Heart Rate vs. Holding your Breath

Question:
How is one's heart rate affected by holding his or her breath?


Main Idea:
Being a swimmer, I always hold my breath, so I was wondering if holding one's breath affects his or her heart rate. I decided to test this out on myself and some of my swimming friends.


Hypothesis:
I think that holding one's breath will affect one's heart rate because holding one's breath lets less oxygen to one's heart, so one's heart works harder to get oxygen, making it pump faster.

Procedure:
Get a stopwatch, recording materials, and 5 people (swimmers) to test. Take each person’s pulse for a minute three times and average their numbers. Then, have each person hold their breath for 25 seconds. Immediately after, take their pulse, repeating that two more times.


Results:
When I did my experiment, I found some very interesting information. Person number one had a normal heart rate averaged to about 80 beats per minute, and their pulse, after holding their breath, was about 87 beats per minute. Person number two had a normal pulse averaging 82 beats per minute, with a pulse of 85 bpm after holding their breath. Person number three had a normal heart rate at about 79 bpm, and their pulse after holding their breath was about 98 bpm. Person four’s normal pulse averaged 67 bpm and 74 bpm after no breathing. Last, Person five averaged about 74 beats per minute at rest, and 85 bpm after holding their breath. Over all, the beats per minute sped up, averaging a faster speed. On average, the difference between the regular pulses and their pulses after holding their breaths was 9 beats per minute.





Graphs:







Conclusion:
According to my experiment’s results, my hypothesis was correct, holding their breath did affect a person’s heart rate. Comparing the regular heart rates and the heart rates after holding their breath, the average difference was nine beats per minute. Using this information, we can conclude that the longer someone holds their breath, the faster their heart will beat. But, not everyone's heart rate changed by the same amount, they varied between the different people. No matter what, though, their pulses did speed up some. Now I know that at swim practice, when I hold my breath, my heart rate gets faster.

Relations Project: Leg Length vs. Arm Length

Luke B.

For my project, I compared a human's arm length (in inches)(right arm)(from finger tips to shoulder) and leg length (in inches)(right leg)(from the bottom of the foot to the hip). I was curious to see how much longer (on average) a person's leg was than their arm. I found that, on average, a person's leg is about 10-13 inches longer than their arm. My initial prediction was actually really close to the outcome. The equation above (y= .58x + 21.26) is true only up to a certain point. Only after about 20 inches in leg length does this slope work. The y intercept might only work if someone has short legs and no arms. The line doesn't go on forever either.

Heart Rate vs. Jump Roping

Question- Will jump roping effect my Heart Rate?




Graph


Numbers

Write up-My project is Heart Rate vs. Jump Roping. What I did was Jump rope for 5 second intervals. Then I checked my heart rate after every interval. I did this until I found a point where my heart rate didn't increase any more. Which was at 50 seconds. Then I recorded the data and put it in to a table, graph, and equation. First off, my graph showed my heart rate compared to the amount of time jump roping. My first interval on the y-axis was bpm or heart rate. My second interval on the x-axis was the amount of time jump roping. On the graph there was a point that did not fit the best fit line. I can explain the reason why. The reason why the first point is far off is because when you exercise even for a few seconds your heart rate will drastically go up. Next, my equation is also effected by that one point. But the best equation I came up with as x=70+5.4. X being my next heart rate according to the graph.The equation works until you hit the 50 second mark, then the graph does not go up any more. I came up with this equation by adding the differences of the heart rates then didved by the number of heart rates. And came up with average increase of my heart rate which was 5.4 for every 5 seconds. Then I added the initial condition,70,to the equation and thats how I found the equation. Again which was x=70+5.4. Finally I made a table of my points on the graph. These numbers represent my heart rate recorded after every 5 second interval.The last three numbers represented that my heart stopped increasing at that point in time. Because eventually your heart will stop going up. The most important thing I found out was that your heart is effected by jump roping, which is why I wanted to do this project. I really enjoyed this project and hope to have more like it. Thanks for reading.




By:Michael M.