Movies too IMO. 1994 alone had The Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, Leon the Professional, Forest Gump, Natural Born Killers and Dumb and Dumber.
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Haha! I’ve watched at least a part of 2 of those movies, just this week.
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I had mine done a lot at about 4:00 pm, at the start of the rehab session and after a 20 min. drive through afternoon traffic. It would fluctuate +/- 10 points or so based on traffic, hydration levels, what I ate, etc. The only real condition the cardiac therapists had was a 10 min. rest upon entering to return to baseline after the walk in.
What they were really looking for was any unusual swings. Like, mine would drop low, way low, like 75/60 ish sometimes, and that would get their attention. Or one time I was at high anxiety/panic from stress and it read at 160/110, plus streaking pain through the chest. That warranted a trip downstairs to the ER. But the baseline was typically in the 110/75 range, which they considered great.
More recently due to a few factors, it was reading in mid 130’s and broke 140’s a few times, but read at like 125/75 at my last check up, which the Doc considered unremarkable. He said they don’t treat unless it breaks 140. That’s the magic number where they start to look at controlling it through meds or adjusting the current regiment.
I think that consistency of conditions is key. Like if you take it every night at 10:00 pm with your feet up, etc.
Granted, I’m in a whole different treatment category, but I hope there’s something useful in there.
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Certainly useful info. I am trying to learn as much as reasonable about heart and BP. I don’t have any current issues, and want to keep it that way.
Do you know what would be alarming as far as low BP goes? You mentioned 75/60, that seems very low. What numbers would indicate too low of BP for a doctor (like the cutoff point)?
I think it’s when the bottom number, diastolic, is at 60 or less. At that point dizziness, loss of consciousness, and injuries resulting from that can easily occur.
I’ve had a few close calls on the low side when lifting, especially the YouTube favorite, standing up after a high/max effort deadlift and a few times with ohp.
A particular complication of medications is exercise induced hypotension. That’s when your blood pressure drops so low and quickly that the blood pretty much falls out of your head.
The only resource I’ve been referred to by professionals for supplemental learning has been the AHA, or heart.org.
There was a guy on a thread here not too long ago claiming to be a cardiac therapist that “Cured” many patients of their CHF, through various means and methods.
Such is the internet.
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I have learned that when it’s heavy, to kinda rest at the bottom with my hands on the bar, and exhale slowly.
Yeah, I am not going to add anything for BP, unless I am fairly high. Even with that, I’d start low. Probably half dose, then evaluate with BP measurements.
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the only thing thats better nowdays is porn, lol 
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Yeah, I’m glad to hear that.
I hate to warn people off of something and end up hardening their resolve in the process.
BP & heart meds can be Extremely dangerous.
Like AAS has some long term use stuff. A couple meds I take can straight up kill you right now through various mechanisms.
The beta blocker I take has some serious warnings, and the arb can occasionally leave you couch locked.
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What ARB are you using?
It seems a lot of BBers are talking about low dose Telmisartan. Almost as if gear users should just add it in as preventative.
I will say, I play Dr. on myself, but I do try to be knowledgeable and moderate in use. To me it doesn’t seem to crazy to add a half dose of Telmisartan if I am injecting myself with Test. Could be wrong though.
I take Valsartan.
I’m pretty sure my brother takes hydrochlorothiazide, which is the same thing as telmisartan, think.
That type of pharmacokinetics stuff is a bit beyond me, but I know that one of the effects is diuresis through some mechanism. Then they’ll also take an actual diuretic to dry out even more, then either by hypernatremia or sodium depletion and dehydration end up dropping dead. 
It becomes a question of whether it’s wise or useful to continue taking more and different drugs to combat the sides of the other drugs.
After a certain point, that hamster wheel seems to become more difficult and dangerous as the normalization of deviance progresses to deadly results.
(I know you must be at least glancingly familiar with that phrase!)
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That is true. I think it is dose dependent, and many titrate up to 80 mg/day. Getting blood work done for kidneys and observing urination patterns would be wise if introducing this drug.
There has to be balance IMO. I had fairly low T when I started TRT, so I plan on staying on that. If I have high BP while on TRT dosages, and cardio doesn’t help, I’d look into a BP med.
But you are right, I think the stuff the guys that take a lot of gear take to offset the sides from the gear, is more than many would think. I do think for some of these guys (early death bodybuilders), that some of these drugs may have helped them. I don’t plan on using lots of gear. I don’t respond that great to it for positive results, but I also don’t have any noticeable negative sides either.
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Cardio definitely helps. A guy posted a Great video yesterday in the Darden forum by a guy who is like, a world’s leading scientist on cardiophysiology discussing why cardio is good for heart volume and why metabolic conditioning/weights is not cardio.
Very informative. If you want I’ll grab it and link it here.
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That would be great. I’d kinda like to know what I could do to get a lot of heart benefits of cardio with not a lot of time.
Say I could get 80% benefit with 20% time, that would interest me. Don’t know if that is how it works though. I suspect there is diminishing returns for heart health with cardio. Don’t know where that occurs though.
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There we go.
My takeaway is the benefit of the pre loading effect of cardio, versus the muscular occlusion (and commensurate increase in bp) from lifting, along with the ventricular wall hypertrophy, etc.
I could have it wrong, but my understanding is that it takes about 20 minutes to get the oxygen cycle full ramped up, then about 20 min. of cardio after that, for about a 40 min. total.
My observations of performance/effort using an airdyne reflect that very accurately.
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Also, forgot to like a bunch of your posts, but really appreciate this type of interaction.
Thanks. 
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Well thank you! I am watching the video right now.
I am not sure I am going to find a good answer to the “how do I get most the heart benefits with the least work question”. American Heart Association recommends 150 minutes of moderate, or 75 minutes of vigorous cardio spread though the week. I will say that I get that 150 minutes of moderate in the nice weather months, but not currently (it’s been about 0-10F lately where I live). I am going to count lifting as a few minutes of my cardio (since I do quite a few hours of that).
I think 30 minutes a couple times a week of vigorous cardio would do me well. Maybe I’ll start that on my upper body days. TBH, I will likely stop doing something if it’s too much for me. Might start with 15 minutes of vigorous cardio twice a week (on upper body days), and build up to 30-40 minutes of vigorous.
I got good results from a set time, starting at about 15 minutes of very low intensity (immediately post heart attack) and steadily increasing to about 30 min., while also increasing distance within that time.
I’d have to check my log to be sure, but I know that for a while I was hitting about 6 miles in 30 min. handily, but recovery was and has continued to be a real stumbling block. That’s with 4 stents and a big dead spot on the left ventricular wall though.
You can probably surpass that pretty quickly and without a whole lot of dedicated effort, assuming everything is intact and free flowing.
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Hopefully that is the case. I’ve been getting pretty winded after hard sets of 10. I remember yesterday feeling like I was half way home before I fully caught my breath. But I also got the booster shot the day before.
I don’t think I’ve done any damage, but don’t know.
I used to be a bit of runner, and I am capable of building cardio quickly. My running buddies were kinda frustrated at how quickly I progressed when I started. That ended up being a sorta bad thing though, because my heart and lungs outpaced what my joints could handle.
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I can’t say I’ve seen much 90s porn, but likely a little as I was about 13 when 2000 rolled around.
I don’t think much of it would even be watchable on a big screen now. Can you even hook a VCR up to a flat screen?
Bench today
Bench 335x1 355x1 325 4x5
Narrow bench 285 2x8 , 7
Belt squat 435 3x5
Chin 3x12
Dip 3x15
Was gonna do arms, but the wife was upset with how long I was taking. It’s okay, pretty good with today. Now time to ruin it with excessive drinking.
Missed one rep on the narrow bench. I’ll retry that weight next week I guess.
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