Possibilities of Interpreting the Night-to-Day Ratio Specified by 24-hour Blood Pressure Monitoring

The ambulatory monitoring (7-day ABPM) was performed with ambulatory blood pressure monitoring devices TM-2430 (A\&D; Tokyo, Japan) based on both the cuff-oscillometric and Korotkoff sound method. The cuff was placed on the non-dominant arm according to the same rules applying to casual auscultation measurement. The monitoring device with a weight of 250 g was worn by the monitored subjects in a waist-fixed case continuously for 7 days except for times involving personal hygiene. During every automatic measurement, the arm was resting and hung along the body. The device automatically recorded all the regular measurements for seven days, between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. every 30 minutes and between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. every 60 minutes. Such short intervals are necessary to obtain a sufficient number of representative measurements.

Combined aerobic-resistance exercise (group 2) was scheduled twice weekly in the form of 60-minute workouts with a load intensity at the level of sub-maximum heart frequency (75-85% SFmax). The minimum time span between the workouts was 24 hours. The workout consisted of a 10-minute warm-up, 25 minutes of aerobic exercise (spinning bicycle or bicycle ergometer), 15 minutes of resistance exercise on gym machines (bench press, leg extension and pull down) with 40-50% 1-RM (one repetition maximum) intensity (3 series of 10 exercises), and a 10-minute cool-down (stretching of the main muscle groups).

The cardiovascular exercise (group 4) took the form of sixty-minute workouts scheduled two to three times weekly. The nature of the workouts was similar, combined aerobic-resistance exercise (a 10-minute warm-up, aerobic endurance on bicycle ergo meter for 25 minutes, resistance exercise on multifunctional gym machines for 15 minutes, and a 10-minute cool-down). The workout intensity was set at the level of the first ventilation threshold (VAT-1), corresponding to the following workout parameters: load (W) and heart rate (HR).19,20 The resistance exercise intensity was specified by the 1-RM (one repetition maximum) method. The maximum load lifted across the full range of motion for every exercise was used as the benchmark for the workload intensity specification, corresponding to 30 - 60% 1-RM.