Getting a grip on your health is easier than you think.
By Charles P. Wallace • October 2, 2020
In popular culture, a firm grip has long been associated
with a macho image, but it turns out that an increased handgrip strength can
help both women and men reduce the dangers associated with high blood pressure. According to the American
Heart Association, over 100 million Americans
have high blood pressure, which it defines as being above 130/80. High blood
pressure, known as hypertension, increases the risk of stroke and usually
increases as a problem with age.
The typical treatment for high blood pressure is
pressure-reducing drugs such as beta blockers, or intensive aerobic exercise
totaling 70 minutes a week, or both. But you may be concerned about side
effects from medication, and/or not have the time for long workouts.
An alternative approach
For many years, doctors have known that increasing your hand
grip strength often works just as well as meds. That’s where grip exercises
come in.
In fact, in the early 1970s, two New York doctors published breakthrough papers that
looked at the effects of intense, whole-body isometric exercise on blood
pressure. Isometric exercise, which requires you to put a muscle in tension and
hold it without moving, initially raised blood pressure when performed for
brief periods. But when the exercise was continued over time, blood pressure
actually began to fall and remain lower.
Then in 1992, Ronald Wiley, a pulmonologist at Miami
University in Ohio, then devised a study that used only isometric handgrip
exercise instead of the whole body. He had young men train with 30% of their
maximum grip strength for two minutes, alternating hands after a brief
rest.
For
many years, doctors have known that increasing your hand grip strength often
works just as well as meds.
The results were pretty dramatic: after eight weeks of the
isometric exercises three times a week, the eight subjects had reductions
of 12.5 in their systolic blood pressure (the top number given in your blood
pressure) and 14.9 in their diastolic blood pressure.
Wiley’s experiment has since been repeated numerous times
with similar good results. A meta-analysis of 18 studies, which looks at
pooled data, by Danielle Bentley and colleagues at the University of Toronto
concluded: “Handgrip exercise is an effective modality for resting BP
reduction, resulting in clinically significant reductions for men and women of
all ages.” Another meta-analysis by
Australian doctors reached a similar conclusion.
Curiously, no one has been able to adequately explain why
the handgrip exercise works so well. It simply does.
Getting your grip on
Ready to try handgrip exercises for yourself? It almost
couldn’t be simpler: You need to squeeze some kind of resistance bar or band
with one hand, for two minutes. Then rest for two minutes and switch to the
other hand. Do two sets for each hand.
The challenge is figuring out your maximum amount of effort:
To get the most effect from the exercise, you need to hold for the two minutes
at 30% of your maximum effort.
There are now elaborate devices available, such as the Zona Plus, which measure
your maximum output and then displays your required grip strength on a small
computer screen.
But the same can be achieved with a much less expensive
device known as a hand dynamometer, which is available
online for about $30. These are equipped with a squeezable handle
and a liquid crystal digital display showing the force being used.
A British blogger has even posted a Youtube video showing
exactly how to perform the exercise based in the published research.
And yes, the whole thing only requires eight minutes of squeezing.
Grab your device and flip on the morning news, or read a few stories in the
paper, and presto! you’re done.
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