Lung Capacity Lab Report

Words: 689
Pages: 3

I. Introduction
Lung capacity is the maximum amount of air that one’s lungs can hold (cliff notes), where as respiration is the physical action of exchanging gases (edu. Portal). The diaphragm, a large dome-shaped muscle, plays an important role in respiration and lung capacity. As oxygen is inhaled the diaphragm contracts downward allowing all the oxygen to rush into the lungs; where as when carbon dioxide is exhaled the diaphragm relaxes upwards causing the lungs to go back to normal (webmd). Lung capacity varies between males and females due to the size of the lungs. Male’s lungs are typically larger and average about twelve breathes per minute, where as females lungs are smaller and they average about nine breaths per minute (gender md). Athletes and singers also utilize their lungs in differently from each other. Athletes use aerobic and anaerobic respiration; aerobic respiration uses oxygen to help produce energy, where as anaerobic respiration is when there is a shortage of oxygen to produce energy, so the body breaks down glucose and phosphates creating lactic acid inside the muscles to help sustain energy for a short period
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Thus, showing that after averaging the lung capacities for each group the males the athletes had the largest lung capacity at 19.5 centimeters and for the females the singers has the largest lung capacity at 16.8 centimeters (Figure 3). What was interesting after viewing the results it was noticed that the group with the largest lung capacity for males happened to be the group with the smallest lung capacity for females and the largest lung capacity for females was the smallest for males (Figure 4). Also, the results showed that the males had a larger capacity in every group compared to the females, which was expected (Figure