Heart rate study -- Day #1 Again

This morning I headed over to uOttawa to redo my heart rate research study. A bit of background the research study is looking at "the evaluation of continuous HRV during 24 hour periods and during staged exercise testing." While at the university they attached five heart rate sensor patches to my chest which are smaller and more comfortable than the ones they used last week. Rachel was happy with the first-24-hours worth of data collected before the VO2 test fiasco. As I was heading back to the office they promised me that they had found a new nose clip which won't slide off during the VO2 running test tomorrow. We'll have to see what happens. In anticipation of the test, I gave my legs a couple of days rest from running.

On another note, I had one of my best swing dance nights on Friday. I danced with a record number of followers and for some reason followers wanted to dance with me. There was only one bummer and that is, I didn't drink my diet coke before the dance. This made dancing a little hard as I really had to concentrate and focus on the music, and my footwork. Corona and I discovered a new form of dancing which we are called "fan dancing." Ottawa Swing Dance Society recently changed it dance location to a church hall which doesn't have air conditioning. I usually dance in shorts and a short-sleeve shirt. While Corona and I were dancing I steered her so that we were dancing in front of the fan. This made dancing in the hot church more bareable. For the rest of the night, I would steer my follower over to the fan so we could have a "fan dance." I think they appreciated the breeze from the fan.

Another experiment

In a couple of days, I'll do another physiology experiment at the University of Ottawa. This one involves one of my passion running. There will be three parts to the experiment. The first part involves being wired up with sensors on my chest which will monitor my heart activity 24 hours before the experiment. The next morning, I will jump on a treadmill and do a VO2 test which involves incrementally run faster and faster until you just about fall or fly off the treadmill. The final stage is to monitor my heart activity for 24 hours after the VO2 test. I think the idea behind the test is to see how my body responds to the stress of running as fast and hard as it can in a controlled environment. This will be the third time that I have done a VO2 test and they are always fun but at the same time quite challenging. I blog after the experiment with my the findings.

Diabetic Research Study

Earlier this week, I participated in a research study comparing the blood glucose levels of non-diabetic athletes with diabetic athletes during an exercise trial. I'm not diabetic so I was part of the control group. There were two part to the study. The first part involved cycling in a 35C/95F calorimeter to determine what wattage/resistance they should apply to the pedals during the main trial. The second part involved be wired up with a multitude of sensors.

• Four sweat capsules attached to my arms and legs to measure my sweat rate
• A heart rate monitor to measure my heart rate
• A laser sensor on my wrist to measure the maximal blood flow and oxygen level through my skin
• An oxygen mask connected to a long hose connected to a metabolic cart measuring my oxygen, carbon dioxide, breathing rate
• Three internal thermometer measure my body core temperature -- ear (tympanic), throat (esophageal) and anonymous place
• A blood glucose monitor. I have to take three blood samples during the trial
  

Once I was all wired up I headed into the calorimeter (35C/95F) and remained stationary for 30 minutes. The purpose of this segment was to let my body adapt to the warm conditions and to get some baseline measurements. The main part of the experiment involved cycling for 60 minutes at a fixed cadence and with fixed resistance. The final segment was sitting for an hour chilling. Apparently, all the data collected was of value as the researcher was eagerly analyzing it as I left. The idea was to compare all of the data from my session with a diabetic athlete having similar characteristics who also did the same trial to see how s/he responded to the stress of the exercise.

Bras to Masks

I'm at home for a long weekend which gives me a chance to catch up on reading. This morning I was reading one of my father's technical magazines. It talked about a recent patent for a bra that could be quickly converted in a face mask in the event of civil emergency.

Exhaust Burger: Let your tailpipe cook for you

I was listening to an engineering podcast tonight which caused to laugh for quite some time. An Iranian engineer has invented a device that attaches to your car exhaust pipe and uses the excess heat to cook a hamburger. It is a novel concept.