The Impact of a Resistance Training Intervention on Blood Pressure Control in Older Adults With Sarcopenia

This premise of this K01 proposal is to address current gaps in the literature regarding the understanding of high blood pressure due to sarcopenia, and provide new evidence for the discernible relationship between low muscle strength and blood pressure in sarcopenia, and effective non-pharmaceutical treatment approaches. This study will evaluate the feasibility of recruitment, retention, implementation and adherence to an empirically-based progressive resistance training (PRT) intervention to test its effect on blood pressure in a targeted population of older adults with sarcopenia who are randomized (via block permuted scheme) to the PRT intervention. Built within this randomized control intervention design, the investigators will further explore reversibility to examine whether muscle strength serves as an intervention target for blood pressure control in sarcopenic adults, which will be more appropriately tested in subsequently well-powered R-level intervention studies. Physiologically plausible microvascular mechanisms by which the PRT impacts changes in blood pressure will also be explored.