Key Takeaways
- It’s normal for your blood pressure to temporarily increase during exercise, but it’s usually followed by a marked decrease.
- People with high or borderline high blood pressure stand to benefit the most from this post-exercise effect.
- Walking, cycling, boxing, and yoga are all beginner-friendly workouts that can help you manage your blood pressure.
Getting active is an effective and non-invasive way to manage your blood pressure and overall health. However, less than a third of Americans meet the national recommendations for physical activity, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey conducted in 2020.
Adults should aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise per week, plus at least two muscle-strengthening activities per week, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Aerobic exercise is a wide-ranging category that covers everything from brisk walking to dance classes or water aerobics, and that weekly target can be spread out across multiple sessions per week.
The best exercise regimen for you is one you enjoy enough to keep doing it, Bill Roberts, MD, told Verywell. Roberts, Chief Medical Officer for the American College of Sports Medicine, added that working towards a goal like a ski season or a hiking trip can help keep you on track.
But if your starting point is a primarily sedentary lifestyle, just stepping away from your desk to go for a walk or climb a few flights of stairs is a positive change, Roberts said. A study published in 2019 in the journal Hypertension found that adults who got up and walked around for three minutes of every 30 minutes seated had improved blood pressure compared to those who remained seated for the whole workday.
Regular Exercise Can Help You Maintain Healthy Blood Pressure
Physical activity can benefit your health on multiple levels: weight management, heart health, and reducing emotional stress, just to name a few factors. Managing these aspects of health indirectly helps to lower blood pressure, and exercise has a real-time blood-pressure-lowering effect.
When you exercise, your blood vessels dilate (become wider) so more blood can reach working muscle tissue, Rich Severin, PT, DPT, PhD, told Verywell. To deliver an increased blood volume, your heart has to pump more forcefully, and it’s normal for your blood pressure to rise during your workout. But once you’re finished, your blood pressure may drop below its starting rate.
Severin, a cardiovascular and pulmonary physical therapy specialist, explained that your blood vessels remain dilated in the moments after exercise, even as your heart rate and blood flow return to normal. This can result in a five to eight-point reduction in blood pressure starting about three to five minutes after exercise.
This effect is called “post-exercise hypotension” (PEH), which tends to be more pronounced in people with high blood pressure. People across all levels of physical fitness can benefit from PEH, both in the hours after a single workout and in the long term, with regular exercise.
Intense Workouts May Temporarily Spike Your BP
Exercising increases your blood pressure in the short term, which makes sense when considering what’s happening in your body.
Your heart works extra hard during exercise for three reasons, Roberts said:
- To supply muscles with oxygenated blood
- To remove waste products like lactic acid from the muscles
- To manage your body temperature by moving blood around
At the same time, your working muscles are contracting and pushing blood around the body with greater force.
“As you start to exercise, your heart rate is going to go up, and you may see a temporary increase in blood pressure, which for most people probably levels off after they get through the warm-up and get moving,” Roberts said.
Most people can handle this temporary spike, but listening to your body for signs of overexertion is important. If you experience any dizziness, chest pain, jaw pain, shortness of breath, or lightheadedness during activity, you should slow down and get a physical exam before resuming your exercise routine, Severin said.
5 Beginner-Friendly Workouts to Lower Blood Pressure
For the vast majority of people that come through Roberts’ office, the first challenge is getting off the couch. Roberts recommends starting slow if you’re new to exercise, as engaging in more intense workouts risks spiking your blood pressure to dangerous levels.
Start exercising at low intensity in small intervals—even a ten-minute walk during your lunch break can temporarily lower your blood pressure. Here are some beginner-friendly workouts to get you moving.
Walking
Walking is a great way to ease into exercise since it requires no special equipment, and you can do it at your own pace.
For people starting from square one, Roberts said a five-minute walk is a great place to begin. Once you get in the habit, you can add one minute every day until you reach about 30 minutes, and then work on increasing your intensity.
“The most important thing is you choose something that you like, so you’ll keep doing it,” Roberts said. So if you don’t like to run, there’s no need to work up to running.
Cycling
Riding a bike is another beginner-friendly exercise option if you have the equipment. You can ride outside at a relatively leisurely pace or use a stationary bike that allows you to adjust the intensity.
Cycling mainly activates the leg muscles, which causes the blood vessels in the legs to dilate and allow more blood flow. The more dilation, the better—you want dilation throughout the body if possible, but the legs contain a lot of muscle mass and, therefore, a lot of blood vessels, Severin said.
If you’re working a smaller muscle group, you’ll experience dilation across a smaller area and a more significant net increase in blood pressure while you’re working out, he continued. Activity that engages more of your muscles will lead to more widespread dilation and lower blood pressure.
Swimming
Swimming is one example of a full-body workout that engages several muscle groups at once. Not only does swimming get your heart rate up, but it also tones and strengthens muscles in the arms, legs, and core.
Swimming is a great exercise option for people with joint problems or other health conditions that can make moving on land difficult. Moving in the water takes the pressure off of your joints and bones, and it’s also something many people enjoy.
Boxing
If you want to try something different, it could be an opportunity to pick up a new form of exercise.
Boxing, martial arts, and other combat-based workouts engage the whole body, Severin said. In general, full-body workouts are best for blood pressure management because they open up blood vessels throughout the body, leading to a more significant hypotensive (blood-pressure lowering) effect, he said.
Much of the muscle power in boxing comes from the legs, but your arms are also moving, and your heart is pumping. Plus, there’s the added benefit of self-defense knowledge.
Yoga
While yoga might not get your heart rate up as much as other forms of exercise, it can improve your strength, balance, and overall body control, Roberts said.
Just because a workout isn’t considered “cardiovascular” doesn’t mean it can’t help with blood pressure. A 2019 review found that people who did yoga five times a week—many of whom were overweight, middle-aged adults with high blood pressure—saw significant reductions in blood pressure after a 13-week program.
These improvements were even more significant for those who engaged in breathing techniques and meditation during yoga class, which can help with stress management and mental relaxation.
What This Means For You
If you’re new to exercise, don’t be intimidated by intense fitness classes. You can start small with short walks or other forms of physical activity you enjoy.