
Patients with high blood pressure often do not dare to exercise because they are afraid that their heart rate will increase and their blood pressure will increase. In fact, with the right guidance, patients can still exercise to lose weight, stay healthy or toned. Mr. Bao Nguyen, an expert of easyhealthylive.com, will guide you on how to practice if you are unfortunately carrying this disease.
Currently, an average of 4 out of 10 adults have high blood pressure. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), every year 17.5 million people die from cardiovascular diseases worldwide. In which, patients die from high blood pressure and its complications are over 7 million people.
What is high blood pressure?
High blood pressure has no obvious symptoms even though the disease is quite advanced. A small number of patients with high blood pressure may present with transient symptoms such as headache, shortness of breath or, rarely, nosebleeds.
People with high blood pressure are not always uncomfortable and the disease is known as the “silent killer”. There are many causes of high blood pressure such as age, genetics, ethnicity, salt sensitivity, alcohol use, oral contraceptives, muscle growth drugs and sedentary life.
Blood pressure that is consistently 140/90 mmHg or higher is considered high blood pressure.
How to prevent this dangerous disease?
- Maintain a healthy weight. Obese people have twice the risk of cardiovascular disease as the general population. When your fat percentage is too high, you just need to lose a little fat to reduce the risk of high blood pressure
- Limit alcohol
- Do not smoke because nicotine will constrict blood vessels and increase blood pressure
- Eat less salt, no more than 5g/day (1 teaspoon)
- Balanced consumption of magnesium, calcium, potassium
- Exercise regularly to maintain weight and reduce cardiovascular risk
How should you exercise when you have high blood pressure?
In addition to taking medication for treatment, regular exercise is always an effective method to supplement the treatment of the disease and is interspersed in the period of drug discontinuation.
Some of the factors that are always considered when planning an exercise program for people with high blood pressure will include:
- Always warm up thoroughly (more than 5 minutes) before exercising. A thorough warm-up will reduce the sudden spikes in blood pressure that patients often experience.
- Do not do weightlifting exercises, focus on low-intensity aerobic exercises (walking, climbing ladders, cycling, swimming, squats, lunges, push-ups…) especially effective for fat groups. obesity, older adults have orthopedic problems with the lower extremities of the body.
- Exercise intensity is always maintained at 50-75% of the highest heart rate. To get your maximum heart rate, subtract 220 from your age. Training at 80% high heart rate has no benefit on blood pressure.
Example: A person is 40 years old, maximum heart rate: 220 – 40 = 180 beats/min. So the intensity of exercise should maintain the heart rate at: 90 – 135 beats / minute. - Maintain body perception at a slightly exerted RPE (Rating of Perceived Exertion) of 10 – 13 (Borg GAV IL: Human Kinetics, 1998)
- Start practicing for 20-30 minutes and gradually increase to 30-60 minutes as you adapt to the intensity of the exercise
- Practice at least 4 times a week. If you practice regularly every day, it will be better. After exercise, blood pressure should drop for a few hours afterward.
- The cooling of the body also needs a reasonable time (over 5 minutes) to bring the body back to its original state. Cooling the body prevents headaches, dizziness and shortness of breath, avoiding sudden cessation of exercise for people who are taking antispasmodics.

John Alen was born in 1971 and is a doctor in the healthcare and psychology fields with many years of experience. He is currently working at easyhealthylive.com, a leading health and psychology blog. Having studied at Y1 National Medical University named after IM Sechenov, John Alen is using his knowledge and experience to help improve the physical and mental health of people in the United States.