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Blood Pressure Variation During Exercise

Jun 14, 2011 | By Jordan Saibil
Blood Pressure Variation During Exercise
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Blood pressure generally increases during exercise. The specific pattern of variation depends on whether the exercise you are doing is dynamic or static, involves your upper body or lower body, whether you are measuring systolic or diastolic pressure, and whether you have any underlying cardiovascular disease.

Background

The variation in BP during exercise differs depending on the type of exercise, static or dynamic. Static exercise is that which involves sustained muscle contraction, such as lifting weights or shoveling snow. Dynamic exercise is defined as repeated, rhythmic contraction of muscles, such as jogging or swimming. BP variation during exercise also differs when you measure systolic versus diastolic pressure. Systolic pressure is always the higher number; it represents the maximum force of your blood flowing through your vessels as a result of the push it gets from your heart. Diastolic pressure is always the lower number; it represents the force of blood flow through your vessels as the heart is relaxing and preparing for another beat.

Systolic Pressure During Dynamic Exercise

During dynamic exercise, your working muscles need more oxygen, which means they need more blood flow. This prompts your heart to beat faster and more strongly such that during the first several minutes of exercise your systolic BP increases linearly. Then, as your muscles reach their output capacity, their increasing demand for oxygen levels off and so does your heart rate and your systolic BP. Usually this plateau in BP is around 140 to 160 mm Hg, unless you are an athlete or the dynamic exercise you are doing is part of a regular training schedule, in which case your systolic pressure can rise up to a maximum of 170 to 220 mm Hg. This is because you have trained your heart to be able to pump more blood to your muscles.

Diastolic Pressure During Dynamic Exercise

During dynamic exercise, your blood vessels dilate, allowing more blood to flow to your working muscles. This results in your diastolic pressure remaining relatively unchanged despite increased cardiac output because the increased flow volume is offset by the extra room in your vessels. Usually diastolic pressure during dynamic exercise varies no more than 12% over the full range of exercise intensity and may even decrease slightly. Training does not affect the variation of your diastolic pressure during dynamic exercise.

Static Exercise

During static exercise your cardiac output increases moderately while your sustained muscular activity compresses your peripheral blood vessels. This means that your heart is pumping more blood through mostly narrower tubes. As a result, your systolic and diastolic BPs increase disproportionately as compared to a more moderate, linear rise of only your systolic BP during dynamic exercise. The increased amount of work your heart must do during static exercise and the acute increases in BP which result is quite risky if you already have existing high BP or cardiovascular disease. In such a case, moderate dynamic exercise is a safer, healthier option.

Recovery

After both types of exercise, your systolic BP decreases to resting levels within several minutes. It then often remains lower than resting levels for up to 12 hours.

Other Considerations

During static exercise, upper body exertion such as shoveling or hammering also causes greater increases in your BP as compared to lower body exertion. This is because the smaller muscle mass of your upper body has fewer blood vessels, which means that your heart is pumping a lot of blood into less space. Therefore, dynamic exercises involving the muscles of your lower body such as walking, running, and biking are safer and healthier, especially if you have any underlying cardiovascular disease.

References

Article reviewed by Robert Lothian Last updated on: Jun 14, 2011

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