Aerobic Conditioning
Background
I
chose a project on "Aerobic Conditioning" because I
have run cross-country and heard that aerobic exercise helps athletes run longer at a fast rate.
I recruited two individuals who
volunteered to do aerobic exercises 3-5 times a week for 2 months; one
was 56 and one was 43. I also used myself and one other volunteer
as controls. The controls
continued their daily lives as normal. The first control, subject #3, had been doing aerobic
exercises frequently and continued to do so. The second control, subject #4 (me), participated in school
athletics with no additional aerobic
activities.
Aerobic exercise consists of exercising for about 20-30
minutes with minimal stopping, preventing the heart rate from
dropping out
of the aerobic range. The aerobic range is defined to be between an
individual's maximal heart rate and 80% of the maximal heart rate. The
maximal heart rate is defined as 220 minus the subject's age. The maximum is then
multiplied times .8 to find the minimal aerobic heart rate.
Some
examples of aerobic exercises are running, jogging, hiking, swimming,
biking. Basketball is sometimes said to be aerobic, but it depends on
how it is played. If substitutions are made or the participants
stop for free throws or time-outs, the heart rate could easily fall out
of the aerobic range.
The benefits
of aerobic exercise are strengthening of the heart and cardiovascular
system by enlarging existing blood vessels and promoting the development of new
blood vessels. Some studies show that
aerobic exercise helps prevent some kinds of cancer.
Procedures
The project began on November 27 by taking the
resting blood pressure and heart rate for all four subjects. This
was done by means of a digital blood pressure cuff, officially known as
a sphygmomanometer (pronounced sfig’-mo-ma-nom-e-ter). The subjects then performed the Harvard Step Test.
The Harvard Step Test
consisted of the subject stepping onto a bench that is 45 cm high once
every two seconds for 5 minutes. After five minutes the subjects quit stepping and
their heart rate was recorded 3 times at 1 minute intervals.
The formula used to calculate their aerobic score was "100 x test duration in
seconds divided by 2 x total heartbeats in the recovery periods." The
point of this test is to see how quickly the subject's cardiovascular
system would recover from a strenuous aerobic activity.
On January 28, at the end of the two month period, I repeated the tests and compared
the results with the ones
at the beginning. All the results are displayed in the "Raw Data
Table". The volunteers had different training schedules.
Both test subjects exercised weekly and kept records of their
activities. The records are available in the calendar tables of
"Aerobic Exercise History" for subjects #1 & #2.
Graphs are presented to easily compare the data from the various subjects and tests.