetitions and 15 to 120 seconds of rest between exercises. While you may only experience a modest reduction in blood pressure, it's important to understand that lowering your blood pressure a small amount can reduce your risk for disease and death.
References
- Life Clinic: What is Blood Pressure?
- MayoClinic.com: Exercise, a Drug-Free Approach to Lowering High Blood Pressure
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Physical Activity for Everyone
- PubMed.gov: The Effects of a Six-Week, Low-Intensity Nautilus Circuit Training Program on Resting Blood Pressure in Females
- UNM: Exercise and Resting Blood Pressure
