Having high blood pressure (hypertension), and low heart and lung (cardiorespiratory) fitness, increases your risk of heart disease and stroke (cardiovascular disease).
This causes 1 in 4 deaths in Australia, so exercising to improve fitness and improve blood pressure makes sense to reduce this risk.
More intense exercise could have greater benefit to people trying to recover after a stroke. However for those working to lower their risk, good quality data (a meta-analysis of the evidence) shows that different types of training can help improve resting blood pressure. This included isometric exercises like planks and wall-sits.
It did not appear that an exercise program was more beneficial because it specifically targeted blood pressure reduction. This opens up more opportunities for all of us to choose the ways we love best to be active, in order to reduce health risks.
If dancing, dodgeball or skateboarding are your favourite ways to get your heart rate up- great! If all you have time for is the cycle to work- no problem.
Your activity choice needs to be ‘regular’ not special, 150 minutes per week minimum, and for that you lower your risk of developing cardiovascular disease by 23%.
