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Introduction

AN EXPERIMENT TO FIND OUT THE EFFECT OF EXERCISE AND HEALTH ON HEART RATE. PILOT EXPERIMENT I carried out a pilot experiment to identify any problems that may occur before I carried out the final experiment. I tried out various different exercises such as running, skipping and jogging on the spot. From all of these I have decided to make my participants jog on the spot for up to 10 minutes. To start off the experiment, it is important that I measure the participant's pulse rate. For my pilot study I first checked and recorded the participants pulse rate before carrying out the experiment. I then told the participant to start jogging and told them not to stop until I said so. After one minute of my participant jogging on the spot I measured the pulse for one minute and then recorded it. I recorded my results from this experiment on a piece of paper under the heading participant one. The participant was then told to jog on the spot again but this time for two minutes. This experiment was conducted in exactly the same way for 10 minutes. Form this pilot study I found out that jogging for ten minutes would be a long period of time and the participant may not have enough time so I decided to decrease the amount of time to five minutes instead. The reading of the pulse also seemed to take a long time and so I decided to check the pulse for 30 seconds and to then times my result by two. ...read more.

Middle

Oxygen is needed for this process; the oxygen is carried in the haemoglobin of the red blood cell. The heart and lungs need to work harder in order to get a greater amount of oxygen to the muscles for respiration. In muscle cells digested food substances are oxidised to release energy. These oxidation reactions are called cellular respiration. When muscles use oxygen in order to respire the process is called aerobic respiration: Glucose + Oxygen Carbon Dioxide + Water C H O (aq) + 6O (g) 6CO (g) + 6H O (l) The total energy released is:- Energy released = 16.1kJ/g glucose This is only when the muscles are working aerobically. For movements such as raising an arm or moving the fingers, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) a chemical form of energy, is used. When the muscles use ATP for energy a chemical process happens where the ATP is broken down into two simpler chemicals, ADP (adenosine di-phosphate and inorganic phosphate. The process of turning ATP into ADP releases the energy which gives your muscles the ability to contract. When exercising ATP is used up within the first twenty seconds, the cells use the ATP in two phases; firstly glycolysis takes place, (the breakdown of glucose to pyruvic acid, which is a form of lactic acid) and then the complete oxidation of pyruvic acid to carbon dioxide and water, which will then be carried away by the blood stream. There may then be a period when the muscles are working an aerobically, without oxygen. ...read more.

Conclusion

two different results which will be easier to identify bringing in the factor that one participant likes exercising regularly whilst the other doesn't. CONCLUSION From my results I have found out that as the participant exercises more, the heart rate increases dramatically. At the start of the experiment I found it very unusual that participant one who was the unhealthy participant had a much slower heart rate than the healthy participant. The unhealthy participants heart rate increased more than the healthy participants. I found this unusual too. I repeated this experiment a second time due to this unusualness. EVALUATION Now that I have done my experiment I can identify any factors that I couldn't see before the experiment. This experiment couldn't be a fair experiment because there were many factors that were uncontrolled. Odd results that I wasn't expecting include a much slower pulse rate for the unhealthy participant rather than the healthy participant. I also feel that this experiment could have been improved in many other ways such as all the experiment could be done at the same time. This would also help to control any factors such as temperature so there won't be a major difference in the results. If I were to do this experiment again I would use more participants in the experiment to result in a much wider range of results. I feel that if I was to use more participants then my results would not look unusual and I may also be able to identify a hidden factor due to this. TAHIRA ASLAM 02/05/07 ...read more.

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