Heart Rate Connection

Research: Does exercise raise your Heart Rate? (Highlighted enlarged text signifies the important information)

The reason for the heart rate rising during exercise is fairly obvious. The muscles need more oxygen as they are moving. To get these, the heart rate must go up to pump the blood around the body faster.When we start to exercise the brain tells the muscles in our body to move. At the same time the brain is sending signals (via the sympathetic nervous system) to the heart to increase its rate. It is the sympathetic nervous system that controls our bodies in time of stress. The brain, via the sympathetic nervous system, also redirects blood to the muscles by reducing the flow from unnecessary functions (such as digestion). As we exercise more, the nervous system feeds back and the heart increases its rate to match the level of exercise being done. If your heart cannot provide enough oxygen to move the muscles, you have to stop.Although we breathe harder when we are exercising, generally it is the heart's ability to get the oxygen to the muscles, rather than the lungs' ability to gather oxygen, which limits how much oxygen the muscles receive.

Heart Rate and Exercise. 2008. Accessed: 10, September, 2011.

                 http://www.planet-scicast.com/experiment.cfm?cit_id=2717

WHAT does this mean for the project?? This information confirms to connection between exercise and increase in heart rate. This means that recording the increase in heart rate, is an accurate measure of how much exercise was performed. For this project - a heart rate monitor can be used in order to measure each users increase in heart rate, to record how much exercise each member has completed.