Subacute Blood Pressure Response in Elderly Hypertensive Women after a Water Exercise Session: A Controlled Clinical Trial

Background : There are few studies relating the practice of water exercises and blood pressure responses. Aim : The objective of this study was to evaluate the subacute blood pressure behaviour in elderly hypertensive women after a water exercise session. Methods : This was a controlled clinical trial, carried out with 16 hypertensive elderly women with the following characteristics (mean±SD): age 66±2.94 years, body weight 68.43±12.08 kg, height 158±5.34 cm and body mass index 27.32±4.30 kg/m 2 . The study occurred on 2 days, 48 hours apart, with an experimental protocol and a control protocol. The experimental protocol underwent a moderately intense and predominantly aerobic 40-minute session with water exercises for the upper and lower limbs. The control protocol did not enter the pool and did not exercise, but all other procedures were similar to those of the experimental protocol. The blood pressure measurements were performed at times before and every 10 minutes for 30 minutes after the protocols. Student’s t-test was used to determine if the averages of the two samples were significantly different. Results : Blood pressure increased significantly but not greatly after the water exercise session, but this did not happen with the control protocol. Systolic blood pressure in the experimental protocol decreased significantly only 30 minutes after the exercise session, which did not occur in the control protocol. Diastolic blood pressure, on the other hand, decreased significantly at minutes 10, 20 and 30. This also did not occur with the control protocol, but an intergroup analysis showed that diastolic blood pressure was similar for the two protocols. Conclusions : The results of this study show that a prescription of water exercises can be carried out in relative safety with this group of patients, and that systolic blood pressure tended to decrease, as shown by the measurement at minute 30.