Development and Pilot Trial of Mixed Exercise Programme for Hypertensive Individual: Breathing Exercises and Bodyweight HIIT

Lifestyle changes are essential in non-pharmacological management of non-communicable chronic diseases, such as hypertension. Hypertension management can be achieved through aerobic exercise, dynamic resistance exercise and concurrent training, which combines both aerobic and dynamic resistance exercises in a single session or on different days. This study aimed to design an exercise program integrating high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and breathing exercises. To develop our exercise program, we employed two strategies: a comprehensive scoping review to identify the breathing exercise protocol and expert consensus to determine the HIIT component. Additionally, a pilot study was conducted on 10 hypertensive individuals to evaluate changes in mean blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR), cardiorespiratory fitness and muscle strength after performing the exercises three times per week for 10 weeks. We designed a breathing exercise regimen of 10 minutes, twice daily, in the morning and evening, three times a week, at a respiratory rate of 6 breaths/minute. Eight bodyweight exercises were selected for HIIT. Significant improvements were observed in mean systolic BP (p=0.001), diastolic BP (p=0.001), HR (p=0.046), and cardiorespiratory fitness (p=0.002) before and after the intervention. The developed module, combining deep breathing exercises and HIIT, effectively reduces systolic and diastolic blood pressure, lowers HR and enhances cardiorespiratory fitness.