Caffeine Athletic Performance

Introduction

For our science fair project, we decided to do an experiment on the effects of caffeine on athletic performance. We chose to conduct this experiment because of our combined interests in athletics and the medical field. Researchers have studied the effects of caffeine on athletic performance, concluding that it can enhance performance and agility. After reviewing some of these studies, we believe if caffeine levels are increased, then the time taken to run a lap around the soccer practice field will decrease when time is a function of caffeine level. To test this hypothesis, we will have a group of ten subjects, male and female, who possess varying athletic capabilities. We will provide the test group with a defined volume of

Overconsumption of this product could become illegal in any kind of athletics and may cause an athlete to be disqualified. It would be wrong to continue to allow them to participate in the sport if they were consuming large amounts of caffeine to enhance their performance. This is a major reason why scientists have been researching and testing these theories about caffeine. As shown by the 2008 Olympics, some events and major sports events have already enacted bans on certain levels of caffeine. We believe that even though it is on a much smaller scale, that we will be able to see the effects of caffeine on athletic performance during our experiment with our ten test subjects. (Anderson,

The first drink we will test will be water. The second drink will be Dr.Pepper. The last drink we will test will be sweet tea. After the group drinks the liquid we will have them run around the track one lap and record the times in order to see the effects of caffeine on their times.

Hypothesis

We hypothesize that if caffeine levels are increased, then time taken to run a lap will decrease when time is a function of caffeine level. Because of this and the fact that Dr. Pepper has more caffeine, we believe that when we give the test subjects the Dr. Pepper they will run the fastest. McDonald 's sweet tea contains 12.5 mg of caffeine per 118.3 ml, Dr.Pepper contains 33.3 mg of caffeine per 118.3 ml, and of course water contains 0.00 mg of caffeine per 118.3 ml. We have reason to believe this will be the result based on other experiments done that prove that caffeine improves reaction time and agility.

Materials

The materials we will be using in our experiment are Dr.Pepper, water, sweet tea. We will use the water as our baseline. The Dr.Pepper will be used as one source of caffeine. The Sweet Tea will used as another source of caffeine. We will need cups to put each drink in. We will also need stop watches in order to record every runner 's