What happens to your blood pressure and heart rate when you exercise?

What happens to your blood pressure and heart rate when you exercise?

In a normal person, the heart rate and blood pressure progressively increase with progressive exercise. The rise in blood pressure is mostly in the systolic pressure. Systolic blood pressure is the pressure in the blood vessels when the heart contracts. Hence the pulse pressure or the difference between systolic and diastolic blood pressures is high during maximal exercise. Diastolic blood pressure is the blood pressure in the blood vessels when the heart relaxes and receives blood after a contraction.
The maximum predicted heart rate is 220 – age of the person. The increase in heart rate is needed in order to increase the amount of blood pumped out each minute, to meet the demands of the exercising muscles. Systolic blood pressure and heart rate rise mainly due to the enhanced activity of a part of the nervous system known as the sympathetic system. There is also a withdrawal of the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system which normally reduces the heart rate.
Increased cardiac output or the blood pumped out per minute is partly due to increased heart rate and partly due to increase in stroke volume. Stroke volume is the amount of blood pumped out by each heartbeat. Pulse pressure is increased because of the increased stroke volume and enlargement of peripheral blood vessels during exercise.
Now what happens to your usual blood pressure and heart rate with regular exercise? Even though the heart rate and blood pressure rise during exercise, in the long run, it brings down both. When you work out regularly for a long period, the body tones yourself for the exercise. The rise in heart rate and blood pressure for a given level of exercise comes down.
That is why the resting heart rate of an endurance athlete is low, called as athlete’s bradycardia. Regular exercise is an important lifestyle modification for control of blood pressure. Mild increases of blood pressure can be managed by a graded exercise program and a heart healthy diet, without any medications. Even those with higher levels of blood pressure, can start exercise programs after controlling the blood pressure with medications. This should be under strict medical supervision to check if there is undue rise initially with exercise.