Your pulse rate is the result of blood being pumped through your arteries by your heart. When your heart contracts (pumps), blood moves through blood vessels in your body called arteries. The arteries pulsate as blood rushes through them. This pulsation can be felt in different locations of your body (wrist, neck, chest). During exercise, your heart muscle pumps harder to move oxygenated blood to your muscle cells. Normally at rest, your heart muscle works less because your muscles are not real active.

Monitoring pulse rate is one way to evaluate one's cardiovascular fitness. Generally, the healthier your cardiovascular system (heart, arteries), the lower your resting heart rate.

While sitting out, use the second and third finger of your right hand to find the redial pulse of your left wrist (teacher will help).

1. Once you find your your radial pulse, count each pulsation for one minute. This can be done using the wall clock. Once the minute changes start counting until it changes again. Record your result on the data section on the sheet.

2. Repeat procedure #1, five times. Record on sheet.

3. Once you have completed your five minutes of data collecting, organize it by forming a line graph.

Conclusion Questions:

1. What is a pulse?
2. What can your resting pulse rate determine?
3. What affect does exercising have on your pulse rate?
4. What can you determine about your resting heart rate after collecting and charting your data?