Are Hand Grippers Good for the Heart?

While weightlifting enthusiasts have long used hand grippers to build up hand and wrist strength, the medical community has only recently begun to investigate the full range of health benefits that hand gripper exercises offer. A growing body of research suggests that long-term hand gripper exercise provides substantial benefits for heart health in particular. Even people who suffer from serious cardiovascular issues can lower their blood pressure and improve artery function with regular hand grip exercise sessions a few times every week.

  1. Lower Blood Pressure

    • Regular exercise with hand grippers can lower your blood pressure, particularly if your blood pressure reads higher than 120 over 80. Recent scientific research suggests that squeezing a hand gripper for ten minutes per day, three times per week, should begin to lower your blood pressure slightly yet significantly within four weeks. Based on these findings, the American Heart Association recommends regular hand gripper exercise as an effective method for controlling high blood pressure in conjunction with any diet or medication changes your physician recommends.

    Increase Carotid Artery Distensibility

    • In medical terms, arterial distensibility refers to an artery's ability to stretch when filled with blood. Working out with hand grippers does little to change the distensibility of most arteries, with the exception of the carotid arteries that supply blood to your brain. Because regular hand gripper workouts significantly increase their distensibility, there is a reduced likelihood of certain cardiovascular issues such as stroke.

    Improve Vascular Reactivity

    • When your heart increases the amount of blood that gets pumped into an artery, that artery's inner lining, or endothelium, dilates to accommodate the volume of liquid passing through. Cardiologists use the term vascular reactivity to refer to the endothelium's capacity to efficiently dilate in reaction to changes in blood flow. Working out with hand grippers for several weeks improves vascular reactivity significantly, leading to decreased likelihood of heart attack.

    Hand Grips With Sensitive Populations

    • Many people who suffer from high blood pressure or other significant cardiovascular problems want to exercise for better health but find that their condition limits the types of exercise they can do. Identifying a suitably effective yet gentle cardiovascular exercise can be particularly challenging for older people or patients with serious cardiac problems. Research from the June 2013 issue of "Clinical Interventions in Aging" highlights the usefulness of hand grip exercises for elderly women. Researchers found that regular exercise with hand grippers provided cardiovascular benefits with no evidence of overload to their sensitive cardiovascular systems.