What my blood pressure did DURING exercise

I did an experiment to see how different exercises would affect my blood pressure and some of the results were very much unexpected hi everyone and welcome to exercise for health and I've been wanting to do this video for a long time now as I was Keen to know what happens to my blood pressure while I'm exercising to give you a bit of back ground information on me my rest and blood pressure has predominantly been on the higher side of normal around 135 over 85 and was much higher during a stressful period in my early 30s however now at the age of 48 and with some positive Lifestyle Changes since the beginning of 2024 it's generally around 125 over 75 which I'm happy with and I have no diagnosed health conditions and I'm not on any medications so I decided to formulate an extensive workout that is definitely not recommended to anyone watching this that included steady state cardio high-intensity interval training heavy weight lifting circuit training isometric exercises and much more to see the effects it had on my blood pressure for the experiment I purchased the wrist blood pressure monitor so I could take a measurement both before and after each exercise type although these smaller wrist monitors aren't as accurate as a traditional arm cuff version it would make check in my blood pressure during the exercise less intrusive and more feasible while moving around a public gym however as a control and comparison measure I also took my blood pressure at rest before leaving for the gym and when I was back home at rest 3 hours later using both the arm cuff Monitor and wrist monitor to see if there are any major differences so sit back relax and let me show you what happened the initial control reading was taken on a Sunday morning shortly after waking up at 7:48 a.m. using the arm cuff which gave a measurement of 143 over 86 with a pulse of 65 now this sounds a bit higher than my normal readings but according to research which I'll leave a link to in the description below although blood pressure is lower during sleep there is a bit of a surge when you get up meaning it will be higher in the morning and then gradually return to normal by midday depending on what you're doing there is another reason why I think it's a bit higher which I will go into a bit later following this control reading I also took the first measurement using the wrist cuff monitor a few minutes later and the result was 132 over 88 with a pulse of 74 so already you can see that when I'm at rest there are two different readings using two different monitors and I'm aware that your blood pressure and heart rate is always fluctuating but I needed a start point at rest before proceeding with the exercise measurements it's probably worth me mentioning that throughout the 3-hour experiment I wore my Polar heart rate monitor to get a much more accur reading on my heart rate at any instant rather than waiting to get the heart rate from the blood pressure monitor as the wrist cuff took about 45 seconds to obtain a reading you'll also notice that I was taking my rate of perceived exertion number this is the RP scale of 0 to 10 that records how hard I feel I'm working at any given point in the experiment so at rest this was obviously a zero now I would normally walk to the gym which takes about 20 minutes but for this experiment I didn't want that to affect the results so I chose to drive to the gym to begin fresh once there with the help of my son mace who did all the filming and recording of the measurements I said I would also give his Tik Tok Channel a shout out the first exercise in the workout was the warm-up which was the steady state cardio component and I chose a 10-minute walk on the treadmill I took my blood pressure before starting it and it was 138 over 98 which was one of the highest diastolic readings I've had in almost 20 years now I mentioned earlier that I think there is another reason why I was getting higher readings before doing anything and I believe the anticipation of starting this experiment the worry that something might go wrong which it did and I'll explain later and the general anxiety that are built up caused this higher diastolic reading because after walking for 10 minutes at 5 km an hour or 3 m an hour on a 5% incline my blood pressure had dropped to 101 over 77 but with an increased heart rate to 117 from 71 and my RP now at three on the 0 to 10 scale this was an interesting result as it shows that the steady state walking that's not too demanding can really help reduce anxiety levels and the cardiovascular system's peripheral resistance and therefore reduce the blood pressure so already I felt we were off to a positive start next came the high-intensity interval training part which I was dreading where I did 10 200 met sprints on the rower with a 30 second rest period between each one this one was by far the most demanding component of the entire workout on my cardiovascular system and pushed me to my absolute limit before starting my blood pressure had increased to 151 over 91 again probably an anticipation of the task that followed but my heart rate had recovered a bit and dropped to 87 I set up the console and set the damper to six to get a drag factor of around 135 to 140 if that means anything to any of you and on completion of the last Sprint I immediately took a reading and this is where we reached the major problem the blood pressure monitor kept showing an error and it wasn't until the fourth attempt about 2 minutes after finishing and when I started to feel as though I was recovering that I managed to get a result of 159 over 88 I think the problem with using the small wrist monitor is that it just didn't have the power to inflate enough to compress and close the artery in the wrist as my sister blood pressure would have been very high at the end of the last Sprint possibly posibly above 200 so as it began to drop after finishing the exercise it eventually obtained a reading slightly frustrating but unfortunately I don't have access to a laboratory where I could do this more accurately I had already checked my heart rate from the monitor that was showing on my phone and it went up to 181 beats per minute although my theoretical maximum would be 172 if I used the simple 220 minus your age formula I have add it up to 184 about a month ago during a 5K row however the RP for me was definitely at a 10 I literally had nothing left in the tank and was gaspin for oxygen I also noticed as I have in the past with other short explosive exercises such as Plyometrics that my heart rate continues to increase for about 20 seconds after finishing the exercise so as the Sprints progressed I was finding that 30 seconds was becoming an insufficient recovery time a positive that I could take away from this however was that I did get my second best time for the 10 sprints being 0.3 seconds off my personal best for 2024 anyhow let's now move on to the strength training component I chose to do the deadlift which I've never been particularly strong at but after seeing Eddie Hall 2017's World's Strongest Man deadlift 500 kg and who had an estimated blood pressure of 300 over 180 I was expecting this one to push my blood pressure up much higher than the previous Sprint rows although I wouldn't be lifting anywhere near that weight I used the trap bar which allowed me to lift the weight with my arms by my side rather than in front of me like a traditional barbell placing less dress on my lower back before starting the deadlift my blood pressure was 125 over 84 with my heart rate still recovering from the row at 136 beats per minute I wanted to do three sets of three to four reps as this would be a typical example for strength training so although this wasn't the maximum weight I could lift the 120 kg or 265 lb bar felt really heavy as at 98 kg or 216 lb it was 122% of my body weight however to put this into perspective to show you that dead lifting is a weak point of mine my 21-year-old son weighs only 70 kg or 154 and deadlifts 160 kg or 352 lb which is 228 per of his body weight so at the end of the third set I took my blood pressure and the result shocked me 92 over 50 was this right this is a very low blood pressure ing so I couldn't understand it but then it dawned on me when doing deadlifts in the past I frequently stood up after dropping the weight on the last rep and felt as though I was going to black out and I've seen countless people on YouTube lifting heavy and then fainting at the end this can be a common occurrence as there is a sudden drop in blood pressure as soon as you stop the exercise the deadlift places a huge demand on the body if lifting a heavy weight and the blood pressure Rises dramatically causing an overcorrection of the parasympathetic nervous system so as soon as you stop blood pressure suddenly drops causing less blood to the brain making you feel like headed this is why people that suffer with hypertension or more importantly people on medication to reduce their blood pressure would need to be extremely cautious lifting heavy weights because of the increased risk of passing out my heart rate at this point had climbed back up to 162 and I felt I was working about at an eight on the rpe scale the next element to the program was a mixture of using a pre-exhaust isolated exercise and an overhead pressing exercise so I used 7 kg dumbbells for the side lateral raises immediately before using the 14 kg dumbbells for the shoulder press and aimed to do 10 reps of each exercise for three super sets in all the training I've had over the years in the health and fitness industry it's been repeated that for people with high blood pressure or heart conditions they are advised not to push away above their head and the science behind this makes sense however I wanted to see the effect it had on me someone that doesn't have high blood pressure to see if there would be a huge Spike so I did this seated rather than standing which lowered the intensity of the exercises slightly as I had the support of the bench to help maintain a good technique before starting my blood pressure was 118 over 70 meaning that it was coming back up again following the huge drop after the deadlift and my heart rate was 7 at the end of the third set I took it again and it had risen to 133 over 87 with a pulse of 128 and I felt about a seven on the rpe scale so the blood pressure didn't go ridiculously high although I did wonder afterwards if it would have been higher if I had done these exercises standing I also thought that I perceived this exercise to be relatively hard although my heart rate didn't reflect how I felt which I thought was interesting let's now move on to the Circuit I wanted to pick a circuit of seven exercises that people would be able to do at home these would be typical recommended exercises for people with high blood pressure and I have also previously prescribed to people in the past with hypertension in a gym I carried out this circuit using the peripheral heart action method which switches between upper body and lower body exercises to shunt blood around the body which should also help lower the blood pressure I picked push-ups on the floor step-ups using 10 kg dumbbells the bent over row using 15 kg dumbbells lunges holding the 10 kg dumbbells tricep dips squats holding the 10 kg dumbbells and finishing with the upright row with the 10 kgam dumbbells and aim to do 10 to 15 reps on each one before repeating the circuit a second time now in hindsight I probably would have picked lighter dumbbells because I found the intensity quite hard by the end and was struggling to hit the desired 10 plus reps on the second circuit however before starting my blood blood pressure was 134 over 72 and my heart rate was still at 125 and at the end the blood pressure dropped slightly to 131 over 65 although it did show an error reading on the first attempt when I was absolutely shattered meaning that the systolic reading could have been a bit higher my heart rate had elevated to 165 and I felt I was working at a nine on the 0 to 10 RP scale to get the right benefit from this type of training the intensity needed to be lower so I should have felt around a six or a seven on the rpe scale if I was doing this as part of a weekly workout or was prescribing this to someone with high blood pressure I would have had a slightly longer rest period between each exercise rather than doing them one after the other Non-Stop and would have used slightly lighter weights to reduce the intensity let's now go through the isometric exercises for this I chose a superet of the plank and the wall SI doing 30 seconds of each one twice through last year I did a video on the long-term benefits of isometric exercises on blood pressure so I was Keen to test the immediate effects during this type of training I minimized the change over time between each exercise so literally went straight from one to the other before starting these my blood pressure was 138 over 68 and my heart rate had dropped from the circuit to 112 after completing the two sets when my legs were almost in spasm during the wall set I failed to get a blood pressure reading on the first two attempts but got it on the third attempt and it was reading 12 25 over 70 I do think as before my systolic blood pressure was much higher during the exercise itself which is why I couldn't obtain a reading instantly near the end of the exercise my heart rate had elevated as it should have done to 150 and my rpe was an eight I'm sure people in the gym watching me were getting a little concerned about my Welfare by this point but this was the last intense exercise because the rest of the workout was an easy cool down and relaxed stretching to cool down I chose to do a 10-minute cycle on the recumbent bike which is a favorite exercise for me and on a comfortable resistance level of 10 out of a maximum 25 it allows my heart rate to recover gradually at a lower intensity and it helps me feel back to normal again before starting my blood pressure reading was 136 over 75 and my heart rate had dropped back down to 103 at the end of the cooldown it was reading 108 over 64 so it dropped quite considerably now with a heart rate of 15 and I felt around three on the RP scale I was pleased with this result because if you compare readings from pre-warm up to post coold down for the entire workout the systolic Reading had dropped 30 points and the diastolic Reading had dropped 34 points although I don't attribute this reduction solely to the workout because the later time of day may have had an effect and the reduction in anxiety due to almost being finished would have also played a role it does show that blood pressure responds to exercise in a positive way as most of the research suggests the final part of the workout before returning home was to do some stretches normally I do some isometric or PNF type stretching however for this I just wanted to stick to passive relaxed stretching in the same way I do them at the end of my home exercise workouts on this channel I spent 10 minutes doing a variety of gentle relaxed stretches controlling my breathing and my blood pressure started at 111 over 63 with a heart rate of 110 and finished with a reading of 120 over 77 and a heart rate of 81 it was obvious that my blood pressure was trying to regulate itself after the workout so I was looking forward to taking the final reading 40 minutes later when I was back home again one of the benefits of exercise on blood pressure is known as post exercise hypotension where the effects of the exercise reduce your blood pressure for a few hours after completing your workout or physical activity so back at home 40 minutes later after taking the final reading in the gym I took my last reading which came out as 112 over 63 with a pulse of 70 to compare I also followed this up with the reading using the arm cuff again as I did at the start and this was 120 over 73 with a pulse of 63 so again much lower than the rest of readings taken at the start showing an overall decrease in my blood pressure from the beginning to the end of the experiment 3 hours later so I plotted all the results into a graph and here is what my systolic blood pressure did from start to finish and you can see there are big changes throughout if I now add the diastolic blood pressure readings to it you can see that it's obviously lower which is what it should be but other than the deadlift reading the variations aren't as great as the systolic fluctuations which is also to be expected let's now look at what my heart rate did throughout the session and you can see the biggest Peak from the Sprint rows where my heart rate exceeded 90% of my maximum with a very hard effort in the red zone and the three other big Peaks from the deadlift circuit and isometric exercises that were also hard and exceeded 80% of my maximum heart rate in the yellow zone for the majority of people that have diagnosed hypertension I would normally recommend exercising a modate effort about 70 to 80% of their maximum here shown in the green zone for me the numbers Mark next to each heart rate measurement is the 0 to 10 rate of perceived exertion number that indicated how I felt at the that point what's interesting is the RP number didn't always relate to how high my heart rate was an example of this can be seen at the end of the overhead pressing exercise when I felt around a seven but my heart rate was only 128 and if you compare that to the end of the Walk where my heart rate was a little lower 117 but I only felt around a three another interesting point I noticed on the graph is that my heart rate recovery from the overhead pressing exercise was much slower than all the other exercises this may be due to the increased peripheral resistance from exercise in a smaller muscle group and the hearts having to work harder to pump blood Against Gravity to the working muscles meaning that it took longer to recover from the effort if we now combine the blood pressure readings with the heart rate and RP readings it looks a bit messy but you'll notice that when the heart rate increased on the warm-up walk the deadlift the circuit the isometrics and the cool down bike the blood pressure generally reduced only the high intensity sprints on the rower and the overhead press increased the blood pressure with an increased heart rate however it may be that the blood pressure was much higher for the deadlift while performing it so what did I learn from this experiment well firstly exercise helps lower blood pressure in the short term that's obvious from comparing the results at home before I started and then went back at home at the end reducing the systolic and diastolic readings by around 20 points for me blood pressure and heart rate aren't always closely related and in some cases can be inversely proportional and in addition my heart rate didn't always reflect how hard I felt I was working or feeling so for people with a heart or lung condition monitoring the heart rate would be very important as your feeling of breathlessness or effort doesn't always relate to it I also think that other factors such as anxiety can have as much of a negative influence on your blood pressure so using exercise to help combat anxiety can also help with managing your blood pressure if I was to do do this experiment again it would be good to have this tested in a clinical environment or laboratory setting rather than in a public gym where other factors won't influence the results such as the monitor I used and the time taken in some cases to obtain a reading overall though I think it was worthwhile and it helps highlight the benefits of exercise on blood pressure for me it's important to note that although this is how my body responded to the exercise as I did it doesn't mean yours will do the same and like I said in the intro some of the I did would not be recommended for people with diagnosed hypertension I hope you found the information from this experiment interesting if so please give it a like by clicking the Thumbs Up Button below and consider subscribing if you haven't already I will add this video to the blood pressure playlist but you can also check out the description below for ways that you can help support this channel thank you so much for watching and until next time stay active and keep moving to feel better hey