Heart health: science fair

[jchevrie]

HI, I am doing a science fair project, my investigative question is: Which type of exercise will increase heart rate the most? I am going to try this experiment with jogging, an exercise video, Dance Dance Revolution, and jump roping. My hypothesis is: If you jump rope for five minutes straight, then your heart rate will increase the most. For this project I am required to get an experts opinnion on our hypothesis. So, do you think that jump roping is the type of exercise that will increase heart rate the most?

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely, Jchevrie

[deleted-2574]

Hi Jchevrie,

I would suggest posting your query on the Life, Earth, and Social Sciences board. You might have better luck there in getting a response. And no, I don't have a response, but your experiment will gain some useful data!

[Louise]

Hi Jchevrie,

I would suggest posting your query on the Life, Earth, and Social Sciences board. You might have better luck there in getting a response. And no, I don't have a response, but your experiment will gain some useful data!

Actually, I think he already did last week, because I know I already answered a post about this and gave him some detailed questions to think about (as did another expert).

If this is a different student, someone else is doing the same project and you should search the boards for Dance, Dance, Revolution and read that thread.

Louise

[MelissaB]

First, as Louise said I encourage you to go look at the responses in that other thread.

I actually study the energy small migratory birds use during flight by measuring their heart rates. Before I answer your question, I need to know a few things. First, are you going to have the participants do each of these activities for five minutes, or is it just the jump rope that's 5 minutes long? Second, what song/difficulty will you be using for DDR? I've played DDR myself and I know that my heart rate would vary widely depending on whether I was doing a slow song on 'easy' or a fast song on 'hard.' Next, what exercise video will you use, and what exercises are on it? Finally, will you just tell the participants to jump rope and let them choose their own speed, or will you specifically tell them to aim for a general speed (fast/slow)?

Once you've answered all my questions, I will tell you whether or not I think that jumping rope will increase heart rate the most.

[deleted-71576]

Yes, it's a repost. Craig, Louise and I provided some things to look for a few days ago.

[deleted-2574]

Heart rates are also very personal, and depend on fitness level. Several years ago when I was doing a lot of swimming, I had a very low resting pulse rate (I don't recall exactly, but it was certainly below 25, and may have been below 20).

Even now, I find it difficult to get my pulse over 110 when exercising. This may also reflect a second factor: exertion level when exercising. My style is length rather than depth.

We've all seen the formulas of pulse = 220 - age. So factor three is age.

So, in summary, the factors include: 1) fitness level, 2) exertion, and 3) age. There may be others.

[deleted-71576]

Heart rates are also very personal, and depend on fitness level. Several years ago when I was doing a lot of swimming, I had a very low resting pulse rate (I don't recall exactly, but it was certainly below 25, and may have been below 20).

Even now, I find it difficult to get my pulse over 110 when exercising. This may also reflect a second factor: exertion level when exercising. My style is length rather than depth.

We've all seen the formulas of pulse = 220 - age. So factor three is age.

So, in summary, the factors include: 1) fitness level, 2) exertion, and 3) age. There may be others.

Under 20
Lance Armstrong thinks his is in the low 40's. Even in a world class trained athlete HRs in the 20's would seriously get my attention. I'd be looking around for a pacemaker. Your stroke volume must be massive.

I should be able to get my HR only up to the 170's, yet I routinely exercise at that level, and have hit >200 with maximal exercise. My resting HR is relatively high. I'm wired the opposite as David, evidently.
So for similar exertion, David's heart pumps slowly (VERY) with high volumes pumped out for each beat, and my heart pumps more quickly (around 150's with most exercise) with less stroke volume pumped out for every beat.

So you can see, that if David and I both humiliated ourselves in DDR, the HR results would vary dramatically. But if we both tried all of the activities at similar intensity levels, you could start to draw some conclusions. Of course if David can dance, only one of us would find it humilating.

[deleted-2574]

Thank you zzzzdoc for your comments. I am wired differently, my dad, by coincidence also an MD, said I had bradycardia - no more than than fancy language for low pulse rate. Never thought about it much, except now I have a handle to get an instructive wikipedia page!

Now I'm in 50's and less active; we'll have to see what happens to my heart rate, when I start to exercise more, which is my plan. (The pulse rates I was quoting in my prior post were from my 30's, when I was swimming a lot.) It's not much use experimentally, since, it's just a sample of one.

It does point out factors, however, such as personal heart rates and history, that may need to considered. There may be others.

[deleted-71576]

This is amusing. All the experts are doing the posting, and no sign of the student.

FWIW, your heart pumps more efficiently at slower rates and higher stroke volumes. It's a rather elegant adaptation of the body to training / exercise to allow the heart muscle to get stronger, a little bigger, but much more efficient. It's why, despite getting in decent shape, eventually my riding buddies can drop me. My heart has to work harder for given levels of power output. It's less efficient.

What made Lance - Lance, is that he was born with truly unique anatomy, unique metabolism (the ability to maximally extract oxygen - Lance's is off the charts, so he has the ability to generate more power than you or I do before getting into anaerobic metabolism/lactic acidosis.) He also recovers from it faster, and is fanatical about exercise (as, frankly, are all world class cyclists. When athletes are tested, no on holds a candle to Tour de France riders. Marathoners and triathletes aren't in nearly as perfect shape.)

An interesting piece of trivia - after Secretariat died, they did a necropsy. The vet noted the largest non-diseased heart that they had ever seen in a horse. It explains a lot. It was like having a V12 engine which racing the V8s.

Still, never heard of an athlete with a resting HR in the 20s. I'm still quite impressed (and would have been concerned at the time.)

[deleted-2574]

Re: All the experts are doing the posting, and no sign of the student.
There may be students reading these exchanges and getting some value, but I think you're right. The basic premise of these bulletin boards is to answer student questions. So, we're getting close to beating a dead horse. I'm ready to stop whenever you are.

Re: still, never heard of an athlete with a resting HR in the 20s. It about 20 years ago, so my memory may be faulty. If the data point, my resting HR when I was exercising, seems strange, the data point may be invalid - because it was exaggerated.

So there's a lesson to folks designing tests, particularly those based on participant data entry!