Different acute cardiovascular stress in response to resistance exercise leading to failure versus not to failure in elderly women with and without hypertension--a pilot study

Objective: The purpose of the present study was to compare the effects of resistance exercise (RE) leading to failure versus not to failure on 24-h blood pressure (BP) and rate-pressure product (RPP) responses in normotensive and hypertensive trained elderly women.

Methodology: Seven normotensive women and seven women with medically documented hypertension randomly performed three experimental sessions: (i) a non-exercise control session that involved 30 min of seated rest, (ii) whole body RE leading to failure that involved three sets with an eight repetitions maximum (8RM) load and (iii) whole body RE not to failure that involved three sets with 70% of an 8RM load. Systolic BP (SBP), diastolic BP (DBP) and mean BP (MBP) responses during each hour of sleep and awake states were measured.

Results: Results of all subjects revealed that the RPP was higher (P ≤ 0.05) during afternoon and night hours after the RE session leading to failure versus not to failure and the non-exercise control session. For the hypertensive group during the night hours, SBP remained higher after the RE session not to failure (P = 0.047) versus non-exercise control session. For the normotensive group, DBP remained higher after the RE session leading to failure over the 24-h period (approximately 8 mmHg h(-1), P = 0.044) and the period upon awaking (approximately 5 mmHg h(-1), P = 0.044) versus the hypertensive group.

Conclusions: The normotensive elderly women of this pilot study presented a greater cardiovascular response to RE leading to failure, as a consequence of the higher training intensity.