Okay, so I finally have clearance from my doctor to resume exercise. I know fast walking is fine so I'm back to using my treadmill.

Curious about what your doctors have told you on what types of exercises are bad for people with HBP. I've heard that weight training (heavy weights) is bad. But interested to know if general muscle exercises (with hand weights), push ups, or crunches are bad.

And yes, for anyone concerned about weight gain...if your BP is high and you now get it under control (via meds), you will gain weight. Why? Your heart and body were working extra hard keeping your body functioning with high BP. You will need to change your eating / exercise habits. The weight gain is not a side effect of the medication. It's a side effect of your BP getting back to a normal range.

The choice is to enjoy the high metabolism with HBP and die young...or live a long life and get your BP under control and focus on doing more to stay in shape. I'm choosing the latter.

I've never heard that about the weight gain w/ bp.

As far as exercise, I work out pretty hard with cardio and also lift weights. My doc said it's okay. Not that I want to recommend that for anyone else. The cardio is very important though. I'm not a body builder, just want to mainting muscle tone.

If you go to an overweight, couch potato of a doctor he's apt to tell you weight training is bad.
Find one with a killer body and he'll say it's perfectly fine.

I think both aerobic and anaerobic training will benefit hypertension unless one is malignantly hypertensive or one has aneurisms. I do both and had my first diagnosis of high blood pressure 31 years ago.

Lack of exercise and being overweight are probably the two biggest causes of high blood pressure.