Peter Beck Kim's Other Blog

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Chronic Tacos low carb tostada bowl for #4HB Slow-Carb lunch...and Gumby

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Never gets old:

  • chicken
  • lettuce
  • pinto beans this time
  • ladle thwock of guac
  • cilantro, onions, pico de gallo and medium green salsa
  • no tostada shell, chips, rice, tortilla, etc.

For breakfast, had a quick 3 egg in-skillet scramble, after sauteeing 2 clawfuls of organic spinach in a glop of olive oil with a little Dairygold butter. No added salt, lots of ground pepper, and some leftover black beans heated up with some sprinkled cayenne pepper on top. Protein, potassium, magnesium, fiber, and testosterone enahncement all in one.

Hibiscus tea through the morning.

Still exploring the exercise options...will be studying Tracy Reifkind's DVD, Programming The Kettlebell Swing, this weekend. Have a line out to a local kinesiologist for an exercise physiology update. Both should help direct the next phase of personal testing: which exercise types are either blood pressure neutral, or hypertension reducing.

One senior RKC gave a shout out to Gumby: get flexible like Gumby before focusing on any other moves, if you've got elevated BP. I was more flexible than most, though no pal to Pokey, when my BP was 30 points higher a month ago, but I see his point. Hard to lower your pump pressure if you're tight and clenched all the time.

Love the KB swings, but miss the adeptness of moving up, down, and around. Even if they don't lower the BP, it's time to re-introduce the joint mobility and movement training.

 

Filed under  //   4HB   Chronic Tacos   Slow-Carb Diet   Tracy Reifkind   hibiscus tea   joint mobility   kettebell swings  
Posted January 27, 2011
 

On choosing exercise for BP lowering, along with #4HB

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Is there an exercise better than kettlebell swings to optimize blood pressure control?

It's an interesting question -- and maybe one that doesn't need an answer. So far, my BP seems to be dropping pretty well, with a fairly modest (read: much less than before) exercise program. Mondays and Fridays, doing 75 kettelbell swings with a 24 kg RKC 'bell, two-handed, is about it. I've even forgone my prior joint mobility, FlowFit, and 5 Tibetans, and my BP hasn't apparently suffered. This morning's was the lowest systolic BP reading I can remember, ever: 118.

For some things, the most effective way to advance is to sit the hell down.

The focus has been on other, less strenuous tweaks. Diet. Supplementation. Breathing meditation. Some work within minutes, others take weeks. But none require months to significanty lower blood pressure, not even diligent exercise in the sports medicine research.

So, Possibility Numero Uno: Efficient blood pressure reduction may be 80% non-exercise dependent. Right now, it appears to be more like 90-95% due to the tweaks above.

Possibility Numero Dos: Exercise selection may be more a matter of finding a program that doesn't worsen blood pressure, instead of discovering one that lowers it. This is a better way of looking at matters if BP lowering has already occured via Non-Exercise Tweaks (NETs), and the goal is to retain those losses.

Right now, my sample size consists of myself, and the 3 weeks I've been doing Slow Carb + KB swings + NETs of my own devising -- not very generalizable. But if correct, this modified 4HB approach would have tremendous appeal from an efficiency standpoint. If the only way to reach a goal is by a daily, periodized slog, so be it -- but it's a LOT easier to eat right and sip hibiscus tea throughout the day (more on this later) than to lift a canonball or your own bodyweight hundreds of times every day, if the goal is to simply not blast holes in your arteries. The starting point for real bodywork should be a relaxed, ready place with blood pressure already under control, not a daily fight just to keep it in check.

Otherwise, every other exercise goal (strength, mass, agility, martial arts prowess) becomes a juggling act on the edge of disaster. If you must do kettebell swings for half an hour, 3-6 days a week just to keep your BP in check, I guarantee you will have issues exploring much of anything else.

 

 

 

Filed under  //   Slow-Carb Diet   blood pressure   hibiscus tea   hypertension   kettebell swings  
Posted January 22, 2011