Aim: To investigate the effect of exercise on pulse rate

Materials and Apparatus: Stopwatch

Procedure: Groups of three were formed. One member of the group was the text subject, another
was the note taker and the other was the one to count the pulse beats

The pulse in the neck was used by the text subject to count the number of pulse beats for one
minute and was recorded in the table below

Waited one minute then count the number of pulses beats again in the third minute to which
the numbers of pulse beats were recorded

The test subject did two minutes of jumping jacks and as soon as the two minutes was up, the
number of pulse beats were counted after one minute of exercising

Waited one minute and counted again in the other minute and continued to count the number
of pulse beats every other minute until the pulse rate was returned to normal

Observation: TABLE SHOWING THE NUMBER OF PULSE BEATS PER MINUTE

BEFORE ND AFTER EXERCISE
Time(minutes) Number of pulse beats per minute
1st 80
3rd 60
6th 100
8th 60

Errors: During counting the pulse beats, the test subject talked

Precautions: The members of the group who were going to be the test subject was told to relax
and do a breathing exercise to calm down

Limitations: Overweight and obese people have a higher metabolic rate and a smaller ratio
of body surface to body weight than people with normal weight so they will have a higher heart
rate than people with normal weight.

Dehydration can increase the heart rate

Heat and humidity can increase heart rate by around 10 beats/min

 Discussion:

100
90
80
Pulse rate/beats per minute

70
60
50
40
30
20
10

0 1 3 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22

Time/minutes

The graph above represents the results and the shape formed from the plots is a trapezium. It is
shown that when it just started to count the pulse rates at the first minutes, the test subject was nit
calm so it had a little high pulse rate. At the third minute it decreased because the test subject
seemed to have calmed down tremendously and have relaxed. At the sixth, it showed that the
pulse rates increased from the 2 long minutes of jumping jacks to 100 pulse beats. After the sixth
minutes, the results show how long can it take to normalize the pulse beats at the results after the
2 minutes of sitting down and it showed that the test subject is fit due to how fast it took for the
test subject to normalize their pulse beats.

Pulse rate is defined as the number of times your heart beats per minute to which a normal
resting heart rate should be 60 to 100 beats per minute, but it can vary from minute to minute.
During exercise, there is an increase in physical activity and muscle cells respire more than they
do when the body is at rest. The heart rate increases during exercise. Since the rate and depth of
breathing increases, this makes sure that more oxygen is absorbed into the blood and more CO2
is removed from the blood.

When you are exercising, your muscles need extra oxygen- some as three times as much as
resting muscles. This means that your heart starts pumping faster, which makes for a quicker
pulse rate; meanwhile, your lungs are also taking in more air, hence the harder breathing.

The main reason why the heart rate stays high after working out was being that the workout was
hard for the test subject and the body was having trouble cooling down.

It took two minutes for the pulse rate to return to normal after the exercise.

TABLE SHOWING THE NUMBER OF PULSE BEATS PER MINUTE BEFORE ND AFTER
EXERCISE
Time(minutes) Number of pulse beats per minute
1st 80
3rd 60
6th 100
8th 60

The individual doesn’t play a sport at the moment but used to play netball and did track and field
but otherwise, plays a lot with children which involves a lot of running and sometimes jogs at
least a mile and a half in the evenings.

People who regularly play sports come above the average results due to them being used to doing
some physical activity and your heart is a muscle and needs frequent exercise to help it keep fit
and healthy. A healthy heart can pump blood efficiently around your body. Your heart will
improve in performance when it is regularly challenged with exercise. Stronger hearts can
improve overall health of the body. Regular sport causes more oxygen to be drawn into the body
with carbon monoxide and waste gases expelled. This increases the lung capacity during sport,
improving lung function and efficiency.

The limitations and errors caused the lab to be biased because there was not equal volume per
person in the group so it would have took longer for at least one or two of the group members to
normalize their breathing or pulse rate.

Conclusion: Exercise causes an increase in pulse rate (heart rate). When exercising our muscles
contract more often and require more energy. Energy is made during the process of respiration .
As more glucose and oxygen is needed, cardiac output (blood pumped per minute) and blood
flow to the muscles increases.
Reflection: This lab has tremendously helped me to understand how to check my pulse, where I
can check my pulse beats, to see how my pulse rate increasing whenever I do some type of
physical activity and identify ways why others take longer to normalize their rate after physical
activity.