Effect of long-term resistance exercise on body composition, blood lipid factors, and vascular compliance in the hypertensive elderly men

Hypertension is designated as either essential (primary) hypertension or secondary hypertension and is defined as a consistently elevated blood pressure exceeding 140/90 mmHg. Hypertension is called “the silent killer” because it often causes no symptoms for many years, even decades, until it finally damages certain critical organs. In various causes of hypertension, obesity is an increasing health problem worldwide, and several epidemiological studies have identified a positive association between obesity and an increased incidence of hypertension. Therefore, in the present study, we investigated the effect of long-term resistance exercise on body composition, blood lipid profile, vascular compliance, and blood pressure in the elderly men. For this study, the In-Body test, blood lipid profile, and analysis of vascular compliance and blood pressure were performing before and after in experiment. The twenty male subjects aged between 68 and 72 yr were recruited from the ‘Y’ senior towers in Korea. All subjects performed exercises on a weight training machines 40 min once a day for 52 weeks. The exercise intensity for resistance training was 60% of the 10 RM maximal voluntary contraction test. All subjects before performing resistance exercise showed an increase in hypertension following enhanced %fat, blood lipid factors (TC, LDL-C), whereas decreased lean body mass (LBM), vascular compliance. However, 52 weeks of resistance exercise suppressed %fat and LDL-C, whereas improved LBM, vascular compliance, resulting in reducing hypertensive levels in the elderly men. We suggest that resistance exercise can be a valuable tool for the remarkable improvement of hypertension.