I'm 130/70 with a resting pulse of 40. Doctors who don't understand athletes see this and caution be about being "borderline hypertensive" due to the 130. Those that understand endurance athletes have told me this is perfectly normal in highly trained persons (the high systolic is due to fewer, more powerful contractions).

It's just like considering a bodybuilder with 3% body fat "obese" because he has a high BMI. Reason #238 to use a doctor that understands athletes.

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I'm not sure how directly this relates to your blood pressure, but I think we do develop a higher level of red blood cell count. I regularly donate blood off season ( O-neg ), and they have to do the finger-prick test to check for anemia. Las time I donated, the tech told me I had much higher than normal cell to plasma ratio (54% vs 40% normal in males).

Call me naive, but I didn't realize that red blood was the transporter of oxygen through the body, so it makes sense that trained endurance athletes would produce higher counts. Again, I'm not sure if that has any effect on blood pressure, but it seems possible. Maybe someone with a medical background can shine some more light?

There are about 732,304 reasons why this value may be what it is. Are you truly hypertensive? No idea. I wouldn't necessarily "trust" the machines at the grocery store. BP cuffs are made in different sizes because a wrong size will yield inaccurate readings. A manual sphygmomanometer with someone trained to do it properly is more trustworthy imo.

But can endurance athletes have high systolic BP? Sure.

normal 120/80 for my last two physicals

jaretj

The drugstore machines measure diastolic pressure as the disappearance of sound (S5). Physiologically, S4 (the muffling of sound) is more accurate. Anyway, no worries about 60 mmHg. Also, those machines sometimes measure systolic pressure as the "knocking sound" before the blood squirts through the cuff. But 150 mmHg is high, so get the systolic checked by the regular method.
Endurance athletes are no exception to the current healthy blood pressure rule: Systolic under 120, diastolic under 80.

Bingo. Back in April when I got Rhabdo and had to see a lot of doctors without much choice over who I saw, I had to explain the same thing over and over and over again. My GP and my physio get it, most other doctors don't. It's ok though, we're abnormal.

My EKG indicated sinus bradycardia (with an avg HR of 53 or so during the test). My GF was out in the secondary waiting area outside the exam room and overheard the doctors talking about the results and had to remind them that I was a triathlete.

My BP is pretty much normal though. 110ish/70ish usually.

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What are the potential causes of high blood pressure in an endurance athlete who exercises 10 hours per week, eats healthy, doesn't smoke, healthy BMI?

This is what my doc has told me for the last several years. I'm usually in the range of 125/50 to 130/55. Resting heart rate around 45-50. She's mildly concerned about my systolic numbers, saying it does not matter that you train like crazy.

Genetics

That is the right idea.

My bp is about 120/75. I can keep taking it until I get the answer I want. (I have a bp machine at home.) My resting HR is in the 60's but I can will it down into the 50's.

things as little as feeling stressed, rushed, nervous, aggravated, ect can temporarily effect blood pressure. so can any food w/ caffeine. there's also a alot of other little things that can effect it as well. this is why doctors don't diagnose high BP unless there are multiple, usually 2-3) visits with the same BP

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M.S. x 2; CSCS; ATC/LAT, Functional Movement Specialist, USA Track and Field Level 1

qft.

When i was a dyed in the wool coach potato my blood pressure was 110/65. Now well more than a decade + later it's 112/65.

Too many variables.

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Dietary risk factors that may increase BP in endurance athletes include high sodium intake, low potassium intake, moderate/high alcohol intake (more than 1 drink for women, more than 2 for men), and wheat if sensitive to gluten. Possibly, long-term use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (like ibuprofen or naproxen) may increase systolic BP.

Pedalhead wrote:

Endurance athletes are no exception to the current healthy blood pressure rule: Systolic under 120, diastolic under 80.

"Resting Blood Pressure Values of Adult Athletes" found cyclists had the highest blood pressure amongst 3,700 athletes studied. The cyclists were young (avg 24 yrs old) and trained 23.8 +/- 6.6 hrs/wk and had an average Systolic pressure over 140.

Interesting article. I just had my first physical in about 5 years (26 yr old, no health issues) and everything checked out fine except BP. I was at 145/70, doc chalked it up to nerves about being at the doctor.

Go have this checked by a Doctor. Do a search on ST for "vibrolux" and read why I had to retire from intense racing and training. I'm just saying get it checked.

Using one of the BP kiosks is probably one of the worst ways to test your BP. People plop down after getting in their car, drive to the store, and walk through the store. Really poor conditions to test BP...also why you undoubtedly saw your BP drop after you took multiple readings. Your HR and BP were dropping as you sat there and "recovered."

Factor in that those machines are often out of calibration and the cuff size issue someone else mentioned and you have a recipe for inaccurate readings. If you are really concerned about your BP, get a home BP monitor and use it regularly at the same time of day and track it. You will begin to get a much better understanding of your BP. Also remember that BP readings are not static measurements. BP fluctuates throughout the day, day to day amd week to week. One more reason to track your BP on a consistent basis if you are concerned about it.

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Note the article didn't mention anything about whether those levels were healthy. They just observed they existed.

What's going on with male cyclists in Hungary? They seem to be a select group, probably averaging over 400 miles/wk. Why no endurance runners?
Well, the way I look at the graphs, BPs for the cyclists although moderately elevated are not significantly different from that for the controls.

This is something I've been looking into for quite awhile as my systolic has been over 140 in the past (when the stock market was crashing...), and is now typically around 125-135 even without the stress of a job (60-75 diastolic, RHR 40-45). From the research I've found, it seems to be fairly typical, even for athletes still in high school (most studies on this I've seen has been specific to this age group), and is described as "athlete's heart" in the article below.

"Many conditioned athletes (particularly young men) have “athlete’s heart”: very high resting stroke volume and cardiac output with low PVR and heart rate.17 Pulse pressure and SBP are high in these individuals, very often in the range of pre-HTN and occasionally in the range of stage 1 HTN, because cardiac stroke volume is increased.18,19 DBP is usually normal."
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/...76.2009.00100.x/full

The question, though, of whether this "athlete's heart" is more dangerous for heart disease than a normal person with systolic hypertension remains to be seen. I've yet to find the evidence to say that it is. It seems to me most just play it safe and say that it is, but I've read some stuff from doctors in the past that seemed to (very carefully) suggest that it might not be quite as dangerous.

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-Bryan Journey
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At my last visit my doctor had said I'm boderline hypertensive but we in part chalked it up to general stress + the "white coat" factor. Usually my resting HR is mid 40s but was also elevated at the time (low 50s.) It is an interesting theory that the high systolic could be due to the stronger contractions, and it's something I will look into.

While isolated moderately elevated resting systolic BP is not uncommon in endurance athletes, it is not directly related to "athlete's heart" syndrome. In most cases, it is due to increased peripheral vascular resistance at rest. Endurance athletes develop increased vasoconstrictive power/capacity to prevent their systolic BP from FALLING during prolonged exercise, especially in the heat. A better method of measuring resting BP in endurance athletes is 5 minutes after mild exercise, which burns off some of the vasoconstriction.

Very interesting. I will try that soon. Thanks for posting!

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-Bryan Journey
Travel Blog | Training Blog | Facebook Page

While I agree that the kiosks are not always reilable or accurate, at least you're taking some kind of reading and watching your BP. If more people would check their BP and look for trends (in lieu of absolute values), there might be fewer surprises and heart attacks.

X2 on genetics and multiple factors. 59 yo, RHR 45, BP = 116/62