Fitness

tl;dr: looking for a moderately intense upper body workout that will impact heart rate the most.

I am a "new" runner again after not going out of my way to exercise for the last 20 years or so. My blood pressure had gotten insane (resting rate was clocked at +180/+120 at a Dr. checkup earlier this year.) so I decided to take action.

For the past couple of months, I have been working my way up from walking, to power-walking, to almost jogging and now into actual running at probably a 8-10 minute/mile pace. Thankfully, I have always been on the thinner side, so I get to focus purely on cardio for now.

Of course, my posture and gait sucked ass at first and I was pushing too hard without much recovery time, so as a result, I am babysitting minor MCL injuries right now. There isn't anything torn or anything, just sore as hell. I literally just got back from a 2.5 mile walk, but it was kind of pointless as it was extremely slow pace and I had to stay focused on knee safety.

However, as a result of the walking/jogging/running, my resting blood pressure is already down to a reasonable average of 124/90 and my Dr. has reduced my BP meds (beta blockers). As hell has apparently frozen over, she even managed to crack a smile over my lifestyle changes. (She has seen me through some rough times to include my most severe alcoholism days, so I was just used to stern looks and pseudo-lectures.)

Through my fitness apps, I noticed a direct correlation between max heart rate achieved (over time) to reduction of BP and lower resting heart rate and I want more!

On my running down time/recovery time, I would like keep to pushing my heart rate a bit. What upper body exercises are best for heart rate as I still am able to commit 1-1.5 hrs per day to fitness? Until I can plateau my fitness level and switch to more "maintenance syle" exercises, I would prefer to keep pushing fairly hard.

Any suggestions would be appreciated and I hope my storytime post gave context to my situation. Cheers!