A Few Minutes of Wall Sits May Help Reduce Blood Pressure

If the stress of daily life feels like it is pushing your blood pressure up, spending a few minutes against a wall may be worth trying.

According to a new study, doing wall sits — also known as wall squats — for several minutes, three times a week, lowered blood pressure over time. The benefits remained even when participants reduced the routine to only a few wall sits once or twice a week.

The results add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that wall sitting may “reduce blood pressure more than other forms of exercise,” said Jonathan Wiles, a professor of exercise science at Canterbury Christ Church University in England, who led the study.

The exercise may take far less time than many people expect, and beginning with only a shallow sit — just a slight bend in the knees — can still be useful.

Even people “who struggle to find the time and motivations to exercise” may be able to benefit from the blood-pressure-lowering effects of wall squats, Wiles said.

Why wall squats may help blood pressure

To perform a wall squat, stand with your back against an unadorned wall, walk your feet forward, and slide down until your thighs are as close to parallel with the floor as is comfortable.

At first, few of the participants held a deep position. For most, their knees were “not at 90-degree angles,” Wiles said. Instead, they stayed at whatever depth they could manage.

The aim was to hold the position for two minutes at a time.

Wall squats are an isometric exercise, meaning the muscles stay in one position, tightening and producing force without lengthening or shortening. By contrast, muscles shorten during concentric contractions, such as lifting a dumbbell, and lengthen during eccentric contractions, such as lowering it again.

Other examples of isometric exercise include planks and squeezing a ball or device to improve handgrip strength.

Many earlier studies have shown that isometric exercise lowers blood pressure both right away and over time. During an isometric contraction, blood vessels inside the muscles are squeezed, briefly restricting blood flow. When the contraction ends, blood rushes back, triggering the release of biochemicals that widen the vessels and help them stay flexible and responsive, which supports healthier blood pressure.

In a 2023 review of 270 exercise studies, researchers including Wiles concluded that isometric workouts lowered blood pressure more effectively than any other form of exercise, except possibly running.

Lower blood pressure in four weeks

Over several years of studying isometric exercise, Wiles and his colleagues developed and tested a simple routine that reliably reduced blood pressure in experiments in about a month.

Participants sit against a wall for two minutes, stand or rest in a chair for two minutes, and repeat that pattern three more times, for a total of four wall-sit bouts and eight minutes of exercise.

In earlier studies, performing that workout three times a week led to meaningful drops in systolic blood pressure, the top number in a reading that reflects arterial pressure as the heart beats, and diastolic blood pressure, the lower number that measures pressure as the heart relaxes.

But because many people cannot or do not want to exercise three times a week, the researchers wanted to know whether less time could still be effective.

Some earlier research also focused only on people who already had hypertension, rather than those who may be at risk of developing it.

How little exercise is enough?

In the new study, published in BMJ Open Sport and Exercise Medicine, Wiles and his colleagues asked people, including those at risk of high blood pressure, to begin a regular isometric routine and then reduce their workouts substantially.

They recruited 100 inactive adults, many of whom had blood pressure in the high-normal range, which is considered a risk factor for later hypertension. Most began wall sitting three times a week, while the rest did not exercise and served as a control group.

After a month, some participants continued with three weekly sessions, while others cut back to two, one, or zero weekly wall-sit sessions for another four weeks.

Throughout the study, researchers monitored everyone’s blood pressure, resting heart rate, and other cardiac markers.

Eight minutes a week still improved blood pressure

At the end of the first four weeks, blood pressure had fallen in all of the wall-sit groups. The control group showed no improvement.

By the end of the second month, those who kept exercising three times a week had maintained or increased their blood pressure reductions.

People who reduced their routine to once or twice a week still had better blood pressure than when they started, although it was slightly higher than after the first month.

Those who stopped wall sitting altogether lost nearly all of the gains from the first month, and their blood pressure returned to roughly the starting level.

Handgrip exercise may also be useful

Based on these findings and earlier research, Wiles said adults who are concerned about their blood pressure and are able to wall sit should “add isometric contractions” to their weekly routine as often as they can.

Still, the study followed participants for only two months, so it is unclear whether one or two sessions a week would preserve the benefits over a longer period.

The research also did not examine other isometric options. Wall squats use the leg muscles, Wiles said, and because those are the body’s largest muscles, they are likely to have the strongest effect.

But “for wheelchair users and older adults at risk for falls, isometric handgrip exercise may be more appropriate,” said Yih-Kuen Jan, a kinesiologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Jan was not involved in the new study, but in a recent review he co-authored, researchers found that a similar isometric routine — four sets of two minutes of squeezing a handgrip device three times a week for at least two months — lowered blood pressure in people with hypertension.

If you are interested in starting an isometric program, Wiles said, speak with your doctor first and discuss your current fitness level, abilities, and blood pressure.

He also noted that isometric exercise should not be the only type of activity you do. In the experiment, heart rate and other cardiac measures did not improve, only blood pressure did.

“We would strongly recommend that all people, if they are able, participate in regular physical activity, including aerobic, resistance, and flexibility exercise,” Wiles said, along with some wall squats if blood pressure is a concern. “I do all of that in my weekly training,” he said.