These images show examples of a participant sitting in all of the positions with one of the heart rate monitors on. Going from left to right, the first image shows the slouching position where the forearms are resting on the participant’s thighs. The second image shows the upright position where the hands are resting on the participant’s thighs and the back is straight. The third image shows the hands on head position where the hands are on the participant’s head and the back is straight.
Pretrials:
We completed pretrials a few weeks before the set week started because our research requires 100 runners to test, so we are in the process of testing high school teams now. Our pretrials consisted of a few MMSTC classmates running through the hallways and sitting in the three different positions. The distance was smaller than an average high school track, however, the pretrials allowed us to improve our experimental design for a better heart rate reading. We were able to get used to using the Wahoo Fitness application so that we were not scrambling to find the data that needs to be recorded during a trial. We realized that the Wahoo BLUEHR chest strap heart rate monitor did not stay connected to the Wahoo fitness application because the signal got weaker as they ran further from us, so we had the runners hold the devices as they ran. We changed the data collection process as well. Instead of using the maximum heart rate during the participant's run to determine the heart rate recovery, we are now using the heart rate they have immediately after they are done running. Our research on the effect of sitting position on heart rate recovery on cross country runners was decided because we want to give endurance athletes insight on how to recover faster after an event. Some sports like swimming or track have athletes that are in more than one event in that certain day. Cross country runners, however, run their 5,000 meters during the race, but they maintain a pace that they run for a longer period of time, so they were the best population to test heart rate on endurance athletes.
The sources we have found have been very helpful, and the American Heart Association website has provided important information on heart rate and factors that can affect the recovery of it. We needed a heart rate monitor to study the peak heart rate during exercise and the peak heart rate one minute after they completed the run, and we found a chest strap monitor called the Wahoo BLUEHR, which includes an iPhone application to record the trials via Bluetooth. We have a potential professional contact named Allison Meteyer who is a Cardiologist at Beaumont. She is willing to give us assistance on the insight on why sitting positions matter with heart rate recovery. |
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