RUNNING HEAD: Blood Pressure and Fitness Knight et al.

STAIRWAY TO A HEALTHY HEART: HOW TO QUICKLY OBTAIN A HEALTHY

BLOOD PRESSURE THROUGH EXERCISE
Brooklyn M. Knight1 , and Kaylee N. Meador
Life Science Academy, Owensboro Community and Technical College, Owensboro KY, 42301

ABSTRACT
Blood pressure is the pressure exerted on the walls of your blood vessels as your blood
rushes through them. Having a blood pressure in a normal range is important to living a healthy
life as this is dependent upon how well your heart pumps blood. We believe one of the ways you
can maintain a healthy blood pressure is by exercising regularly. We conducted an experiment to
find the relationship between blood pressure and exercise, whether exercise makes a positive
difference in blood pressure or not. Our results, however, are not what we expected as we had
many technical difficulties. More research and experimentation would be needed to prove our
theory of exercise making a positive impact on blood pressure as reliable and accepted.

KEY WORDS: blood pressure, exercise, short and effective workouts, Logger Pro, stairs

Corresponding author e-mail: brooklyn.knight@stu.daviess.kyschools.us

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INTRODUCTION
Blood pressure, by definition is ...pressure exerted by the blood upon the walls of the
blood vessels and especially arteries (Merriam-Webster nd). Blood pressure is composed of
three measurements: systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial pressure (MAP). Systolic blood
pressure is a measure of the pressure being exerted on the walls of the blood vessels, while the
heart is pumping blood and diastolic pressure is a measure of pressure on the blood vessels walls
while the heart is relaxed, between heartbeats. The mean arterial pressure (MAP) is defined as
the average pressure in a patients arteries during one cardiac cycle (Lippincott nd).
Approximately 29% of American adults have high blood pressure (CDC 2015). High blood
pressure increases a persons risk for heart disease, which is the number one cause of death
worldwide (World Health Organization 2014). High blood pressure accounts for almost 1,000
deaths daily (CDC 2015).
With time being more valuable than ever, and gyms being considered quite costly,
Americans are trying to fit short, effective exercise into their busy schedules in order to avoid
being included in one of the statistics stated above. We know exercise can effectively lower
blood pressure, however we need to confirm that short, extensive exercise lowers blood pressure
as well. Exercise lowers a persons blood pressure because when someone exercises, their heart
is strengthening as a muscle. Therefore, when the person is resting, the heart will not have to
work as hard, and blood pressure will be lower. By increasing your physical activity, you can
lower your systolic blood pressure by 4 to 9 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg), on average. You
must regularly exercise for one to three months before you realize a drop in your blood pressure
(Mayo Clinic 2015).

Using exercise balls as chair, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, and even water
bottle workouts are all ways for the 9 to 5 office worker to squeeze in their daily exercise.
(HowStuffWorks 2011). TIME even states that short bursts of exercise are better than long
continuous exercise (Sifferlin 2014). Our mission was to discover whether short workouts, such
as jogging in place for 30 seconds or running up and down the stairs, would have the same blood
pressure readings and blood pressure decreases as regular workouts. Our hypothesis is that if
exercise affects blood pressure, then the relationship between blood pressure and exercise will be
linear. This means that if the level of difficulty of the exercise increases at a steady rate, then the
persons blood pressure will increase at a steady rate as well.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The equipment we used to conduct this experiment included a Vernier LabQuest Mini,
a sphygmomanometer, and a laptop with Vernier LoggerPro software. Access to stairs were
also needed. Ten participants were randomly selected to conduct this experiment. Participants
may want to be dressed in similar uniforms they would feel comfortable doing physical activity
in, however we were unable to meet this constant variable. We referred to each participants
results by giving them a number 1 through 10 for the order in which they were tested. We began
each trial by measuring the participants resting blood pressure using MAP.
We first set up our equipment by plugging the LabQuest Mini into the USB port of our
laptop and plugging in the sphygmomanometer to the LabQuest Mini in the Channel 1 port. We
next opened the LoggerPro application on the laptop and waited for the correct graph was
shown and the software showed it was ready to record data.
We measured the blood pressure of each participant at the beginning of each trial prior
before they completed any physical activity to find their resting blood pressure to use as a control

for each trial. We measured blood pressure using the sphygmomanometer, placing the cuff of the
instrument on the upper arm of the participant and level to the location of their heart. Most of our
participants stood while this was measured but we were not particular about whether they stood
or sat. On the computer, we clicked the green Collect arrow and began pumping air into the
cuff by repeatedly squeezing the inflation bulb on the end of the tube connected to the cuff. We
continued to squeeze the inflation bulb until the pressure reached 160 mm Hg. We then let the air
slowly seep out of the cuff as the computer recorded our results and calculated the MAP of our
participants. After the information we needed was obtained and remained steady, we removed the
cuff off of the participant and used the release valve to release all remaining air in the cuff.
We were now ready to begin collecting information based on physical activity. For each
trial, we asked each participant to jog in place for 30 seconds at a steady and comfortable pace.
We immediately placed the cuff on their arm and measured their blood pressure after the 30
seconds had passed. Once the information was collected, we removed the cuff and asked our
participants to run down the hall outside of our lab, down the stairs, and turn around and run
back to the lab following the same route. After this was completed, we once again placed the cuff
on the participants arm and measured their blood pressure to complete that trial of testing.
Once all testing was complete, we saved each graph recorded by LoggerPro as a file on
the laptop, and wrote down the MAP it calculated in a chart drawn in our laboratory notebooks.
We then entered all of our information into an Excel spreadsheet and created a graph to display
the data (table 1, figure 1).
RESULTS
We received varied results from our testing. Four of the trials revealed the blood
pressures of participants 1, 2, 4, and 9 to have decreased from their regular blood pressure when

they jogged in place, and their blood pressures to have increased from when they jogged in place
to when they ran up and down the stairs. Three trials revealed the blood pressures of participants
6, 7, and 8 to have increased throughout the three activities, however the increase was not
constant. Trial 5 showed its corresponding participants blood pressure to have decreased
throughout the experiments activities. This decrease was not constant. The final two
unmentioned trials, 3 and 10, showed their corresponding participants blood pressures to have
increased for the jogging exercise but decrease from the jogging exercise to the running exercise
(table 1 & figure 1). Out of the 30 total recordings we have for the mean arterial pressure (MAP)
for all of the students tested, only 6 fell in the average range for MAP (RnCeus Interactive).
DISCUSSION
The average MAP did increase at a positive linear rate when the difficulty of exercise
increased, which supported our hypothesis. However, the individual results for the 10
participants seemed to have no correlation at all, therefore no conclusions could be drawn from
these results (figure 1).
Some of the individual experiments did support our hypothesis, but others did not. We
can not draw conclusions from this data because all of it was taken from a single age group. To
increase the credibility of this experiment and the conclusions drawn from it, there are several
possibilities. First, we could test this experiment on different age groups ranging from 10 to 60
years of age. Another way to improve the credibility is to record the persons blood pressure in
Logger Pro for an extended period of time. We only recorded the persons blood pressure for 30
seconds because we were under a time constraint, but the longer the persons blood pressure is
recorded, the more credible our results will be.

Due to inaccuracies in our equipment, the effect of short intense exercises on blood
pressure is still to be determined. More extensive research will be essential in order to determine
if these short intense workouts could help busy Americans achieve better fitness than continuous
traditional exercise.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank the Life Science Academy for allowing us to use their resources for the retrieval of our
data. Also, we thank Owensboro Community and Technical College for providing us with a
classroom. Lastly, we thank Apollo and Daviess County High School for providing us with
laptops which were used to record and store data.

LITERATURE CITED
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Center for Disease Control and Prevention. 2015. High Blood Pressure Facts.
http://www.cdc.gov/bloodpressure/facts.htm. Date accessed (03/15/2016)
HowStuffWorks. 2011. 10 Office Exercises You Can Do Secretly.
http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/diet-fitness/exercise-at-work/10-officeexercises-you-can-do-secretly10.htm. Date accessed (03/15/2016)
Lippincott NursingCenter. nd. Calculating the MAP.
http://www.nursingcenter.com/ncblog/december-2011/calculating-the-map. Date accessed
(03/15/2016)
Mayo Clinic. 2015. Exercise: A drug-free approach to lowering high blood pressure.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-pressure/in-depth/high-bloodpressure/art-20045206. Date accessed (03/15/2016)
Merriam-Webster. nd. Blood Pressure Medical Definition. http://www.merriamwebster.com/medical/blood%20pressure. Date accessed (03/15/2016)
RnCeus Interactive. nd. Hemodynamic Measurement Terminology.
http://www.rnceus.com/hemo/term.htm. Date accessed (03/18/2016)
Sifferlin, A. 2014. Short Bursts of Exercise Are Better Than Exercising Nonstop.
http://time.com/3082281/short-bursts-of-exercise-are-better-than-exercising-nonstop/.
Date accessed (03/17/2016)
World Health Organization. 2014. The top 10 causes of death.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/. Date accessed (03/15/2016)

Table 1. Mean arterial pressure (MAP) blood pressure readings of the 10 participants when
resting, after jogging in place for 30 seconds, and after running up and down a flight of stairs.
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Figure 1. Line graphs representing the mean arterial pressure (MAP) blood pressure readings for
the 10 participants when resting, after jogging in place for 30 seconds, and after running up and
down a flight of stairs.