How quickly does your heart rate recover after exercise?

Christina Taryoto

Biology

10/5/03

How quickly does your heart rate recover after exercise?

Results

Resting Pulse

Average resting pulse 90 beats per minute

Mild Exercise

Hard Exercise

Conclusion:

From doing the experiment I found out that the more intense the exercise, the higher the pulse rate increases and therefore the longer it takes for it to return normal. In other words, the greater the intensity of exercise the slower our heart rates recover or the less intensity of exercise the faster our heart rates recover.

When the body is exercising the muscles respire to produce energy, so the muscles can contract. Oxygen is needed for this process; the oxygen is carried in the haemoglobin of the red blood cell. At the same time the heart responds immediately by increasing its rate in order to supply the muscle cells with more blood that carries the oxygen and glucose, which the respiring cells need. The greater the intensity of exercise the faster the heart becomes in response to the higher rate of respiration.

Comparing my results with Nicole.

Mild Exercise

In this experiment Nicole and I both did 2 minutes of mild exercise at very similar paces. From looking at the table that compares our results and our graphs, you can see that both of us took 2 minutes to recover. Our results are very close. In time 1, I had only 8 heartbeats less than Nicole. In time 2, I had 4 more heartbeats than Nicole. In time 3 we both recovered and Nicole had 2 more heartbeats than me.

Hard Exercise

In this ...

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Comparing my results with Nicole.

Mild Exercise

In this experiment Nicole and I both did 2 minutes of mild exercise at very similar paces. From looking at the table that compares our results and our graphs, you can see that both of us took 2 minutes to recover. Our results are very close. In time 1, I had only 8 heartbeats less than Nicole. In time 2, I had 4 more heartbeats than Nicole. In time 3 we both recovered and Nicole had 2 more heartbeats than me.

Hard Exercise

In this experiment Nicole and I both did 2 minutes of hard exercise. From looking at the table that compares our results and our graphs, you can see that I took 3 minutes to recover and Nicole took 4 minutes to recover. In this exercise our number of heartbeats are in each time are very different. In time 1, Nicole had 52 heartbeats more than me. In time 2 Nicole had 34 heartbeats more than me. In time 3, Nicole had 32 heartbeats more than me. In time 4, I returned to my resting pulse and Nicole had 40 heartbeats more than me. In time 5, Nicole returned to her resting pulse, she has two more hear beats than me.

The results of Hard Exercise between Nicole and I proves many things. How quickly your heart rate recovers after exercise, can depend on many factors such as diet, fitness level, weight, and height. I came to this conclusion because Nicole and I are quite different in those factors. Also I am sure than gender also affects pulse rate.

Evaluation:

I think my experiment went well. My results were accurate and they showed a definite pattern. Most of the results were on the line of best fit and other results were still very close to the line of best fit.

After looking at the graph I believe that this method was accurate enough. I have decided this due to a number of factors. To ensure reliable results throughout the experiment we controlled all the variables listed below that could have affected our results. Therefore making it a fair test.

The same person was kept throughout the trials
The trial was taken on the same day and not in intervals
The pace of the exercise was kept as constant as possible
Starting heart rate was always the resting heart rate
The equipment used was kept the same.
I took my resting pulse three times in order to take an average, which would produce more reliable results.

Although my experiment went well, there are a few errors that could have easily occurred and caused problems:

The exerciser might have not maintained a constant running pace through out the entire trial. This would affect the heart rate and therefore produce inaccurate readings. A way to make sure the person would be kept at the same pace throughout the trial would be to use a treadmill. The pace would be kept the same, also the actual speed would be identified, this would greatly improve the accuracy of the results.
After each trial the exerciser would count their heartbeat. There are many reasons why this is a very inaccurate way of taking a pulse. The exerciser could have taken a while to find their pulse right after exercising, because they are tired there is a high possibility that they could have miscounted or have completely lost count of their heartbeats. One way of improving this would be to use a stethoscope. Another way is to use a data logger. The data logger is a heart rate sensor, which takes the heart rate directly during exercise. This would produce more accurate results because the heart rate would be taken during exercise instead of after.
As the trial was being carried out the body temperature of the exerciser was increasing. The heat of the body would raise the heart rate, which would adversely affect our results, making them less accurate and reliable. Although we cannot control the exercisers temperature during exercise, we can use a fan to cool the epidermis of the skin, which would lower the temperature of the blood, therefore reducing the body’s temperature. This would keep the heart rate at a more natural level during exercise.
There is a possibility that I could have found the wrong average resting pulse. Miscounting and not being fully relaxed during the trials could cause this. If this were the case the experiment would have to be done again. All of the results depend on when they reach the resting pulse and if you don’t have the correct resting pulse then the results would be inaccurate.

To improve this experiment I would increase the amount of times it is repeated, to give a wider range for the average to be taken from. I suggest taking more time to get the resting pulse, it is important that you get a very accurate number because the experiment depends on when you reach your average resting pulse.