Emily WeimerBiomechanics Laboratory HWork and PowerSubject Weight: 645 NTrial 1: 2.36Trial 2: 1.62Trial 3: 1.47Trial Time (s) Displacement (m) Force (N) Work (J) Power (W)1 2.36 1.8 645 1,161 491.952 1.62 1.8 645 1,161 716.673 1.47 1.8 645 1,161 789.80Avg, 1.82 1.8 645 1,161 666.14Sample calculations:- Work = Force x displacement o 645 * 1.8 = 1,161 J- Power = work / timeo 1,161 / 2.36 = 491.95Discussion:When looking at the table above, you’ll notice that the mechanical work values do not vary form trial to trial. This is due to that fact that work is the product of force and displacement. In this lab, force is going to be equal to the participants weight and displacement is the total height of the steps climbed, which both of these variables remain constant throughout all trials. Incontrast to this, the mechanical power is much more variable. This is because power is calculated from dividing work by time or by multiplying force by velocity. Because the times vary from trialto trial, the power is also going to vary based on those times.This test could be used to get a general sense of somebody’s maximal anaerobic capacity, but there are other tests that could be used to produce much more accurate indicators. This particular test is aimed towards individuals who are able to safely and quickly move up and downthe stairs and it isn’t particularly suited for older individuals, as they have a higher risk of falling. Although it isn’t the most accurate test, it is easy to conduct and inexpensive as it doesn’t require anything besides a timer. For the most part, this test was pretty basic to participate in and didn’t require too much effort, so personally there weren’t really limiting factors from a physiological standpoint. My firsttrial was significantly higher than my other two trials, which I think can be attributed to human error. My lab partner would say, “go”, and then I would start, so it is possible that she started the timer too early before I started going or that my reaction time was slowed. For the second two trials, she started the time once I started going up the stairs, so the timer was based off of when I actually started rather than when she said “go”. It’s also possible that I wasn’t going as hard as I could’ve in the first trial and started to get the hang of it by the second trial.As previously discussed, there are different advantages and disadvantages to the different tests of anaerobic performance. Due to the differences in testing methods in how power is measured, there are also going to be variations in the results, sometimes resulting in very differentpeak power results. Some tests will look at an individual’s physical attributes such as height, weight, gender, and age, as a basis for manipulating the results from the tests. Different tests can be aimed towards different populations, in our case; it is geared toward individuals who canquickly move up the stairs, in a safe manner. The young female who recorded varied peak power results for vertical jump, bike sprint, and stair sprint could be due to a couple different factors. First, it could be based on difficulty. In my opinion, the stair sprint was a very easy test to complete, but other individuals may disagree and be better at the bike sprint or vertical jump. Thisparticular young female participant had a vertical jump peak power more than four times as large as her bike sprint peak power. It is hard to gather which of these test results should be viewed as the most accurate because they are so varied. From this example, you can see that the different tests clearly produce variation among results, leading to inaccuracies when interpreting the
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