Effect of Caffeine on Blood Pressure during Resistance Exercise in Sedentary Healthy Male

The risk of coronary artery disease increases with increasing of blood pressureboth in hypertensive and normotensive persons; on the other hand nutritional factors have asignificant effect on blood pressure. The purpose of this study was to assess theeffect of caffeine on blood pressure in sedentary healthy male during resistance exercise. In single-blind crossover study, twenty healthy and non-athlete male in the University of Mohaghegh Ardabili randomly selected and stratified according to age and BMI into twogroups: caffeine and placebo. The subjects performed repetitions to exhaustion at 60% of 1RM for any motion of chest press, leg press, squat and lat pulldown, 1 hour after taking caffeine (6 mg/kg body weight) or Placebo (similar dosage of starch). Blood pressure (BP) was measured before and 1 hour after taking caffeine and also immediately after any exercise. Data analysis was conducted using independent and paired t-test. Results indicated that systolic and diastolic BP and mean arterial pressure significantly elevated following caffeine intake at rest, but no significant differences were observed after exercise. These findings indicate that caffeine at this dosage level alters cardiovascular dynamics by augmenting arterial blood pressure in moderately non-athletes male at rest. However, it seems that taking caffeine before resistance exercise does not cause abnormal elevations in blood pressure in sedentary healthy male.