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Monitoring Vital Signs during Exercise and Recovery
Purpose:
This series of research projects is designed to show how four important
physical factors of the body - body temperature, heart rate, breathing rate
and blood pressure undergo changes before, during and after exercise.
This helps us understand how the body adapts to physical activity and
then returns a status of rest.
Method: Part One: At Rest
• Stay quietly for 15 minutes
. • Count beats per minute in your wrist or neck pulse as an indicator of
heart rate • Count the number of breaths per minute.
• Using a thermometer, take body temperature.
• Measure blood pressure with a standard monitor (in mm Hg).
Part Two: After Exercise
• Perform 7 minutes of light jogging to increase heart rates and breathing
cycle speed.
• Right away check these same four vital signs.
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Part Three: Recovery
• Sit quietly in a chair for 5 minutes post-exercise.
• Record your four vital signs again.
• Repeat measurements at ten and fifteen minutes after exercise.
Observations:
0 minutes 5 minutes 10 minutes 15 minutes
Variable Rest after after after after
exercise exercise exercise exercise
Heart rate
72 150 110 85 74
(beats/min)
Respiration rate
14 30 24 18 14
(breaths/min)
Body temperature
36.6 37.2 36.9 36.7 36.6
(°C)
Blood pressure
115/75 135/88 125/82 118/76 115/74
(mm Hg)
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Heart rate:
The Heart rate of rest was 72 beats per minute. However, after exercise,
it jumped up to 150 beats per minute and then reached a resting
proportion within five minutes again. However with the passage of 15
minutes it was already back down to nearly its original resting level. This
is the normal response of a normal cardiovascular system to exercise.
Breathing:
The breathing rate jumped from 14 to 30 after just running. It started to
drop slowly back to its original level at rest within 15 minutes and stayed
there.
Introduction:
Resting heart rate was 72 bpm. At exercise, it increased to 150 bpm but
came back gradually through the recovery phase. At the 15th minute, it
had come back close to the original resting level. This is the expected
response for a healthy cardiovascular system reacting to exercise.
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Core Temperature:
Body temperature increased slightly after exercise due to increased
metabolism. However, five minutes after recovery began body
temperature had started to drop and it had completely normalized by 15
minutes.
Blood pressure:
There was a moderate increase in blood pressure immediately after
exercise (135/88 mm Hg), but upon rest the values gradually dropped and
finally came back to their original level in the end of observation period.
Conclusion:
This experiment demonstrates how bodily response to exercise elevates
the vital signs temporarily heart rate, respiration rate and blood pressure.
These all return to normal with short recovery, reflecting body's
recovering ability, and re-establishing balance.
