Dave Palumbo breaks down the best blood pressure medications for bodybuilders and gives a primer on what steps bodybuilders should be taking to maintain optimal heart health.
Dave palumbo here with another rx muscle rant today’s topic is going to be what are the best blood pressure medications that you can use to control blood pressure and to act preventatively to protect your kidneys cardiovascular system and brain obviously we don’t want to have high blood pressure we know uh that high blood pressure can be from several different
Sources it can be from holding a lot of extra cellular water you know retaining fluid in other words uh which adds more volume to your your blood system which increases the pressure it could be a genetic thing i never had high blood pressure early in my 20s when i was my in my mid to late 20s when i was the biggest i was i got it later in my like early 30s i
Started getting slightly high blood pressure and i think that was just a genetic thing because what happens is the blood vessel walls become a little stiffer as you get older they lose their compliance and being able to you know expand and contract as much and sometimes you you get higher blood pressures because of that and if you have a pre family predisposition
Of high blood pressure you tend to follow the family tree unfortunately these are things that you need to identify you know there’s several things that i always tell people to keep an eye on now i wish i knew this when i was you know competing blood pressure blood sugars now that we have glucometers that are super cheap to get you can touch blood blood sugars
But blood pressure is very important kidney health specifically obviously heart health and brain health too much high blood pressure obviously puts a strain on the heart it makes the chambers enlarge uh too much pressure on the brain can cause you know aneurysms and and all kinds of crazy stroke and stuff like that later in life so we don’t want to do that we
Don’t want to damage the blood vessels by putting tremendous pressure on them kidneys obviously is the most important especially since bodybuilders eat a lot of protein okay we’re constantly consuming food so the kidneys are constantly filtering the blood at a much higher rate okay than the average person who eats three times a day and because of that you add
High blood pressure on top of that and you’re really really taxing those kidneys and so that could be a problem so high you know protein intake is not a is not an issue for the kidneys assuming that the blood pressure is normal and that you’re hydrating enough you know and that’s that’s things that you have to understand i think people think well if you eat high
You know protein that’s bad for your kidneys no if you have kidney problems however and the kidneys can’t handle you know are not working at a maximum efficiency obviously eating a super high protein diet is not going to be good for your kidneys because they just can’t keep up with the with the workload of deaminating the uh the amino acids and you know cleansing
The blood so that’s why you would cut back protein and take if your kidney function is not good but it’s it’s not the high protein itself doesn’t cause the kidney problems the high blood pressure doesn’t why is that because you have this constant smashing of high pressure on the kidney filtering apparatuses in the kidney or apparati and then they get damaged and
When they get damaged sometimes they just become non-functional sometimes they scar over and become sclerotic or fibrotic they don’t function and you know you have a lot of those things down there but you know the more you kill off and and damage the eventually you you run out of them and your efficiency starts decreasing your and that’s why your creatinine will
Start to creep up and up and up because you’re not able to filter the blood adequately um so a lot of us you know myself probably included you know uh you know have over the years that probably have done some damage to our kidneys i’m sure just from this crazy super high protein diets you know i’m sure it’s one point in another i had high blood pressure and didn’t
Know about it you know i discovered in when i was about 33 34 that i was i was running some high blood pressures and i started taking blood pressure meds the question is what blood pressure meds are the best there’s different ways to deal with blood pressure you know i’ve seen people be put on what’s called beta blockers with beta blockers will slow the heart
Rate down so the heart has receptors on them known as beta 1 receptors and if you block those beta 1 receptors it slows the heart down so if the heart doesn’t beat as fast you’re not going to have your pressure is going to go down a little bit but i find that beta blockers really don’t control blood pressure very well they’re more i think they’re more appropriate
To prescribe beta blockers if you have say arrhythmias meaning that your heart can beat out of control too fast it can go through a flutter because because what beta blockers will do is prevent that that arrhythmia from happening because it keeps the heart from from going crazy like that it lowers heart rate for guys who train real hard having lo you’re not being
Able to raise your heart rate up you know it’s probably not the best idea because if you’re doing a set of high intensity squats or deadlifts you know you’re going to get light-headed because you’re not going to be able to pump enough blood to your muscles so that i never found that that was a good way to deal with it once again if you have an arrhythmia a different
Story if you’re just trying to control blood pressure to me beta blockers are a bad way to do that um there’s also obviously prescription diuretics that a lot of people older people get prescribed thiazide lasix being stronger than diazide and that’s to flush extra fluid out of the body because sometimes the body starts retaining fluid because the heart is not
Pumping efficiently and the circulation is not happening correctly and by taking that diuretic it gets rid of the extra fluid that might be backing up in the lungs per se and it will lower blood pressure okay and make the person feel better for most bodybuilders or people who are working out who are running slightly high blood pressures that’s probably not a
Good thing to do either because that’s really not the problem the problem is that they’re just running high blood pressure they’re really not backing up fluid and by giving a diuretic to someone who trains intensely you’re also compromising electrolytes so you’re lowering the sodium and potentially the potassium as well in the body depending on which diuretic you
Use and that can cause muscle cramping and can cause all kinds of other side effects so for bodybuilders on a regular basis a prescription diuretic is not the first line of defense that i would employ it’s probably for someone who has a an uncontrolled case of of blood of high blood pressure for the introductory you know hey i just found out i have high blood
Pressure or maybe i’m borderline and i want to protect my kidneys you really there’s two choices there’s what we call ace inhibitors and then there’s angiotensin receptor blockers okay ace inhibitors kind of you know inhibit the production of angiotensin so they they’re kind of a step ahead and then the angiotensin receptor blockers will just block the receptor
They both accomplish the exact same thing and they’re both pretty side effect free um you know some people get sometimes a little bit of a dry cough from one or the other but um i i haven’t had any problems on the i’ve tried both and i like the ace inhibitors the best i you know initially when i first started taking i had a little bit of a dry cloth once in a
While and it went away after a couple weeks it didn’t i don’t i don’t notice at all i don’t even know that i’m on the honest with you but i’ve tried to take come off the ace inhibitor just to see what my blood pressure would be because i’m like much lighter now and it does creep up so i’m like you know what i obviously need it and i do very well on them i have
I’m very controlled blood pressures on the ace inhibitor i use i use ramapril five milligrams twice a day there’s lysinopril which is like a kind of a generic form of it that’s a little cheaper than the rambo pro i have an insurance plan i don’t really care i’ve been using ramapro i have good results so i don’t i don’t change it up but if i like if i’m in the
Hospital or i have my shoulders done they don’t give you around the field they’ll give you a lacinapro because it kind of does the same thing and my blood pressures were actually low on on that as well so i don’t really worry about i know other people who use like tel valsartan um which is an angiotensin receptor blocker works similarly but blocks the receptor
For angiotensin and by doing that i mean the blood pressure seems to have the same amount of control now i read an article to see if you mix one ace inhibitor with a angiotensin receptor block if you get better results and they show statistically that there’s no better control of blood pressure so one of the other is is the choice and what you use is up to you
There’s different schools of thought of what works better and which is better i talked to my cardiologist about this all the time he’s a bodybuilder too and he he seems to think he uses an ace inhibitor like i do and he’s been using it for years like i have and he feels like his his blood pressure is controlled really well with them and i happen to agree with
Them i had asked them if you know was it worth changing since i know a lot of the angiotensin receptor blockers that are out now are newer and he said really this this because he’s a statistics guy he’s like statistically the ace inhibitors seem to control blood pressure really really well and there’s real no statistical significance and he said if you have no
Side effects from taking it and you don’t even know you’re on it why switch and you know what he’s right so you know you got to figure out what works well for you now there’s something else called calcium channel blockers and i found that you know originally one of my original doctors wanted to put me on that but i did a lot of research and i found that a lot of
Guys have like fluid retention in their legs because of that and i just felt like you know what calcium channel blocking really is probably not that the best thing to do for bodybuilders who need calcium for muscle contraction just didn’t it just didn’t sound like the right way to control blood pressure so i stuck with the ace inhibitor and that that’s what i would
Recommend that you guys do either an ace inhibitor or an angiotensin receptor blocker if you can control blood pressure with that and be in the normal low range i think that’s the way to go hopefully you know you don’t have to go to something else or add a prescription diuretic in there as well because like i said for some people they have uncontrolled high blood
Pressure and no matter how much ace inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker they take they’re still running high and they need to add something else in it on top of that obviously if you have arrhythmias or anything like that the beta blocker would be added on top of that so once again work with a cardiologist try to find a cardiologist that actually understands
You know working out and the athlete because if not they may prescribe something to you that’s not going to be in your best interest as a guy who actually works out really intensely in the gym like a calcium channel blocker or a beta blocker and that’s something that you have to have a good line of communication and if you don’t find a cardiologist that you
Can vibe with and that you get you know have a good rapport with i would say switch i know people you guys reach out to me in new york i have some good guys obviously down here in florida i’ve hooked up with a really really good guy as well if anyone wants any referrals i’ll be happy to help you out if if i can but i know that there’s a lot of cardiologists out
There that do work out and that are into that and understand the athlete from that perspective and that’s what you really need to look for once again you’re protecting yourself long term remember they call high blood pressure okay it’s known as the you don’t even know you have it disease you know type of thing uh it’s the silent killer because you don’t really
Know you have high blood pressure until the damage has been done so don’t walk around with your head in the sand go buy a blood pressure cuff measure your blood pressure throughout the day if you are running high go see your cardiologist let them do a work up on you and say you know what yeah you need one or no you don’t if you do there’s nothing wrong with it
It’s very protective as a bodybuilder to take a blood pressure mild blood pressure medication to prevent future complications all right i’m dave palumbo with an rx muscle rant
Transcribed from video
BEST Blood Pressure Meds for Bodybuilders? By RxMuscle — The Truth in Bodybuilding
