Investigation on how the heart rate is effected by exercise
I chose to investigate the effects of exercise on the heart rate, as the respiratory system is part of the GCSE syllabus. ... Another reason for opting to investigate this area is that I take regular exercise, but I do not really understand or know enough about the science that explains it’s effect on my body, and therefore I feel that this investigation is at a suitable level and it also interests me. ... Firstly, I needed to organise the investigation. I began by considering the subject, the heart rate and exercise and thought about what I already knew from my biology lessons at school. ... I knew that my heart rate definitely increased in such a situation. ... I needed to consider which type of exercise I would do and how I could measure the change in heart rate as accurately as possible. ... I could also avail of a heart rate counter, which is stuck to your chest and attached to a monitor so that accurate readings in beats per minute (bpm) can be taken. ... The hypothesis or scientific explanation as I understand it now, is that that during exercise, the body is moved much more in each minute than when at rest, so the work-rate of the muscles which move the body increases, which requires them to transfer energy at a faster rate. ... Increased oxygen demand requires the heart to increase the blood supply to the muscles, which it does by beating faster. The heart rate is one of the simplest and most informative of the cardiovascular parameters. Heart rate reflects the amount of work the heart must do in order to meet the increased demands of the body when engaged in activity. To demonstrate this, I had to compare the heart rate at rest and during exercise. I developed my understanding of this further by finding out about something called the target peak heart rate, anticipatory response and the cardiac output which I included in my investigation. ... Having actually carried out this investigation, I realised how important it now was to evaluate it. I considered my investigation to be a successful and informative one. ... The final results did support my prediction; exercise does cause the heart rate to increase. Although I was already able to arrive at this conclusion from experience, I was very interested in the scientific explanation of why the heart rate increased and used my old Biology books and other books from the library to discover the scientific explanations. As I carried out this investigation independently, without input or opinion from any of my fellow students, I could not help but feel that any discussion related to this would have helped to develop and expand my thinking. ... On a more positive note, I did feel that by using a treadmill and a heart rate counter, readings could be easily and accurately taken, and the data from this was then transferred to a table that I had prepared on my computer earlier.