High Load few Repetitions Exercise is better for the Cardiovascular System than low Load Many Repetitions Exercise

Blood pressure, pulse rate, and blood lactate concentration in response to resistance training are of critical significance for people, who could benefit from performing it, but to whom extreme blood pressure levels may be harmful. Traditionally high load training was held to cause an exaggerated blood pressure response but few recent studies challenged this. Since the published data is not unanimous, we examined whether longer duration with low load or high load in shorter duration would be favorable to heart rate, blood pressure, double product, and lactate levels in a group of healthy young people. Twenty-three young students performed twice, a week apart, a sequence of four sets of an exercise, once with 20 repetitions of 50% of maximal resistance of 1 Repetition Maximum and once with 10 repetitions of 75% of 1 Repetition Maximum. Heart rate was measured continuously while blood pressure and blood lactate levels were measured before exercise and after the conclusion of each set. Heart rate, blood pressure, and blood lactate levels increased significantly more following the 20, lower load repetition sets compared to the higher load 10 repetition sets. We conclude that high load low repetition exercise is less demanding on the cardiovascular system compared to lower load high repetition exercise, which should be considered in prescribing physical activity to older beginners and cardiac rehabilitation patients.