Reductions in ambulatory blood pressure in young normotensive men and women after isometric resistance training and its relationship with cardiovascular reactivity.
BACKGROUND
There has been very little published work exploring the comparative effects of isometric resistance training (IRT) on blood pressure (BP) in men and women. Most of the previously published work has involved men and used resting BP as the primary outcome variable. Early evidence suggests that IRT is particularly effective in older women and has a positive influence on ambulatory BP, a better predictor of disease risk.


OBJECTIVE
With the WHO now placing global emphasis on the primary prevention of hypertension, the goals of this proof-of-concept study were to (i) examine whether sex differences exist in the ambulatory BP-lowering effects of IRT in young, normotensive men and women and (ii) determine whether these reductions can be predicted by simple laboratory stress tasks (a 2-min sustained isometric contraction and a math task involving subtracting a two-digit number from a series of numbers).


RESULTS
There were no differences in the IRT-induced reductions in 24-h (men: Δ4 mmHg, women: Δ4 mmHg), daytime (men: Δ3 mmHg, women: Δ4 mmHg), or night-time (men: Δ4 mmHg, women: Δ3 mmHg) ambulatory BP in men (n=13) and women (n=11) (P<0.05) and these changes were not associated with systolic BP reactivity to either stress task (all P>0.05).


CONCLUSIONS
Our data suggest that lower ambulatory BP can be achieved, to a similar magnitude in young healthy women as well as men, with IRT; however, the BP-lowering effectiveness cannot be predicted by systolic BP reactivity. Taken together, this work heralds a potentially novel approach to the primary prevention of hypertension in both men and women and warrants further investigation in a larger clinical outcome trial.
aDepartment of Kinesiology, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada bDepartment of Sport and Exercise, The University of Northampton, Northampton cDepartment of Life & Sports Sciences, University of Greenwich, London, UK dDepartment of Emergency Medicine, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan eDepartment of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School Health Map, Boston Children's Hospital, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Yasina
Y
Somani
Anthony
A
Baross
Phillip
P
Levy
Kate
K
Zinszer
Kevin
K
Milne
Ian
I
Swaine
Cheri
C
McGowan
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000502:physiology*; D018660:Blood Pressure Monitoring, Ambulatory; D015444:Exercise / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male