The Effect of Exercise on Pulse Rate

Introduction: This experiment tests the effects of exercise on pulse
rate.

Pulse rate represents the beating of the heart, specifically the
ejection of

blood from the left ventricle to the general circulation of the body.

Before the start of exercise, your pre-exercise heart rate usually
rises

above normal, and this is called an anticipatory response. During

exercise, respiration increases based on the amount of activity being

done. When exercise is being completed, there is an increased demand

for gas exchange, due to the circulatory system being under continuous

stress. Oxygen consumption increases rapidly, aswell as carbon dioxide

production.

Regular exercise also produces changes in circulation. The blood flow
to working muscles increase, and this means that more oxygen and

energy can be delivered to the muscle cells. Blood volume and the

number of red blood cells also increase with this large flow, and
oxygen

levels rise considerably.

In our experiment we have decided to test a type of aerobic exercise;

skipping. This will effect various parts of the body and is designed
to

build up stamina and keep a regular heart beat. This involves aerobic

respiration, which is obviously connected with the type of exercise.

Equipment: Stopwatch - for timing the length of time for each exercise



Skipping rope - for completing the exercise
===========================================

Method: The equipment will be taken to level ground, and my pulse will
be taken for

1 minute and recorded. Then the 1 minute of continuous skipping will
be

completed at an average speed of one jump per second, and the pulse
rate

immediately taken after the time for 15 seconds, multiplied by 4 and

recorded.

There will then be a rest period of 3 minutes, before the exact same
timed

exercise will take place, straight after the pulse has been taken
after resting.

The process of measuring pulse rate, followed by exercise and then

recording pulse rate again, will be completed once more for 1 minute
of

skipping, and then carried out for 2 and 3 minutes of skipping
exercise.

Again, each time will be repeated three times to create an accurate
average

and all results will be recorded in a table.

Fair Test: For this investigation, we have decided to make it a fair
test by making

sure that the following points are true;

I will average 1 jump per second when I complete the skipping. This is
so

that my speed will stay regular and my style will stay constant.

Throughout the experiment, I will stay as the person doing the
exercise,

and Sona will time and measure my pulse. There could not be a fair
change

because everyone has individual characteristics which could affect the

results i.e. resting pulse rate.

We will repeat each exercise 3 times, so that we can record accurate
results

and get an average for the different times.

After the exercise is done, there will be a 3 minute rest period to
lower the

pulse rate back to its resting state. This enables us to record
accurate

results for measuring the effects of exercise on pulse rate.

When recording the resting pulse rate, we will time it for 1 minute
every

time, because this gives the exact average beats per minute for

the person. After the exercise, we decided that we will time the pulse
rate

for just 15 seconds, and then multiply the number by 4, as this is
just the

right amount of time as for the heart rate not to decrease.

Hypothesis: I predict that with the increase in time when the exercise
is completed,

the pulse rate will also increase. Although, because skipping is an

aerobic exercise, I also think that as you increase the amount of
time,

your body anticipates the amount of exercise being done and starts to

become used to the increase in pulse rate and can cope with it better.

Whereas, for smaller amounts of time, your body carries on working

harder to deal with the stress because it does not know how long you
are

going to carry on, and so anticipates that you need the increased
amount

of oxygen.

Results:

1 minute of skipping

2 minutes of skipping

3 minutes of skipping

Before

Skipping

86

88

75

88

82

89

85

82

93



After
=====

Skipping

164

164

140

160

168

132

154

140

168

Average beats per min. before skipping

83

86

87

Average beats per min. after skipping

156

153

154

The two graphs below show the pulse rate before and after exercise;

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From these two graphs and the one on the previous page, we can see
that exercise clearly does have an effect on pulse rate, as it has
risen considerably compared to the resting pulse rate. When the amount
of time was increased for the skipping, the pulse rates varied quite a
lot. We expected that the pulse rate would increase more steadily than
the results have shown, because although the highest rate was for 3
minutes of activity, it also showed one of the lowest rates of the
experiment.

For the graph that shows the increase in pulse rate we can see that
there have been some anomalous results. We found that when the
skipping was completed for 2 minutes, there were big variations in the
increase in pulse rate. It ranged between the three attempts from 43
to 86, which was quite unexpected as we thought that there would be a
lot more steady increase.

I think that the reason for the varying results, is that the stress
that the body was under was not art all anticipated during the
exercise as expected. This, in my opinion is slightly strange, but our
results prove that we had some very unexpected results. But looking at
our results from an overall perspective, they did to a certain extent
agree

with my prediction. Pulse rate was definitely affected by the aerobic
exercise, and did increase by a decent amount, and the pulse rate did
not rise by a large amount when the amount of time was increased to 3
minutes, which is what I predicted.

Our method for testing the prediction was suitable, and the experiment
worked well and produced enough information in order for us to
analyse. The anomalous results that we witnessed actually helped me to
come to different conclusions and were not bad results for us to have.

To improve the experiment to get some more reliable evidence, I think
we could have maybe used some more varied times for testing the
effects of exercise on pulse rate, in order to get more constant
results to analyse. But apart from that I think that the experiment
that we carried out worked well enough, and gave us some interesting
and varied results. To extend the investigation, we could have changed
another variable to help get different aspects of results for example;
type of exercise

length of time for the exercise

the rest periods the no.of seconds pulse rate is

measured for before/after exercise

Overall, the experiment we completed produced some unexpected results,
but allowed us to analyse the results more carefully. After looking at
all of the results, I have come to the conclusion that exercise does
have an effect on pulse rate, and as the amount of activity increases
so too does your pulse rate, but only up to a certain point.