Laboratory 2 – The Effects of Extra Weight on Cardiovascular Fitness Using The Step Test

INTRODUCTION Any form of exercise can be described as aerobic exercise as long as it promotes cardiovascular fitness (Tapley et al. 1995). The heart fuels every muscle with oxygen during these aerobic exercises. This in turn cause the heart to work much harder (Tapley et al. 1995). The heart itself is a muscle however, and this work makes the hear more conditioned and efficient. This means that, the higher the heart rate is, the harder the heart is working to deliver oxygen to all the muscles. To establish the cardio fitness of a subject, the individual’s heart rate can be measure before and after aerobic exercise. The Step Test is a reliable, inexpensive, simple and quick approach of measuring the heart rate of an individual (Mazic et al. 2001). The scientific investigation was done to determine if carrying extra weights will effect the heart rate of an individual. The results of this experiment are relevant since good cardiovascular fitness is an asset to living a good life. The null hypothesis for this experiment expects that the extra weight will have the same affect on an individual’s heart rate. The alternate hypothesis expects the additional mass to increase the individual’s heart rate because the heart must work harder to pump oxygen to all the muscles (Tapley et al. 1995).

MATERIALS and METHODS Laboratory partners that were involved in this investigation were Tudor Costescu, Paniz Ghazanfari, and Michal Sheinis. Materials that were required for the lab included a 3lb weight, stop-watch, and a stepping platform. In order to time The Step Test, the recovery time of each subject, and to measure the individual’s heart beat per minute, a stop-watch was used. To perform the step test, the stepping platform was used. The weight was used to determine if the