Equipment: -
Stopwatch
Clothes (T-shirt and pedal pushers)
Trainers
Plan: -
Well I plan, first of all to record my pulse (resting pulse rate) before the exercise. Then I will exercise for a minute. The exercise I propose to do is to jog on the spot for one minute. I will make sure it is a fair test by switching on an alarm for exact timing. Also I will make sure I will exactly the same things in the experiment in case, any addition or subtraction of clothes could affect the outcome of the experiment. After one minute I will immediately check my pulse, record it, then I shall wait for the pulse rate to reach the original resting pulse rate and then record how long it took to do so.
I will repeat the experiment three times and record each experiment for seven minutes (meaning seven blocks of data) and take the average.
Prediction: -:
I predict that the more prolonged my exercise becomes the longer it will take to get the pulse back to resting rate. I think in the duration of the exercise the pulse rate will increase and increase until it reaches a peak and then it will steady out. I also think that my fitness also is a major factor.
This is because the body goes into a mode of anaerobic respiration. This is when the body begins to ventilate more (i.e.: breathe more) to accommodate the need of more oxygen in muscles, move the oxygen around your body faster and dispose the carbon dioxide. Also as you progress, lactic acid is produced. In order to break this acid down you need to breathe in oxygen, so it eventually breaks down into glucose and carbon dioxide. This process is called the “oxygen debt”. The lactic acid that is produced is a mild poison that makes your muscles ache and cramp.
Eventually as this process builds up you tire and stop the activity.
Normal respiration: Glucose (c6 h12 06) + Oxygen (o2) Carbon dioxide (co2) + water (H20) +energy
Anaerobic respiration: glucose lactic acid (c3 h6 o3) + energy
In order for your body to produce oxygen you will need more haemoglobin (hB) to catch on to the oxygen and carry it around the body. Meaning your iron intake needs to be increased.
What will I do to make it a fair test?
I will use the same stopwatch and record the process of exercise and the time it took for it to return to resting pulse rate for the same amount of time. I will also wear the same clothes for the duration of the experiment.
Personal experience:
Usually when I do exercise that is very intensive, my heart rate becomes really fast and takes about two minutes to come down to normal. In these two minutes and towards the climax of the exercise my muscles started to ache and my oxygen intake increased and I had aches and pains in my legs. This was due to the increased respiration happening within my body. Also athletes that specialise in running usually run in the mountains (the mountains have a higher altitude meaning less oxygen) increase the amount of haemoglobin in their body. This makes the intake of oxygen much easier.
Method:
The experiment in total took about fifteen minutes, ten minutes to prepare and five minutes to actually do the experiment. I set the stop-clock on my desk ready to press. I sat down on my bed and recorded my resting pulse rate for one minute. I recorded exactly 72 beats per minute. Making sure my clothes were ok, I started the stop-clock and jogged on the spot for one minute. I then stopped the clock at exactly one minute and took my pulse for a minute, after that I recorded how long it took for the pulse rate to revert back to my resting pulse rate.
I repeated this process a further four times, and wrote the results down each time on my table of results.
Diagram:
