Articles
Exercise: A drug-free approach to lowering high blood pressure
Weight training and high blood pressure
Keep it safe
Content
How exercise can lower your blood pressure
How much exercise do you need?
When you need your doctor's OK
Check your heart rate
Stop if you feel pain
Monitor your progress
Check your heart rate
To reduce the risk of injury while exercising, start slowly. Remember to warm up before you exercise and cool down afterward. Build up the intensity of your workouts gradually.
Use these steps to check your heart rate during exercise:
- Stop briefly.
- Take your pulse for 15 seconds. To check your pulse over your carotid artery, place your index and third fingers on your neck to the side of your windpipe. To check your pulse at your wrist, place two fingers between the bone and the tendon over your radial artery — which is located on the thumb side of your wrist.
- Multiply this number by 4 to calculate your beats per minute.
Here's an example: You stop exercising and take your pulse for 15 seconds, getting 37 beats. Multiply 37 by 4, to get 148 beats per minute.
