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Study of best exercises to lower blood pressure

Steve W. said:
Vertx original tactical pants were my favorites. Perfect roomy and unrestricted fit. Perfect spacious but low profile pockets with NO VELCRO or buttons. If they had just updated them with a stretch fabric they would be completely perfect.

But their newer pants have a slim fit that I can't even wear, and they completely went away from that perfect pocket design.

I mean, I know @silveraw brought up tactical pants as a joke, but I have a terrible time finding comfortable and functional pants and I'm genuinely pissed at Vertx >:-((.
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Thanks, good to know. /thread drift
 
Denys Carthusian said:
You could experiment but as a general rule caffeine tolerance declines with age and there are many functional docs who are of the opinion that it can be hard on the adrenals and thereby mess with your cortisol levels, particularly as you age. You can experiment with various amino acids such as L-Theanine, Taurine, Glycine, etc to see if you can find a happy median. (Edit: they mean hard on the adrenals over about 8 oz of coffee per day. As always, your mileage may vary).
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Yes, I do not dispute the possible psyhiological minuses of drinking too much coffee.
And your input on the amino acids is an interesting one worth testing.
Actually, I have tested (N=1, clearly) going without coffee for a while before competition. It certainly had a positive impact on sleep (once the headaches vanished), but did not seem to boost my stamina.

But, giving up on it entirely for also mean giving up on a lot of rituals that gets as close to sacred as possible for an atheist and sociologist, like:
  • The morning coffee on dark winter days
  • Coffee breaks from work or driving
  • Coffee during hiking, rucking etc in the mountains and woods
  • Coffee from an ancient kettle in my cabin by the sea
And an implied question is if asceticism really is healthy if it deprives you of too many positive moments, given that one already does a lot of healthy practices, including isometrics.
 
Has anyone been able to read the full paper? It's behind a paywall for me, and my university does not seem to be included in the institutions I can log in under.

Abstracts don't really give a detailed picture, in my experience. What isometric studies were included? What were the criteria for including or discounting studies examined?

Not saying the findings are wrong, just that the conclusion given in the abstact is, well, kind of abstract.

I am curious what the proposed mechanisms for the lowering of blood pressure after isometrics are. Also, when were blood pressure measurements taken compared to when the exercises were performed? On off days? A few hours later? I think there's a lot to be explored here. Definitely curious if anyone has more specific info.
 
bluejeff said:
Has anyone been able to read the full paper? It's behind a paywall for me, and my university does not seem to be included in the institutions I can log in under.

Abstracts don't really give a detailed picture, in my experience. What isometric studies were included? What were the criteria for including or discounting studies examined?

Not saying the findings are wrong, just that the conclusion given in the abstact is, well, kind of abstract.

I am curious what the proposed mechanisms for the lowering of blood pressure after isometrics are. Also, when were blood pressure measurements taken compared to when the exercises were performed? On off days? A few hours later? I think there's a lot to be explored here. Definitely curious if anyone has more specific info.
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Yes, the full paper is behind a paywall.

[Edit: I believe I found a link to the full study through Google Scholar and Canterbury Christ Church University that is not behind a paywall, but I have not yet read it:
British Journal of Sports Medicine: Exercise training and resting blood pressure: a large-scale pairwise and network meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials

The pdf was small enough to attach, so I also attached it.]

However, in a recent New York Times article, the lead author of the study recommends a wall sit protocol from a paper linked below, which I assume was included in the review study. One of the authors of the linked wall sit study is also an author of the review study.

The protocol is interesting because it uses a fixed set and timing scheme of 4 sets x 2 minutes with 2 minutes rest between sets. But height of the wall sit is determined by RPE. The target RPEs were 4/10 for set 1, 5.5/10 for set 2, 7/10 for set 3 and 8.5/10 for set 4 (plus or minus .5 for all sets), using the same height for all sets. They describe the procedure they used to prescribe the height for each test subject. But I just estimated what would be 4/10 for the first set, and same height seemed pretty much in the right range for the rest. It seems like it would be easy for most people to pick a height in the right range by estimating and/or with a little trial and error.

There was an additional wall sit protocol tested that used heartrate, which had been previously studied, but it seemed much less user friendly, and part of the purpose of the study was to see if the RPE method would produce similar results.

You can read the details in the full study:
Isometric Wall Sit Study

Here's a quote from the NYT article about the theorized mechanism of action (Dr. Edwards is an author of the review study):
The researchers aren’t entirely sure why isometric exercises seem to be so effective for combating hypertension. One prominent theory, Dr. Edwards said, is that when you clench your muscles without moving, the local blood vessels around them compress — and then when you release, blood flushes back, causing the vessels to widen or dilate if you perform the exercise frequently enough, in a way they don’t during a dynamic exercise like a run.
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silveraw said:
I am shocked, SHOCKED, that someone would lie about searching for something.

But really, I don't mind the rehash threads. Different people show up and share different ideas.
Besides, who knows when the next best tactical pants will come out? Gotta keep those threads fresh!
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……Your winnings sir.

Running joke around here. My (well “my” is a loose term….. I don’t OWN them) teenagers often ask if I want to watch a movie with them. But there really only are 3-movies (On The Waterfront and The Godfather being the other 2, obviously).

They decline and I then sleep through whatever nonsense they stream.

Parenthood….
 
I heard from someone I know that geared benching and squats in the 900-1000lb range is good at lowering blood pressure. They also claimed that taking high doses of a vitamin supplement called trean or tren or something was good for your heart.
 
Pantrolyx said:
  • The morning coffee on dark winter days
  • Coffee breaks from work or driving
  • Coffee during hiking, rucking etc in the mountains and woods
  • Coffee from an ancient kettle in my cabin by the sea
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Closing your eyes and taking a long sip of coffee after reading an email from a client....
 
TedM said:
Ummm. What was the first one?
(I didn't see Casablanca in my search.
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That was my “clever” attempt at an inside joke….. only those that know where “shocked, SHOCKED!!” Came from would get it.

“Clever” is a loose term…..
 
Reardon55 said:
That was my “clever” attempt at an inside joke….. only those that know where “shocked, SHOCKED!!” Came from would get it.

“Clever” is a loose term…..
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Lol. I guess that's why Casablanca popped into my head.
 
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