One night back in April, over a bottle or two of wine — a lot for me as I hardly drink anymore — my dad and I got to talking about his uncle and the high blood pressure that runs in the male side of the family.
That great-uncle died when I was a kid and I don’t think he’d even hit 60 yet (the same had happened to my great-grandfather on that side).
Come to learn that he walked around with a blood pressure score that could clock in at 200/170.
That’s not a typo. If anybody had showed up to me in my PT days with a reading that high, they’d be hustled off to the emergency room. But not too fast.
For years he’d go into medical conventions (he was a doctor) and they’d all ooh and ahh at the reading on the BP cuff like a magic trick. Amazing enough until you die of a heart attack before you’re out of your 50s.
To be clear, this was not an overweight or out of shape man. Neither was my grand-daddy. They were born at the beginning of the depression in the early 1930s. Pictures from their youth into adulthood show active, in-shape, lean physiques. Today’s shut-in smooth-bodies were not common in America before the 1970s. Yet they both struggled with hypertension their whole lives.
The fitness world knows all about bad genetics for muscle mass and fat stores, but I think this one is much worse.
That conversation got me thinking. I was “supposed to be” on BP meds before age 35. Whether by luck of the draw, my life-time habit of lifting weights on the regular, my diet, or D) All of the Above, I dodged that bullet.
I check every so often and rarely do I see any value higher than 120/70.
This is the major reason that I’ve long since shed the “powerlifting physique” I kept in my 20s and early 30s. I can’t lift as much, but your max deadlift doesn’t matter from six feet underground.
The older I get, the more I see that the game is to keep playing as long as possible — and to get there with the most energy and least stress. Long life means little without the vitality to enjoy it. You won’t get there by knowing the most about how to do barbell curls or having the best abs.
I want this much-suffering body o’ mine to last a little longer than my elders.
While I’d love to credit my healthy blood-flow on my work ethic and consistency and excellent diet, I suspect there’s another factor at play. A factor that doctors, credentialed dietitians, and 99% of the personal-trainer know-it-alls showing off Pubmed knowledge and “posting fizeek” on Twitter would never think of.
I’ll say more about this in the webinar I’ve been going on about, which is coming up next week.
If you’re trying to get bigger, badder, and stronger, you’ll find value in what I’ll talk about. If you find yourself thinking more like I’m thinking, you’ll want to tune in.
The only way in to such things is to be on my email list. Click yon link:
Matt Perryman