Cardiac Rehab, valsalva and me
I'm 30 days out from an MI and a stent. Started cardiac rehab, which is 10 minutes at a time on three different machines (so as to exercise the entire body!). They say it should be "slightly hard" which means still able to have a conversation with the very nice people who work there and are taking my blood pressure as I exercise.
Asking the exercise physiologists monitoring me (presumably to call 911 should I drop dead) about weightlifting, they all agree that I can now start using an empty bar, progress up just a teeny bit, that's all good.
Question: Their consensus is that the valsalva will kill me because of increased BP so avoid it, based on the guidelines of the ACSM. I'm looking for some research to support this. I have done some Google Scholar kanoodling but haven’t found much. CJ Gotcher and Austin Baraki wrote a nice piece here on valsalva and the risk of dropping dead or your head exploding, but it doesn't really speak to the post MI situation.
Any current resources and or references would be appreciated.