The Reproducibility Of Postexercise Hypotension Over A 12-week Exercise Training Program Among Adults With Hypertension

Postexercise hypotension (PEH) is the decrease in blood pressure (BP) resulting from a single bout of exercise persisting for up to 24 hr. Studies that have explored the reproducibility of PEH mostly did so in the laboratory under acute experimental conditions. The reproducibility of PEH during an exercise training program is unknown. PURPOSE: To determine the reliability of the appearance of PEH during a 12-week aerobic exercise training program performed for 3 sessions per week at moderate intensity among adults with hypertension. METHODS: Prior to beginning exercise training, the subjects (n = 10) were determined to be PEH responders, defined as a > 2 mmHg decrease in 24-hr ambulatory BP following a maximal graded exercise stress test compared to a non-exercise control session. We measured BP with a home BP monitor for 10 minutes pre- and post-exercise for each session. The appearance of PEH for a given exercise session was defined as a decrease in BP post- vs pre-exercise. RESULTS: Subjects on average were obese (30.6 ± 4.3 kg/m2), middle-aged (57.2 ± 10.5 yr) men (60%) and women with stage I hypertension (136.5 ± 12.1/83.4 ± 6.7 mmHg). The average number of exercise sessions completed was 32.6 ± 4.2 for an overall exercise adherence rate of 90.6 ± 11.8%. Of the exercise sessions completed, PEH occurred in 89.7 ± 8.3% of them. CONCLUSION: PEH occurred after ~90% of the exercise sessions over 12-weeks of exercise training. The high consistency by which PEH was elicited, among initially sedentary adults with hypertension who were PEH responders, reinforces the clinical importance of PEH as antihypertensive lifestyle therapy. Further studies with larger sample sizes are needed to confirm our promising findings.