I hypothesised this would happen because I know thoughout my sporting history, the longer you exercise, the more times per minute your heart beats so I can conclude that when you exercise, blood must get from the heart to the rest of your body, consequently your heart beats more times per minute. This increases along with the duration of exercise as is noted from the results of this experiment
The only problem I had was obtaining the data in one lesson and as the collection was spread out over more than one lesson, the results may be less accurate as the circumstances of the person being tested may change, for example testing after lunch would achieve different results than at the beginning of the day.
I endeavoured to overcome this problem by working faster collecting results in one lesson.
I think that my results were not accurate because when we were getting our heart rate we only timed for 15 seconds then multiplied it by 4. This was not accurate, as gradually throughout the minute, your pulse rate is likely to decrease and this wasn’t taken into account, so we are assuming when taking the results immediately after exercise, your pulse rate would have stayed as high throughout.
The inaccuracy is proven, as my final average pulse rate is 244 b/min, which is physically impossible! The highest maximum pulse rate is worked out by:
220 – the person’s age you are testing
So the maximum possible pulse rate for me, the person tested, would work out as:
220 – 14 = 206 b/min
This is 38 beats fewer than my recorded value of 244 b/min even at ultimate work intensity which proves that my results were inaccurate.
I could also make my results more accurate by using an electronic pulse measurer rather than just counting, due to the possibility of human error. A more scientific method of testing could be by working an athlete on a cycle ergometer linking them up through an ECG or electrocardiogram. This measures heart rate, which initially is more valuable than measuring pulse rate as well and provides a constant type of exercise (cycling) at a set intensity. Running around the science block cannot be controlled and intensity may have varied i.e. there may be sprinting for the first 100m (working anaerobically without oxygen) followed by a slow jog (recovering from the sprint)
However I feel I had no anomalous results from the data I collected, and I feel I made no mistakes while gathering my results.
In the future I could also investigate the effects of anaerobic respiration, shorter more intensive exercise on heart rate as well as looking at this experiment throughout longer periods of exercise time. I could observe the duration and intensity to achieve maximal output.