Month: March 2018

KIP Lab Featured in 2018 Michigan Tech Research Magazine

Steve Elmer Research Magazine 201712200128In Steve Elmer’s lab, researchers explore the limits of the human body in a quest to make people move—and feel—better. Elmer’s team designs cutting edge equipment and training regimes to help every body reach its highest potential, regardless of age, profession, or ability.

The benefits of strength training are many and well known: Strength training helps you maintain a healthy weight. It protects your bones and preserves your muscle mass. It helps develop better body mechanics, boosts your energy, and improves your mood. It even plays a role in disease prevention and pain management.

In fact, strength training is so beneficial that the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends adults engage in a strength-training program a minimum of two non-consecutive days each week. And their recommendations don’t stop there—ACSM outlines specific types of strength-building exercises and target numbers for repetition.

So everyone should be strength training, right?

While it’s easy to say everyone should, not everyone can, at least not in a “traditional” manner.

Take, for instance, someone who uses a wheelchair or someone who has recently undergone knee surgery. Finding effective lower-body strength-training exercises that don’t overtax the heart, lungs, and joints can be a challenge. And many with old injuries run into the same problem.

Michigan Tech researchers have found a solution. Steve Elmer is an assistant professor of kinesiology and integrative physiology, an affiliated assistant professor of biological sciences, and an affiliated assistant professor of mechanical engineering. His lab is interdisciplinary, where students, participants, and researchers explore the edges of physiology.

For more on Elmer’s research, read the full story “Exercise for Every Body” published in the 2018 Michigan Tech Research Magazine.

 

Bye Receives the Horwitz/Horowitz Abstract Award

aps_masthead_logoCongrats to exercise science major, Thomas Bye, on his recent award from the American Physiological Society (APS).  Bye was one of 30 recipients of the Barbara A. Horwitz and John M. Horowitz Undergraduate Research Abstract Award for his abstract entitled “Effects of Respiratory Muscle Fatigue on Upper-Body Exercise Tolerance.”

Recipients receive $100, a 2-year membership to APS, and will present their research at the annual Experimental Biology meeting in April with an opportunity to compete for the Barbara A. Horwitz and John M. Horowitz Excellence in Undergraduate Research Award.

Fonkoue Recognized as 2018 Young Investigator

Congratulations to recent Michigan Tech doctoral graduate, Ida Fonkoue on her latest award.   Ida was awarded the 2018 Southern Society Clinical Investigation (SSCI) Young Investigator Award at the Southern Regional Meeting in February.  This award recognizes and encourages excellence in investigation by physicians and medical students during research training.

Ida finished her doctoral degree in May 2017 working under the advisement of Dr. Jason Carter and is currently working as a postdoctoral fellow at Emory University in the Division of Renal Medicine.

Ida Award cropped
Ida accepting the 2018 Young Investigator Award at the SSCI Southern Regional Meeting