Everyone knows high blood pressure is a killer.

It’s the No. 1 cause of heart attacks in the United States and the most critical risk factor for strokes.

And we know it’s a bigger problem later in life, afflicting up to 65 percent of people 60 and over.

But do you know the best ways to help keep your blood pressure right where you and your doctor want it?

Here are the top five.

1. Exercise regularly. Studies prove that strength training and aerobics workouts lower both blood pressure numbers – the systolic and diastolic; this is one more reason you need to be lifting weights, using resistance bands, or practicing yoga. Strength training equals life. It does not equal bodybuilding! And, of course, exercise is an excellent way to…
2. Maintain a healthy weight. Being overweight makes your heart work harder to pump blood through your body. More than a quarter of people with high blood pressure are obese.
3. Manage stress. Take time daily to calm down purposefully, sit still, and focus on your breathing. Get enough sleep. Enjoy the outdoors, the arts, and hobbies.
4. Drink alcohol moderately, if at all, and don’t smoke. The first part means no more than two drinks a day for men and one for women. The second part means, Come on – are you kidding?
5. Watch salt? Yes. But also sugar. Limit how much of both you put on foods. But remember that salt and sugar are added heavily into our processed foods, so start reading labels and making your grocery choices accordingly.

Talk to your doctor about hypertension (another word for high blood pressure). Let us help you lower your high blood pressure by joining our 21-day strength and longevity program…guaranteed results! 

 

At church last Sunday, Pastor Bill suggested this, “If you don’t work to exhaustion you’ll be exhausted all the time”! Yes to this! Yes……and this is so hard to get our clients to understand. It boils down to the law of entropy.

The most common false excuse people make not to exercise is to say that, “Working out makes them even more tired”. If anything, exercising will increase your energy and endurance levels. While you exercise you may feel physically tired and exhausted at some point; however, this is not the same as being low energy all day long or always tired. It’s perfectly normal to feel fatigued after working out and exhausting your muscles.

The feeling of fatigue will subside within an hour if not less. The increased level of energy that follows this recovery time is what we are talking about when we say that exercising gives you more energy. The more consistent you are with your visits to the health club, the more stabile your level of energy will be during the rest of your day.

Sometimes life gets so hectic that we don’t have the choice but rather squeeze the workout in whenever we can, not to miss the opportunity to exercise. The following is a two week sample of 6 weeks of H.I.I.T. homework that we give our clients to get them off of training plateaus.

Interval Training Workouts Week 1-2
Stick to a 1:3 then a 1:2 work to rest ratio. For every interval that you work at a very high intensity you rest at virtually no intensity for an interval 2 or 3 times in length. For example if you jump rope for 30-45 seconds then you would rest for 60-90 seconds (yeah, that long).

Believe it or not this is very hard to do because most of us have been conditioned to work at the same pace all the time (too easy or way too hard) but rest is just as important as work. If you don’t feel you need rest then you need to work much harder during your work intervals.

3 min. mobility warm-up (your choice)
Dumbbell Swings 45 sec./rest 90 sec.
Burpees 45 sec./rest 90 sec.
Alternate back and forth between exercises for 20 min.
2 minute dynamic flexibility cool down

3 min. mobility warm-up
Dumbbell Swings 30 sec./rest 60 sec.
Burpees 30 sec./rest 60 sec.
Alternate back and forth between exercises for 20 min.
2 minute dynamic flexibility cool down

However you go about it is up to you but working out and staying active will give you more energy and keep your energy levels higher throughout the day either way!

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