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From the eList Bulletin Board …
How does the blood pressure of a healthy person affect his/her Minimum and Maximum Working heart rate? In other words, should a healthy person with lower than normal blood pressure systolic around 100 for instance) expect to have a lower Minimum and Maximum Working heartrate range than a person with a systolic of 120 or 130?
Thanks, Doug

Doug,
The answer to your question is no. A person's blood pressure will not significantly affect working heart rates in the manner you described. However, it is true that the more aerobically trained you are the lower your resting pulse and BP tend to be. When prescribing exercise without an accurate exercise test (i.e.. a stress test), the best thing to use is the Karvonen method which takes into account individual differences in resting pulse. (Don't forget to subtract 17 additional beats if you are exercising in the water). The normal BP response to exercise is for systolic pressure to increase and for diastolic pressure to stay the same or slightly decrease. In healthy people the Karvonen method is adequate, but in cardiac populations you need to have the results from a stress test to safely prescribe exercise intensity.
Haley, Exercise Physiologist, ATRIC

My name is Roland. I was diagnosed not long ago with anteriolysthesis between my L4 and L5. I am a yoga teacher and this pars defect or spondylolisthesis has created a lot of problems for me. I have a Grade 1 slippage and have a lot of stiffness pain etc. Nothing has seemed to help until recently.

I was in another state recently and ran into a guy that does Hydro Kinetic Therapy. He put 2 aqua joggers around my chest, weights on my legs, and a heavy weight between my legs, and then put me in WARM WATER (91 degrees). The water was deep. The theory is that I work my legs in a bicycle like circular motion until my back muscles relax from exhaustion and then the next 15 minutes decompression occurs in my spine.

I tried this for 5 sessions and am intrigued with it. It seemed to be the ONLY THING that really helps with this compression in my lower spine and hips.

Does anybody know where I can get more info on this? Is there any research behind this? What other conditions might this help? Has anyone else had help from this type of therapy? Are there contraindications?

Your input is most appreciated.
Roland

I've not heard the term "hydrokinetic therapy," but the technique is one that I've used on my patients since the mid-80's. I was in Hungary earlier this fall at a Medical hydrology meeting, and spoke to a spa physician in Budapest who has been using a similar technique for 20 years or more as well, so this has been around a while. The clinical conditions that it has been most useful in are spinal stenosis and spondylolisthesis. It is not essential to drive the back muscles to exhaustion, although muscles need to go to fatigue to get stronger. Research? There are nearly no aquatic techniques that have a large body of research behind them, though there are small studies on many. Contraindications? I have a number of patients who lack the core strength to stabilize an unstable segment and have increased pain with exercise. I very seriously doubt that increased pain means anatomic damage, although it may be tough to convince my fearful patients of that. Neither would I use this on fresh spine fusion patients.
Bruce E. Becker, MD

 

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