THR on BP meds. (Any exercise physiologists out there?)

rayahmarie333

Hi, everyone... I am being treated for high blood pressure and take 2 different meds. (One of them is 500 mg/ 3 times a day and the other is 100 mg/ two times a day, which is a Beta Blocker. I need to lose weight, but my doctor told me my target heart rate during exercise while on these meds. should be about 100. :huh: He said if my HR is 100 then I'm doing really good. The problem is that I don't 'feel' like I'm really exercising when my HR is at 100. :noway: In fact, I don't really break a sweat until I'm at 120. The weird thing is that my HR is 100 when I'm hardly doing any activity (but my resting HR is around 69 - 72). However, when I increase the intensity, my HR also increases but it usually stays under 130. It's not easy to keep my HR between 120 and 130 - probably because I've been exercising a while and my body has gotten used to it. I guess my question is: If I listen to the doctor, and keep my HR around 100 while exercising, would I achieve the same effects? Would I lose weight and is my body really benefiting? I feel fine when exercising at 120 to 130. That would be within my 'zone' if I wasn't taking any BP meds. Thanks in advance for responding. Your input/ experiences would be grately appreciated. (I know I should listen to the doctor, but I'm wondering if I should find a new one. I'm not sure if he is giving me accurate info. :grumble: )

Azdak

Doctors don't always know that much about exercise. They have a lot to study and, quite frankly. I'd rather have my doctor spending his time reading new research on how to cure cancer and stuff like that. He or she does not need to study exercise physiology--that's what they have me for.

Beta blockers have a blunting effect on heart rate and result in a modest decrease in maximal aerobic capacity (VO2max). You still burn almost the same calories doing an activity as someone not on beta blockers (maybe slightly less)--your heart rate is just calibrated to a different "scale". It makes using calorie readings from an HRM useless, but does not dramatically decrease your calorie burn.

The mistake your doctor seems to be making is to assume that everyone has the same HR response when they are on the medication. That's just not true. HR response can vary based on the type of drug, the does, the time of day, and your individual physiology.

In the old days, we would take people on beta blockers and have them do a max stress test while they were on their meds. That way we would get an idea of their actual HR max and could calibrate the new "scale". Nobody does that anymore, and usually one can use perceived exertion to effective gauge exercise effort.

Perceived exertion just means that you rate your overall effort (best to use your breathing) and compare it to a scale. The most common one in use is called the Borg Scale. I'm really "old school" so I use the old 6-20 scale. There is a 1-10 scale out there as well, but, just as people get used to english or metric measurements, the1-10 scale just doesn't make any intuitive sense to me.

Anyhow, the numbers are associated with different effort levels. On my 6-20 scale, for example, 9 is "Light", 11 is "Fairly Light", 13 is "Somewhat hard", 15 is "Hard" and 17 is "Very Hard".

Most people will spend the majority of time at the 11 or 13 level, and almost all of their exercise time within the 9-15 range.

Learn to pay attention to your breathing and sense of overall effort and you will be able to gauge your intensity as accurately as with an HRM. If you do monitor heart rate, don't worry about staying at any particular heart rate level. Just work at the desired perceived exertion and learn what your HR is at those effort levels. Collect some data and take that back to your doctor. He'll likely think that's fine.