Heart Fitness and Jump Height

Overview

Objectives/Goals My original question was whether or not improving the fitness of one's heart would allow an Irish dancer to jump higher at the end of their dance, when they were tired. From there, I hypothesized that an increase in heart fitness would lead to an increase in the height of jumps after exercise. Methods/Materials I chose twelve girls who were all sixteen years old and at a similar level of Irish dance and heart fitness. At dance class, they measured their resting heart rates before dancing. Then, each girl did three jumps before dancing, then danced the same minute and a half long dance, and then did three jumps after dancing. They also measured their post-dancing working heart rates. Then every day they practiced the same minute and a half long dance twice in a row without stopping, as to increase their heart fitness. Once a week for the next two weeks they did three jumps, danced, and then did three more jumps, and I also recorded their resting and working heart rates Results From the analysis I discovered that my hypothesis was proved to be correct; an improvement in heart fitness leads to an increase in the heights of jumps after Irish dancing. Each girl who I tested did result in a slight improvement of their heart fitness, limited to the length of the testing period and the availability of the motion detector. Not only was there a decrease in their working heart rate, but there was also a small decrease in their resting heart rate. As the girls trained, the difference between their rates decreased slightly, implying that heart fitness had improved. And as this difference decreased, the heights of post-dancing jumps increased slightly as well. Conclusions/Discussion Building up one#s heart fitness has a direct connection to other aspects of a sport. This was seen in my experiment, as the girls I tested could jump higher at the end of their dances as their heart fitness increased. After just one week of training, the girls jumped, on average, .0174 meters higher after they finished dancing than they could the week before. As their heart fitness improved by week three, the girls could jump an added .0208 meters after dancing. Since the girls I tested trained every day without fail, their heart fitness increased and they could jump higher after dancing. Therefore, the hypothesis which I formed proved to be true; as heart fitness increases, the height of jumps after Irish dancing will also increase.

Competition history

• CSEF 2007 Mammalian Biology · Entry S1105

Resources

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