Do any of you check your BP before and after exercise?
I personally find that mine is much lower after exercise, down from 120’s/70’s to 110’s/60’s, sometimes lower, depending on intensity and duration.
In the early AM it can be even lower, 100’s/high 50’s, but after coffee, and driving to work on the interstate, which requires intense vigilance, it shoots up to 130-140/80’s
Do any of you have similar experiences?
Yes, for me BP post-exercise is lower. I think that’s fairly typical. I’ve measured BP during exercise as well and have found that, at a given heart rate, my BP tends to drop over the course of a workout.
Do any of you check your BP before and after exercise?
I personally find that mine is much lower after exercise, down from 120’s/70’s to 110’s/60’s, sometimes lower, depending on intensity and duration.
In the early AM it can be even lower, 100’s/high 50’s, but after coffee, and driving to work on the interstate, which requires intense vigilance, it shoots up to 130-140/80’s
Do any of you have similar experiences?
FWIW, there seems to be an inverse relationship between heart rate and systolic BP. When your heart is beating very slowly, the pressure is higher.
I did this briefly a couple of years ago:
Do any of you check your BP before and after exercise?
I personally find that mine is much lower after exercise, down from 120’s/70’s to 110’s/60’s, sometimes lower, depending on intensity and duration.
In the early AM it can be even lower, 100’s/high 50’s, but after coffee, and driving to work on the interstate, which requires intense vigilance, it shoots up to 130-140/80’s
Do any of you have similar experiences?
This is normal and why exercise can be beneficial to hypertensive individuals.
As you exercise, the arteries dilate to allow more blood flow. Because the cardiac output is also increased, systolic blood pressure (the top-number, when the heart is actively pushing blood) tends to increase. The bottom number, the diastolic value, which is when the heart is between beats either stays the same or goes down. This makes sense because the “pipes” are bigger and there is the same blood volume, so pressure will be lower.
After exercise, your cardiac output returns to baseline, but often your arteries lag behind. This means that the arteries tend to be bigger “pipes” than normal, which leads to lower pressures. Given some time, everything normalizes back to baseline and your numbers will increase back to the resting value.