Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

How does caffeine affect your heart rate during excersice?

Hi, This could be a very interesting topic for a science fair. You could start to answer your question by doing a google search for "caffiene and heart rate". Some of the sites I found interesting are linked below.

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/caff.html

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... ine-affect

Tonya

Hi Kandis,

Tonya has given you some good advice for getting started on your research. When it comes time to design your experiment, remember that you will need to have a control group. Since you have two factors that can affect heart rate - caffeine and exercise - it will be important to think about how they affect heart rate independently before seeing how they affect each other. So you should look at heart rate (1) during rest (control), (2) with caffeine at rest, (3) with exercise and no caffeine, and (4) with exercise and caffeine.

I know this is a lot of information to process, so please post again if you gave questions.

Good luck!
Heather

Hi Kandis,

In addition to the helpful advise the other experts have given to start outlining your project, I suggest that you read some of the following journals/article(some journals might only allow you to view the abstract unless you are under a membership) in order to support your study and furthermore ease the approach in conducting your experiment:

Effect of caffeine on perceptions of leg muscle pain during moderate intensity cycling exercise
http://www.jpain.org/article/S1526-5900 ... 7/abstract

Acute effects of caffeine on heart rate variability
http://www.ajconline.org/article/S0002- ... X/abstract

The effects of caffeine on physiological functions and mental performance
http://www.springerlink.com/content/t25366v1554q33m0/

Caffeine in Fitness and Exercise
http://www.fitnessthroughexercise.com/c ... ercise.htm

How caffeine affects runners
http://www.runtheplanet.com/trainingrac ... ffeine.asp

Caffeine vs sport performance:
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/ans/psycholog ... sports.htm

Hope this helps and good luck!
-Grace