What Exercises Most Efficiently Raise

Your Heart Rate and Body Temperature

to Keep You Warm in the Cold?
Cat, Mackenzie, Jayden, & Jake
Period 3

Abstract:
How would you survive in freezing temperatures? When beginning this experiment, we
were looking for possible solutions to this question. Could the act of gathering wood for a fire
actually help keep you alive and warm? We hypothesised, yes. Physical exercise could increase
your body temperature. Does physical exercise keep you warm in the cold? To test this, we
decided to check resting heart rate and resting temperature, then exercise for two minutes and
repeat the process. Our hypothesis turned out to be correct. Although heart rate does not
dramatically increase body heat generation, it could aid in keeping a stranded person warmer.

Introduction:
We chose to figure out what exercises have a higher heat generation when out in the
cold. The reason behind this exercise is because we want to see what will be the most useful
exercise when you are cold outside. If you think about it, it is a very good question. When you
are outside for an activity and it is cold, you do different things to help your body get warmer,
and most times it doesnt work. So, a very good question that we want to figure out for you is,
when you are outside just hanging out what exercise will keep you warm. As we were first trying
to figure out what our question would be we started working with that it would have something to
do with heat. Once we created our question we looked at background knowledge. One of the
questions we did was How does the temperature effect your heart rate? How does different
exercises affect your heart rate? What role does perspiration have, when we are
exercising? These questions are important because it helps us understand our experiment a
little bit more. We found out through these questions that warmer temperatures cause the heart
to beat faster and place considerable strain on the body. For the third question the body temps
rise, sweat glands kick into gear to keep our body temperature stabilizes. After answering these
questions we were then able to get started on our experiment.

Question and Hypothesis:

If heart rate affects heat generation, then it is possible to survive in the cold by exercising
because exercise increases heart rate?
Methods and Materials:

Variables:
Independent: Heart Rate
Dependent: Body Heat
Materials Needed:
Thermal Camera
Heart Rate Monitoring Device (HRMD)
Test Subjects (the more the better!)
Steps:
Step 1: Prepare Thermal Camera and HRMD
Step 2: Have your test subjects use the HRMD to find their resting heart rates. Use the
thermal camera to find their body heat. Stay consistent with your measuring.
Step 3: Have your test subjects perform either of the exercises (2 minutes of jumping
jacks or 2 minutes of running) F igure 1
Step 4: Remeasure the heart rates and body heat
Step 5: Wait until test subjects heart rates are normal again
Step 6: Perform other exercise F igure 2
Step 7: Remeasure the heart rates and body heat
Step 8: Set up ratios ( resting heart rate
body temp.
heart rate after jumping jacks
= body heart rate after running
temp. after jumping jacks = body temp. after running ) and
calculate what warms you up the most (sitting still/resting, jumping jacks, or running.)

Figure 1: Figure 2:
Results:
Heart Temp
Resting
Jayden 92 33.5c

Cat 52 32c

Mackenzie 80 21.5c

Heart Temp
Jumping Jacks
Jayden 124 34c

Cat 96 32c

Mackenzie 96 31c

Heart Temp
Running
Jayden 120 33.5c

Cat 104 31c

Mackenzie 112 31c

Discussion:
When conducting our first experiment we tested the heat in an inaccurate way. We
started out using the thermal camera, since we were new to the camera we ended up
measuring the heat of the space behind the person, which ended with us having to redo the
experiment. As we continued with the experiment we measured the heat wrong again as well as
the heart rate. So we ended up redoing our experiment multiple times. Because of this we felt
rushed on our final experiment, so the results were probably not as accurate as they could have
been. Modifying this experiment I think to be more prepared and to figure out the best
measuring device in advance and make sure we know what we are doing. I also think taking
advantage of the time to get more results. More results have better outcomes that are accurate.
Besides the errors, out of the two exercises the most effective exercise was Jumping Jacks,
surprisingly. When doing jumping jacks our body produces more heat, because of the constant
rate of activity and motion that was going on. The more controlled our heart rate was the less
heat was attributed. So, in Jumping Jacks it is harder to keep a controlled heart rate.
Bibliography:
http://greatist.com/fitness/why-do-i-sweat-during-exercise
Human Kinetics
Active
New York Times