LIFTING WEIGHTS LOWERS BLOOD PRESSURE — THE EVIDENCE THE CARDIO-FIRST ADVICE SKIPS

Cardio usually gets the credit for heart health. Two meta-analyses of randomized trials measured what resistance training does to blood pressure in older adults.

What the Meta-Analyses Actually Found

Blood pressure management is usually framed as an aerobic-exercise problem — walk more, run more, get the heart rate up. The trials below tested resistance training on its own against control groups.

Henkin and colleagues (Experimental Gerontology, 2023) pooled 24 studies and 835 adults aged 60 and older with prehypertension or hypertension, across 26 resistance-training interventions and 24 control groups. The blood pressure reduction favoring resistance training averaged 6.88 mmHg systolic and 3.37 mmHg diastolic. It was larger in participants with hypertension (10.42 mmHg systolic) than in those with prehypertension (4.87 mmHg systolic).

Hu and colleagues (Frontiers in Physiology, 2025) pooled 14 randomized trials and 704 community-dwelling older adults doing circuit-based resistance training and found reductions of 6.10 mmHg systolic and 2.88 mmHg diastolic. In their subgroup analysis, higher training frequency lowered systolic pressure more than two or fewer sessions a week; the authors concluded that three sessions a week showed the larger systolic effect.

Both analyses measured blood pressure. Neither measured heart attacks, strokes, or deaths.

Why This Matters After 50

Blood pressure tends to climb with age as arteries stiffen, and it's one of the more common reasons people end up on daily medication in their 50s and 60s. Aerobic exercise is the more commonly prescribed lifestyle intervention, but for someone who has already built an endurance base — or who has joint limitations that make high-volume cardio harder to sustain — these trials describe a second option that was tested on its own, not only as an add-on to cardio.

Strength training is already widely recommended for this age group for muscle and bone. These meta-analyses add blood pressure to the outcomes it has been measured against.

The Practical Takeaway

The frequency associated with the larger systolic effect in the circuit-training analysis was three sessions a week. Henkin's pooled trials were in older adults who already had prehypertension or hypertension, so those results describe that population rather than people with normal blood pressure. If blood pressure is a concern for you, bring these findings to your physician, particularly before changing training while on medication.

For educational purposes only. Not medical advice. Consult your physician before making changes to your exercise regimen, particularly if you have diagnosed hypertension or are on blood pressure medication.