Post-Plyometric Exercise Hypotension and Heart Rate in Normotensive Individuals: Influence of Exercise Intensity

Purpose: the purpose of this study was to compare the effects of high, moderate and low intensity plyometric exercise on the post-exercise systolic and diastolic blood pressure and heart rate responses. methods: ten healthy normotensive men (age, 21.1±0.9 years; height, 175.8±6 cm; and body mass, 69.1±13.6 kg) volunteered to participate in this study and were evaluated for three non-consecutive days in depth jump exercise from 20-cm box (low intensity [li]), 40-cm box (moderate intensity [mi]) and 60-cm box (high intensity [hi]) for 5 sets of 20 repetitions. after each exercise session, systolic blood pressure (sbp), diastolic blood pressure (dbp) and heart rate (hr) were measured every 10 min for a period of 90 min. results: no significant differences were observed among post-exercise sbp, dbp and hr when the protocols (li, mi and hi) were compared. the li and hi protocols showed greater reduction in sbp at 40th-70th min of post-exercise (~9%), whereas the li and mi protocols indicated greater reduction in dbp at 10th-50th min of post exercise (~10%). in addition, the change in the dbp for hi was not significant and the increases in the hr were similar for all intensities. conclusion: it can be concluded that a plyometric exercise (pe) can reduce sbp and dbp post-exercise and therefore we can say that pe has significant effects for reducing bp and hr or post-exercise hypotension.