Sympathetic activity is not a main cause of blood pressure reduction with exercise training in un‐medicated middle‐aged/older men

Background This study tested the hypothesis that training reduces resting sympathetic activity and improves baroreflex control in both hypertensive and normotensive men but reduces blood pressure only in hypertensive men. Methods Middle‐aged/older un‐medicated stage‐1 hypertensive males (mean age 55 ± 3 years; n = 13) and normotensive controls (mean age 60 ± 5 years; n = 12) participated in 8 weeks of supervised high‐intensity interval spinning training. Before and after training, muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA) and blood pressure were measured at rest and during a sympatho‐excitatory cold pressor test (CPT). Based on the measurements, baroreceptor sensitivity and baroreceptor threshold were calculated. Results Resting MSNA and baroreceptor sensitivity were similar for the hypertensive and the normotensive groups. Training lowered MSNA (p