SPE2EPA-Exercise Physiology and Assessment
Assignment
You are required to write a report based on data collected from a graded exercise test where blood lactate was taken at the conclusion of each workload. Heart rate and expired gas values were measured throughout the test.
The aim of the study is to compare where the lactate (LT1 & LT2) and ventilatory thresholds (VT1 & VT2) occur in relation to the V̇ O2peak (%), power output (W) and HRmax (%)
Data will be provided on the LMS for 29 participants with the final row of data for participant 30 missing. You are required to do the following:
1. Calculate the blood lactate (LT1 & LT2) and ventilatory thresholds (VT1 & VT2) for participant 30 using the methods covered in the Topic 5 online tutorials and add their data into the dataset.
2. Present the sample mean and standard deviation for blood lactate and ventilatory thresholds in a table. The table should be formatted as it would be in the results section of a scientific journal article.
Finally, you will be required to discuss the results whilst drawing on the scientific literature. The lab report should be written up in the format of a scientific article and include an introduction, methods, results and discussion. Further detail is provided below:
Introduction
The introduction should explain the concept of lactate and ventilatory thresholds to the reader including the physiological theory behind them. The practical rationale for determining these thresholds should be discussed in relation to performance. Finally, a rationale, aim and hypothesis for the study should be provided.
Methods
In this section, you should include information about the participants’ physiological characteristics (i.e., age, height, body mass etc.) in-text (not in a table and not in the results section), and succinctly and accurately outline the procedures that were undertaken during the experiment, including: pre-exercise screening protocols, athlete set up, metabolic cart calibration and a description of the graded exercise test protocol employed. You should include information on how the ventilatory and lactate thresholds were calculated, including the correct references for the method employed [modified Dmax method (LT1 & LT2) and ventilatory equivalent method (VT1 & VT2)]. 3 Finally, you need to explain the statistical analysis that you performed on your data. This section should be written in paragraph format like a methods section for a scientific paper, using appropriate subheadings (see the template available on the LMS).
3. Compare the agreement between the lactate (LT1 & LT2) and ventilatory thresholds (VT1 & VT2) in relation to power output (W), VO2peak (%) and HRmax (%). You should do this by conducting a Pearson’s correlation, using the Jamovi statistics package. Your correlation results should also be reported as part of your results table.
Notes
1. The graded exercise test protocol that should be written up is detailed in the Topic 5 Lab Handout. This is available in the Assessment 3 folder.
2. Information about how to conduct write up the statistical analysis section of your methods is available in the SPE2DSS workshop handout on correlational analysis, which is available on the SPE2EPA tile.
3. You will be unable to accurately calculate the correlation coefficient using MS Excel. Before you can calculate the correlation coefficient, you will need to check all the assumptions associated with a correlational analysis, which includes exploring the data visually before you analyse it. Unless you are a wizard with MS Excel and really know your statistics, I think it will be difficult for you to correctly use a Fisher’s Z-transformation to calculate the lower and upper 95% CI of the Pearson’s r correlation. Jamovi will do this automatically at the click of a button. Take home point: Do not try to use MS Excel for statistical your analysis.
Results
In this section you should report the results of your stud
You should include the following graphs (figures) to demonstrate to the reader how the data was analysed for participant 30:
i) V̇ O2 against power output (W),
ii) lactate against power output (indicating where LT1 and LT2 occur)
iii) ventilatory equivalents against time (indicating where VT1 and VT2 occur).
