Limiting the blood pressure response in young males during dynamic resistance exercise through intermittent rest

Abstract

Studies have shown that resistance exercises are beneficial in the lowering of blood pressure. This is of great significance to hypertensive patients. Unfortunately the acute effect that resistance exercises have on blood pressure can be harmful. The seated single leg press was used in this study due to the availability of equipment and the controllability of it. Fifteen young males, which served both as the control and test group, were selected as participants and were familiarized with the protocol a week prior to testing. Each participant did the exercise according to the traditional (control - no rest) and an intermittent (test - 3s rest) method. Both methods were done at 60%, 75% and 90% 1RM to determine whether the differences in blood pressure response would be the same at different intensities for both methods. Results showed that the acute mean blood pressure response to the intermittent method was 7 mmHg lower than that of the traditional method at all the tested intensities. The aim of this study was to determine whether three seconds of rest between each repetition of a given exercise will limit the acute blood pressure response, if compared with the traditional method of resistance training of the same exercise.