How does recovery position affect recovery rate?
How does Recovery Position affect Recovery Rate?
Introduction
Evidence from modular science shows an athlete in a recovery position (page 11). In this position they can take more oxygen into her lungs, because their surface area is increased. However is this position better than any other position.
Scientific Explanation
To stay alive we all need oxygen. The breathing system is working all the time to provide a continued supply of oxygen to the healthy body. During exercise we need even more oxygen than usual. During strenuous exercise lactic acid is produced by anaerobic respiration. This causes muscles to become tired and they work less efficiently. To make sure this doesn't happen lactic acid needs to be removed by using oxygen to break it down. After exercise you often keep breathing heavily to take in extra oxygen. The recovery position after exercise will also help you take in extra oxygen because in will increase the surface area of the lungs allowing a greater volume of oxygen in the lungs.
The surface area of the small balloons together is greater than the surface are of the on large balloon even though they have the same volume of air.
These are the results of an investigation carried out by modular science to find out how breathing patterns change during exercise.
Activity
Volume of each breath
(Cm)
Number of breaths taken per min
Rest
500
8
20 step up's per min
750
25
50 step up's per min
200
34
As a result of this investigation I found during exercise your breathing rate increases and the volume of each breath increases. Therefore a good recovery position after exercise needs to increase the surface area of the lungs.
Prediction
I predict that lying down flat on the floor of on a table will be the best recovery position after strenuous exercise. It will help a quick recovery rate. I think this because when lying down your head and chest are both supported, your chest is also open and you are not using up any energy.
Also when lying down your lungs can contain more oxygen than when you are standing or sitting. This is because air enters the lungs when the diaphragm, forcibly lowers and enlarges the chest cavity in which the lungs ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
Prediction
I predict that lying down flat on the floor of on a table will be the best recovery position after strenuous exercise. It will help a quick recovery rate. I think this because when lying down your head and chest are both supported, your chest is also open and you are not using up any energy.
Also when lying down your lungs can contain more oxygen than when you are standing or sitting. This is because air enters the lungs when the diaphragm, forcibly lowers and enlarges the chest cavity in which the lungs are suspended. This causes the lungs to expand and the air to fill the enlarged lungs; it increases the surface area of the lungs. When lying down your chest is open, leaving more space for your lungs to expand, also your abdomen moves down when you are lying down, so that means your diaphragm has more space to lower into. If the diaphragm moves even lower down, the cavity of the chest is increased. Therefore the lungs can expand more and are able to contain even more air than normal. The surface are of the lungs will have increased more than usual. More oxygen in your lungs means that you will recover quicker.
Method
In this investigation we are trying to find the best recovery position after strenuous exercise. To find out the best recovery position we thought of five different positions; standing, sitting, bent over, crouching and lying down.
Firstly we measured the initial breathing rate before exercise for one person, in one of our recovery positions. That person them did one minute of strenuous exercise. After exercise they them went into the previous recovery position and we measured the breathing rate each minute until it returned to the initial breathing rate. We then carried out the same process for all the other four recovery positions. To make the results more accurate we will use secondary data. The only equipment we will use is a stopwatch.
Fair Test
To make it a fair test we will use secondary data. We will keep the following things the same: Time you do exercise in, recorder, person carry out the exercise and the equipment we use. We will change the recovery position. We also did a pilot test to see what problems aroused and see how the investigation could be fairer.
Results
Primary Results
Recovery
Positions
Strenuous
Exercise
Breathing
Rate Before
Breathing
Rate After
Difference
Between Two
Time to
Recover(mins)
Standing
min
20
28, 22, 20
6, 2, 8
3 min
Sitting
min
24
32, 30, 24
2, 6, 8
3 min
Bent Over
min
27
36, 27
9
2 min
Crouching
min
26
36, 30, 26
6, 4, 10
3 min
Lying Down
min
24
30, 24
6
2 min
Secondary Results
Recovery
Positions
Strenuous
Exercise
Breathing
Rate Before
Breathing
Rate After
Difference
Between Two
Time to
Recover(mins)
Standing
min
31
47, 35, 31
2, 4, 16
3 min
Sitting
min
27
38, 27
1
2 min
Bent Over
min
35
35
0
min
Crouching
min
29
40, 29
1
2 min
Lying Down
min
31
36, 31
5
2 min
Conclusion
I conclude that the best recovery position after strenuous exercise is bending over (see primary and secondary tables and graphs). In the primary results you can see it took 2 minute to get back to the original breathing rate when the person recovered in the bent over position. In the secondary results it took only 1 minute to return to initial breathing rate. Unlike standing which took 3 minute in both.
It also seems bending over is the best recovery position because there is only a small difference between the initial breathing rate and the breathing rate 1 min after the strenuous exercise (see primary graph) or there is no difference at all (see secondary graph).
Bending over was the best recovery position because when bent over, your lungs expand and the surface area of your lungs increases. You can then take in a larger volume of oxygen. Oxygen helps get rid of lactic acid and therefore speeds up recovery rate.
My prediction was not correct and does not fit with my conclusion, however I was correct when predicting the best recovery position would need to increase the surface area of the lungs and give the body some support.
There did not seem to be any odd results for either primary or secondary data, all my results seemed accurate. The primary and secondary data seems to be fairly similar. In both bent over is either the best or joint best recovery position. However in the secondary data you can see that recovery rate overall is quicker than in the primary data. Also in the secondary results the initial breathing rate and breathing rate after exercise is higher than in the primary results. This may be due to the fitness of the person carrying out experiment.
One problem which did occur while carrying out our experiment was that the person who did strenuous exercise for a minute then rested in one of the recovery position began to get tired after a while. This could affect our results because if the person has carried out one minute of strenuous exercise and measured breathing rate before and after for four of the recovery positions they may begin to get tired and take longer to recover for the last recovery position. This may not be due to it being a bad recovery position but it may be due to there being a large build up of lactic acid from doing strenuous exercise for all the other positions.
Evaluation
My results were fairly accurate because I used both primary and secondary data. I also carried out a pilot before hand to see what problems might arise and to make my data more accurate.
There did not seem to be any odd results for either primary of secondary data. However because this investigation involved testing humans none of the results can be entirely accurate because different humans react and behave differently in the same situation
I do not think the method I used was the best method for testing recovery positions because the person you were testing began to get tired after a while. I believe we could have solved this problem by leaving a large amount of time between testing these five recovery positions, however we did not have the time. I also think our results would be more accurate if we had tested a larger number of people and a larger number of recovery positions however again we did not have the time.
To extent this investigation we could test different types of people, for example; age and gender could have and effect on what is the best recovery position to take after strenuous exercise. I could also further investigate how to get rid of lactic acid in the quickest time possible or how to reduce the build or lactic acid because these affect recovery rate.
