Gifted and Talented - Science in Sport Diary

Week 1:           Click here for Week 2:

Heart Rate Elevation and Exercise.

Four students were used as subjects, and were asked to swim a series of 100m freestyles, at increasing intensities.  Heart rates were taken at the end of each 100m and results were plotted on a graph. Students were then able to analyse the data and draw conclusions from the results as to the effect of exercise on heart rate.  In future weeks, students will be doing a similar experiment but also taking blood samples and evaluating blood lactate accumulation. A graph of this week’s results can be viewed below, as can photographs taken during the experiment.

Week Two:

Comparison of leg kick and arm pull in 50m front crawl

Eight students were used as subjects.  After a good warm up they were asked to swim three lots of 50m sprints, the first was a full swim, on the second they only kicked and on the third 50m they used only their arms.  The pupils then analysed the data by drawing a graph similar to the one below showing how the swimmers times varied over the three different swims.  Pupils also worked out the percentage difference in time between the three types of swim.  This data will be compared to further results gained when the students experiment with their own versions of Newton meters in a few weeks.

Week Three:

The amount of force a swimmer can produce using different strokes.

This week we used Newton meters to measure the amount of force a swimmer could create when propelling themselves through the water.  We also measured the amount of drag each individual swimmer created when pulled through the water.  It was interesting that the most powerful stroke is breaststroke but is quite often the slowest through the water, we will discuss this next session.  Please see our results on the graph below.