Sudden drop in blood pressure while exercising - heart failure?

[rightside100]

Hi, I'm a healthy 21 year old male who typically lifts weights every day. For the past month or two, I've started to have problems where immediately after finishing a set with weights, I lose balance, nearly pass out and feel like I can't take a breath for a moment. This feeling doesn't occur during a set but immediately after. My blood pressure is usually normal and seems to raise in a normal way with exertion. However yesterday, upon completing a set and getting this feeling I'm describing, I immediately went and took my blood pressure and it was 84/61 - very low.

I notice the intensity of this sensation increases as I progress through a workout. I went to an urgent care doctor yesterday for this and was told it could be a heart problem, but its likely due to a drop in blood sugar from not getting enough protein in my diet. However I'm not sure if this sounds exactly right as this is a new development and my diet hasn't changed much in a while.

I worry that this could be a sign of heart failure and may lead to sudden death. Does this sound like something serious?

[MichelleP_3811]

Make sure you eat well ahead of workout and drink plenty of water, maybe even those sports drinks and see if that helps.  

[achillea]

Check out Post Exercise Hypotension:

http://www.nature.com/jhh/journal/v16/n4/full/1001377a.html

It's not unusual, and in general this drop after exercise is generally considered a healthy sign--something to be wished for.

However, the response of the cardiovascular system is different for resistance exercises (what you're doing) and endurance exercises like running or biking.  It's also different for people who have normal blood pressure, and those who either have high BP or are likely to develop it.

The BP changes are *very* great for weight work.  The research on this is not huge, but there is some suggestion that people who do real weight work might want to ensure that their hearts also have the kind of training that endurance sports provide, which seems to cause a longer period of healthfully lowered blood pressure than is achieved with weight work alone.

[Matiadbueno94]

I doubt its hear failure, but if it happens often you should definitely get it checked out. Could be a number of things. Better safe than sorry! Goodluck!