Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Warm Up Science Project

One of my old swimmers emailed me a couple weeks ago and asked if he could present his science project to his Nadador teammates in the 10 and Under Division.  He thought it would be relevant for the kids and explained that it helped him realize the importance of a good warm up before his competitions.  On Monday Braden Olson came in and presented a science project that was so much fun and super easy for the kids to understand.  It just made sense!
How does change in temperature affect the speed of muscle response?
Well the data suggested what we all know is true...Temperature does affect the speed of muscle response.
He took a swimmer and had him place his hand in room temp water for 2 minutes.  Then Braden counted the number of times the swimmer could open and close his hand in 30 seconds.  He did the same thing in hot water and then in cold water.  The swimmer was able to execute the most repeats in hot water, the second most number of repeats in room temp water and the least amount of repeats in cold water....Pretty relevant for young swimmers huh?!
I will be either doing this experiment every season on my own or asking Braden to come back and do it again and again.  It was easy for the kids to understand and hit home with all of them.  Great job B!
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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 23, 2011 at 4:30 AM

    That's great

    I used to tell the kids about the study with the frogs & their leap lenght in cold / warm (never mind frogs being poikilotherm, frogs are funny little things), but this I will probably do sometime also!

    I'd think it would be perfect to try this hand-thing + a living frog in different temperatures. :)

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