{"id":764,"date":"2020-11-19T10:17:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-19T10:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drmirkin.com\/2017\/07\/23\/blood-pressure-during-and-after-exercise\/"},"modified":"2023-05-01T16:59:25","modified_gmt":"2023-05-01T16:59:25","slug":"blood-pressure-during-and-after-exercise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/?p=764","title":{"rendered":"Blood Pressure During and After Exercise"},"content":{"rendered":"

High blood pressure puts you at increased risk for suffering a heart attack or stroke and damaging every organ in your body. Lowering high blood pressure helps to protect you from these complications (JAMA<\/em>, 1970;213:1143-52). Blood pressure is usually at its lowest at bedtime. Your resting blood pressure is considered to be too high if it is:
\u2022 above 120\/80 when you are lying in bed before you go to sleep at night or before you get up in the morning, or
\u2022 above 140\/100 at other times.<\/p>\n

Research more than 60 years ago showed that regular exercise helps to protect you from heart disease and premature death (Lancet<\/em>, 1953;2:1111-20), and the more regularly you exercise, the greater the protection (N Engl J Med<\/em>, 1984;311:874-7). Regular exercisers have significantly lower blood pressures than non-exercisers (Am J Hypertens<\/em>, 1989;2:60), and those who do not exercise regularly are at much higher risk for developing high blood pressure in the future (JAMA<\/em>, 1984;252:487-90).<\/p>\n

Blood Pressure During Exercise<\/strong>
Your systolic (top number) blood pressure usually rises as soon as you start to exercise and drops a little bit while you exercise at the same intensity (J Appl Physiol<\/em>, 1997;82(4):1237 \u2013 1243). It is normal for systolic blood pressure to rise to between 160 and 200, but as you continue to increase the intensity of exercise, your blood pressure can rise much higher (Hypertension<\/em>, Dec 18;2018;71:229\u2013236). When you run at a comfortable pace, your blood pressure can normally rise to 200\/70. When a regular weightlifter performs a maximum-effort leg press, his blood pressure can rise as high as 480\/350 (J Appl Physiol<\/em>, Mar, 1985;58(3):785-90). A general rule of thumb is that having a systolic blood pressure greater than 200 during casual exercise can sometimes be abnormal and should be checked by your doctor.<\/p>\n

Warning Signs During and After Exercise<\/strong>
Check with your doctor if you suffer the following symptoms during or after exercise, or independent of exercise:
\u2022 chest pain
\u2022 irregular heartbeats
\u2022 abnormal thumping in your chest
\u2022 dizziness
\u2022 blurred vision
\u2022 nausea.<\/p>\n

Other warning signs include:
\u2022 systolic blood pressure greater than 220 with casual exercise or greater than 150 a few minutes after you stop exercising.
\u2022 a drop in blood pressure during exercise
\u2022 your blood pressure does not rise during exercise<\/p>\n

Blood Pressure After Exercise<\/strong>
Blood pressure for people both with and without high blood pressure usually drops a little for up to an hour after they finish exercising and then blood pressure returns to its previous level after that (Hypertension<\/em> 1991;18:211-215). The fitter you are, the faster your blood pressure returns to its resting level. Having a systolic blood pressure that does not drop after you stop exercising puts you at increased risk for heart disease (Am Fam Physician<\/em>, Oct 1, 1998;58(5):1126-1130). Doctors use a ratio of systolic blood pressure three minutes into the recovery phase of a treadmill exercise test divided by systolic blood pressure at peak exercise. A ratio above 0.9 means that you are at increased risk.\u00a0On the other hand, having a blood pressure after exercise below 90\/60 is usually abnormal. In general, your blood pressure should return to normal within several hours of a workout. Even then, you might notice that your blood pressure doesn\u2019t return to exactly what it was before exercise. That is because it is normal for blood pressure to drop slightly within a few hours of exercise.<\/p>\n

Exercise for People Who Have High Blood Pressure<\/strong>
Exercise is often prescribed as part of the treatment for high blood pressure and it is usually safe for people with high blood pressure to exercise. However many people who have high blood pressure already have heart disease and do not know it. People who have high blood pressure should check with their doctors, particularly if they are starting or increasing an exercise program.<\/p>\n

Points to Remember<\/strong>
\u2022 High blood pressure puts you at increased risk for heart disease.
\u2022 Exercise helps to lower high blood pressure and to prevent heart disease.
\u2022 Blood pressure generally rises after you start to exercise and drops when you stop exercising.
\u2022 An hour after you stop exercising, blood pressure drops to its pre-exercise level.
\u2022 Having blood pressure that does not drop after you stop exercising puts you at increased risk for high blood pressure and heart disease.<\/p>\n

Checked 5\/1\/23<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your blood pressure usually rises as soon as you start to exercise and drops a little bit while you exercise at the same intensity. However, as you continue to increase the intensity of exercise, your blood pressure usually rises higher and higher. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1025,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[796,795,794,797],"class_list":["post-764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-heart","tag-blood-pressure-after-exercise","tag-blood-pressure-during-exercise","tag-high-blood-presssure","tag-hypertension"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}