Background:
I suffered a minor angina, and did follow ups about 5 or so months ago. Nothing wrong. Good cousin of mine is a cardiologist. Basically I’m fat and hav ebeen working on that. That was the big concern. Both he and my actual cardiologist (father’s friend) reccomended just taking it easy off of lilfting and do LISS/gpp like walking. What characterized the angina was a slow onset and high bp for a couple days after. Also drinking tons of caffeine at this point->bad sleep(high bp)->caffinated (higher bp). No caffeinate intake present day.
Heaviest weight was 265 5’10. South Asian. Cut down to 229, meandered around 232. Currently around 237 after I added in bench. and followed a lot of your diet reccomendations, single serving, protein. What i was missing was fiber however, and feel like I have a good bit of motivation and a great new weapon in the arsenal to cut.
Was in the middle of the bridge 3.0 at the time and been doing it with some modifications (ie instead of 2ct paused squat deficit which I find raises my bp less) with the function to just get up WoWeek. or might cut out a set here or there towards the end (on the x3 sets) or split my workout over two sessions
Yesterday I hit a PR of 275 on my 1rm deadlift. I did it after stupidly just stacking 315 onto the plate (PR from when I was 265), and after being unable to get it off the ground AND having my belt (something I dont do due to an angina fear, but now kind of have to as I get heavier). After failing the 315 I almost immedaitely went into my 275 and did two reps. I could feel my BP stay up.
My resting BP is about 120/80. generally in a ‘good’ range if not at the lower end of pre hypertension. Morning I was shocked into waking up by a call it is right now 141/87. On 40mg statins that brought my ldl down from 187 to 88 albeit at an elevated alt of 68, and a tolerable feeling of muscle pain and once what I felt like was liver inflammation. But my GP told me to stay with it and wants to kick me down to 20mg every other day and see my ALT on my next blood test
Questions:
I swear there was a squatting or deadlifting video either of yo uguys did where you demonstrate where the air should go in a valsalva. Care to remind me which one it was?
I can’t seem to nag the itch here that I am performing my valsalva incorrectly. I breath down my center line into where my stomach organ and belly button rests and felt some pressure there the morning after. During my angina I felt a ‘beat’ there. I wonder if I should be more towards my rib/diaphram and sides would this help lower my bp? Would ie make a difference or this isn’t just as important as having a closed glottus?
What training modifications can I make, should I aim more for hypertrophy range and weight reps, instead of heavier sets (but you would still get the same BP rise, so split those aftermentioned sets?) as I embark on a cut?
The good news is my form has gone up, my numbers are going up, and I’m almost as strong as I was with ~30lbs+ less of fat on me, and I’ve built habits that scale.
Starting this year 1rm | current 1rm
Bench 115 185
Squat 85 225
Dl 115 275
There’s a lot to unpack here, and much of it (particularly with respect to your “angina” – which I’m not sure was really true cardiac angina) is more in the realm of individual consultation than it is appropriate for a forum post.
Regarding your questions:
I swear there was a squatting or deadlifting video either of yo uguys did where you demonstrate where the air should go in a valsalva. Care to remind me which one it was?
I don’t recall a valsalva-specific video. The air is going into your lungs regardless, but we tend to think about bracing “down” in the lower abdominal region, instead of up high in the chest/face region.
I can’t seem to nag the itch here that I am performing my valsalva incorrectly. I breath down my center line into where my stomach organ and belly button rests and felt some pressure there the morning after. During my angina I felt a ‘beat’ there. I wonder if I should be more towards my rib/diaphram and sides would this help lower my bp? Would ie make a difference or this isn’t just as important as having a closed glottus?
This would not impact your resting blood pressure outside of the context of training, which is what we care about.
What training modifications can I make, should I aim more for hypertrophy range and weight reps, instead of heavier sets (but you would still get the same BP rise, so split those aftermentioned sets?) as I embark on a cut? The good news is my form has gone up, my numbers are going up, and I’m almost as strong as I was with ~30lbs+ less of fat on me, and I’ve built habits that scale.
Great work with your weight loss and training progress so far. Overall, you can continue training however you prefer – the most important aspect of cutting body fat is going to be your diet, rather than substantial training modifications. Some people prefer to keep some heavy work in the mix, while others prefer to switch to higher-rep, “hypertrophy”-style work – which is fine too. You’d ideally be doing some conditioning as well.
Appreciate your time immensely doc. Thank you. Will read the posts
I use the term angina just to mean chest tightness/pain. In both my instances my bp was elevated for days after wards. The first angina was far more major 150-160 bp/100 basd on a non-mercury reading, so probably higher on both sys/dia…the more recent one around 140/85-90 and came down a good bit within two days almost normal
So I will try to emphasize ‘down’ (usually towards my love handles is how I would do it) in my abdomen and supporting my spine is another cue I intend to work on. My intuition was that my valsalva might be funky because both times my elevated bp/chest tightness occured were on DL, whereas I seem to be good on my squat and any such difficulty despite almost the same weight.
I also wonder if a consistent BP rise would accompany a hernia?