According to Oxford dictionary, the definition of a sport is “An activity involving physical exertion …show more content…
Indiana State University did tests on a Marching Band member to see what would happen. Like an athlete, a Marching Band member’s heart rate will shoot up before anything even happens; in the test it shot up to 180 BPM. At some points of that member’s performance, his heat rate shot up to over 200 BPM and stayed at that level for about the whole show. His oxygen levels were at one point 40 mL/Kg per minute, which means it’s about 13 times his resting metabolic rate. His oxygen consumption was about the same as a marathon runner’s oxygen consumption at the middle their marathon. But his heart rate was roughly the same rate as a person running a 400 or 800 meter dash at their maximum speed the whole time. ("The Athleticism of a DCI Member.") Dr. Jeff Edwards, who conducted the testing, said “These performers work very hard metabolically, but they are doing an amazing amount of work that most of us would find very stressful. And this stress encoumpases everything from doing music correctly, doing stress correctly, handling heat as well as the plain work that they’re doing.” Despite the extreme stress and exercise Marching Band does to the body, is there really any athletic ability to it? Don’t members just walk around and play an