Abstract
How quickly does heart rate recover after exercise? Is recovery time faster for people who get regular exercise?Objective
Heart rate increases in response to physical activity, and returns, in time, to the baseline level with rest. The goal of this project is to determine whether athletes have faster heart rate recovery times than non-athletes.
Introduction
The human body has about 5.6 liters of blood, which the heart circulates about three times every minute (NOVA, 1997a). Your heart is constantly beating—even before birth!—to keep the blood circulating. The heart of an average 65-year-old person has contracted more than 2.5 billion times. That's a lot of heartbeats!
Experts on cardiac health tell us that the best way to keep our hearts healthy are maintaining a balanced diet, avoiding smoking, and exercising regularly. Exercise that is good for your heart should elevate your heart rate. How much, for how long, and how often? The American Heart Association recommends that you do exercise that increases your heart rate to between 50 and 75% of your maximum heart rate (your maximum heart rate is 220 beats per minute, minus your age) (AHA, 2006). They recommend getting at least 30 minutes of exercise on most days of the week (AHA, 2006).
How quickly does your heart rate return to normal after exercise? Is the recovery time faster for people who exercise regularly than for people who don't?
Terms, Concepts and Questions to Start Background Research
To do this project, you should do research that enables you to understand the following terms and concepts:
More advanced students should study:
Questions
Bibliography
Materials and Equipment
To do this experiment you will need the following materials and equipment:
Experimental Procedure
Note: There are special considerations when designing an experiment involving human subjects. ISEF-affiliated fairs often require an Informed Consent Form for every participant who is questioned or observed. In all cases, the experimental design must be approved by the fair's scientific review committee (SRC) prior to the commencement of experiments or surveys. Please refer to the ISEF rules for additional important requirements for studies involving human subjects: http://www.sciserv.org/isef/document/.
Measuring Heart Rate
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| Figure 1. The photo shows how to find the radial pulse. |
Variations
Credits
Andrew Olson, Ph.D., Science Buddies
Sources
The idea for this project is from:
Last edit date: 2006-09-06 22:00:00
If you like this project, you might enjoy exploring careers in Human Biology & Health.
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