I was thinking somewhat recently about the fact that when you lift heavy weights, it tends to spike blood pressure, and then this may be harmful when done over many years (as I have done). e.g. it may weaken arteries or something. I wonder if it can be mitigated by, for example, working one arm and one leg at a time, instead of both together at once…
I posed the question to GPT-5-thinking, and here were the results:
Short answer: Yes—doing heavy lifts one arm at a time generally blunts the cardiovascular spike compared with lifting with both arms simultaneously, especially for upper-body work. Studies that directly compared the two found higher heart rate and rate-pressure product (a proxy for cardiac workload) during bilateral biceps curls versus the same exercise unilaterally; systolic BP itself rose in all cases, with between-condition differences smaller and sometimes inconsistent. Overall, unilateral tends to mean less total muscle mass at once → a smaller pressor response.
…
Bottom line: For heavy arm work, one arm at a time usually means a smaller spike, but breath control and proximity to failure are the biggest levers for safety.
Breath control is something I need to pay more attention to. I often catch myself not breathing during a rep and have to correct.
Recently, I made a small change to my weightlifting technique that is recommended by Attia and others to prevent tendon and joint injury, especially in older adults. I’m still performing between three and five sets at a rep of 10 or below, and a weight target aiming for near-exhaustion on the last rep.
What I changed is the method for performing each rep. Taking a preacher’s curl as an example, I contract as rapidly as I feel is safe, explosively if I can. I then release very slowly, a minimum five seconds and as long as 10 seconds. When I am close to the bottom of the rep, I begin the next rep without ever unloading the muscles.
The rationale for this strategy is preventing injuries, which are said to occur mostly in the release phase of a rep. It is also a technique used by bodybuilders to increase size. For me, the size issue is immaterial and, in any event, the empirical correlation between mass and strength is fairly high. By performing an entire set without unloading the muscles and extending the release time, I experience and intense burn much more quickly and with lighter weights that place less stress on joints and tendons.
You can find extensive technical discussion on the benefits and downsides of this technique. My report here is only that, at 80, I am definitely building strength faster, with lighter weights, and no injuries even though I work the muscles to exhaustion. As an example of the strength build I have maxed out the weight stack in a couple of the 12 machines in the circuit.