Blood Pressure

Peddle Up!
Peddle Up! Posts: 2,040
edited September 2012 in Training, fitness and health
On a sportive yesterday I heard a great line after climbing the first short, sharp hill, "That's the pipe opener". It got me thinking about how blood pressure varies with exercise. With increased heart rates, blood pressure must go up. And increased blood pressure is, er, a bad thing? Or does it depend on other factors such as vascular dilation. The standard guidance is that exercise lowers blood pressure. At rest, maybe. Thoughts?
Purveyor of "up" :)

Comments

  • ut_och_cykla
    ut_och_cykla Posts: 1,594
    My understanding is that blood pressure goes up during exercise - to be able to get where it should go - & developing VO2 is dependent on raising blood pressure for a period of minutes. Obviously keeping the pipes ' open' /flexible is a good idea and leads to blood pressure at rest/low level exertion being lower.
  • alihisgreat
    alihisgreat Posts: 3,872
    Peddle Up! wrote:
    On a sportive yesterday I heard a great line after climbing the first short, sharp hill, "That's the pipe opener". It got me thinking about how blood pressure varies with exercise. With increased heart rates, blood pressure must go up. And increased blood pressure is, er, a bad thing? Or does it depend on other factors such as vascular dilation. The standard guidance is that exercise lowers blood pressure. At rest, maybe. Thoughts?


    hmm. I know nothing about it..

    but you would assume that an increase in blood pressure during exercise if fine for those with normal blood pressure, because they're not going up to a dangerous pressure..

    it might be different for those with normally high blood pressure, as exercise would raise it further.
  • jibberjim
    jibberjim Posts: 2,810
    High blood pressure is not a bad thing.
    High blood pressure _at rest_ is a bad thing.
    Exercise will lower your at rest blood pressure.
    Jibbering Sports Stuff: http://jibbering.com/sports/
  • keef66
    keef66 Posts: 13,123
    ^ wot he said.

    Vascular dilation does have a profound effect on blood pressure. I once took my resting BP after a hot bath; impressively low readings!

    I imagine during exercise that BP initially rises as the heart beats faster to get the oxygenated blood to the muscles. It's conceivable that it then falls a bit as the vasodilation kicks in as we try to get rid of the waste heat.
  • danowat
    danowat Posts: 2,877
    I don't think its quite a simple as you'd think with the vascular system and exercise, I always assumed cardiac drift went upwards with time, untill I rode a 12hr TT, which showed, although power remained static, HR drift was downward, and quite quite remarkably so.
  • keef66
    keef66 Posts: 13,123
    Really? That sounds a bit counter-intuitive. I thought that at a constant pace or power output, cardiac drift meant that heart rate increased gradually. Or is that just during the first 10 minutes as you warm up, and thereafter it drifts down again? I note you're referring to a 12 hour TT, something I have no experience of. And happy to keep it that way.

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