Female Versus Male Recovery Rate Essay, Research Paper

THE RECOVERY RATE OF THE MALE IS SIGNIFICANTLY

FASTER THAN THAT OF THE FEMALE.

Abstract:

This experiment is designed to test whether or not gender is a major contributing factor to the recovery heart rate in humans. Most would assume that the male heart rate would be considerably faster in recovery time than that of the female. This experiment furthers that assumption by eliminating uncontrolled variables such as age, build, and health conditions.

Introduction:

The male human has always had certain physical advantages over the female human such as increased muscle mass, larger bones, and superb aggressiveness in times where deemed necessary. But is recovery rate (or, how long it takes for the heart rate to return to its resting rate) an advantage possessed by males also? The question posed in this experiment is whether or not the heart rate of the male will recover faster than that of a female. The hypothesis tested was that the male’s heart rate would fall considerably faster than the female’s after one minute of intense physical activity.

It is known already that males dominate females in the physical world in most cases. Males have much larger natural muscle mass, less body fat, and a physique that is designed for superiority in the physical world. Therefore it can only be assumed that the most important muscle of all (the heart) would also be superior in its performance.

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Many factors can influence the results of testing this hypothesis. All variables have been controlled except for the variable gender. Both the male and female subjects are close in age (* two years difference), both are nonsmokers, both possess small body builds for their respective gender, and both have no debilitating medical conditions (e.g., asthma, diabetes, heart condition). Controlling these factors allowed for the testing of the hypothesis, which is focused strictly on gender.

Materials and Methods:

The materials used: one wristwatch (with second hand), two variably indifferent humans (one male, one female), and a standard staircase at CCC. The method was simple: two test subjects were exposed to two trials involving one minute of physical activity and x minutes needed for the recovery of the heart rate. Before the experiment began, each subject’s resting heart rate was taken. This would become the controlled variable. Next, each subject ran up one set of stairs at CCC, one stair at a time, for one minute. After one minute of activity, the subjects stopped and began taking his or her heart rate. Heart rate was recorded after one, three, five, seven, and ten minutes, or until the heart rate recovered to where it was equal to the respective resting rate. The data was recorded and the trial was held a second time. After both trials were completed, the subjects and recorder analyzed the data. The results are shown in the graph and table.

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Discussion:

After the data collected was analyzed, it was found that the results obtained from the data supported the hypothesis that the male recovery heart rate was significantly faster than the female.

The experiment has shown that most all other factors aside, the male recovery rate is in fact superior to the female’s. There are still underlying factors such as ethnicity, vitamin/mineral deficiencies, diet and exercise routines, and psychological factors such as anxiety that could not be controlled, and therefore could not be recognized in this experiment. All other things aside, the experiment supported the hypothesis, thus probing the way for more rigorous and controlled experiments.

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Literature Cited:

Raven, Peter H. Johnson, George B. 1999. Biology, Fifth Edition. United States of America: McGraw-Hill.

Dolphin, Warren D. 1999. Biological Investigations. United States of America: McGraw-Hill.

Bibliography

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