Biology department opens new exercise physiology lab
Mary Schuhriemen
Issue date: 2/3/09 Section: News
On Friday, Jan. 30, the biology department hosted an open house in order to celebrate the start of a new lab, the Exercise Physiology Teaching and Research Lab. Dr. Stephen Slaughter, who teaches the class connected to the lab, Exercise Physiology, shared a few comments about the new lab.
"It's really a human performance lab," Slaughter said, "and it's designed to measure various performance characteristics, not only in someone like an athlete, as in sports medicine, but also in individuals who have some type of dysfunction, so like if someone has had a stroke perhaps and they need to have their gait, or how they walk, evaluated, to get a baseline so they know how they progress, we can also do that in the lab."
Describing the lab itself, Slaughter said that it has "two main areas. One is involved in biomechanics and uses a combination of video analysis and tracking units that you can strap onto you and use a combination of those two techniques to evaluate how people move, everything from walking, how they use their arms, to someone like a batter swinging his bat. The other side is the physiology side and there we measure many different parameters, some of which are things like oxygen, CO2, total body water, the body fat mass of an individual, the amount of mass of the human body that is contributed by the bone and the muscle instead of fat itself." How the lab measures these is by a technique called an EMG, Electromyography, which Slaughter described as "designed to measure electrical characteristics often of specific muscles so you can evaluate those when training an athlete who wants to increase his strength in a specific muscle."
The lab's purpose is threefold, according to Slaughter. "One is, I teach a course called Exercise Physiology and we actually use the lab as part of that course. The second is to support my research. So the equipment in there has dual purpose. It's great for teaching, but it is high enough caliber to support my research. The third is that I would like to take outside service work; perhaps organizations that need this sort of testing and they can come to this lab which has fairly robust capabilities and be able to evaluate their athletes."
UD's own athletic department is involved in the exercise physiology lab's work. "I'm now working with Jodi Hawkins, who is cross-country coach, and we are setting up something where I'll be evaluating her long distance runners and it's certainly open to any other UD athletic department. It's free for them," Slaughter said.
Slaughter's own specific research in the lab is concerned with biomechanics, "An example might be a study I'm looking into but am not actively involved in now is the effect of carrying backpacks on children. I'm looking into a study on the impact on that, on how they move, and so the equipment will certainly support that research."
"It's really a human performance lab," Slaughter said, "and it's designed to measure various performance characteristics, not only in someone like an athlete, as in sports medicine, but also in individuals who have some type of dysfunction, so like if someone has had a stroke perhaps and they need to have their gait, or how they walk, evaluated, to get a baseline so they know how they progress, we can also do that in the lab."
Describing the lab itself, Slaughter said that it has "two main areas. One is involved in biomechanics and uses a combination of video analysis and tracking units that you can strap onto you and use a combination of those two techniques to evaluate how people move, everything from walking, how they use their arms, to someone like a batter swinging his bat. The other side is the physiology side and there we measure many different parameters, some of which are things like oxygen, CO2, total body water, the body fat mass of an individual, the amount of mass of the human body that is contributed by the bone and the muscle instead of fat itself." How the lab measures these is by a technique called an EMG, Electromyography, which Slaughter described as "designed to measure electrical characteristics often of specific muscles so you can evaluate those when training an athlete who wants to increase his strength in a specific muscle."
The lab's purpose is threefold, according to Slaughter. "One is, I teach a course called Exercise Physiology and we actually use the lab as part of that course. The second is to support my research. So the equipment in there has dual purpose. It's great for teaching, but it is high enough caliber to support my research. The third is that I would like to take outside service work; perhaps organizations that need this sort of testing and they can come to this lab which has fairly robust capabilities and be able to evaluate their athletes."
UD's own athletic department is involved in the exercise physiology lab's work. "I'm now working with Jodi Hawkins, who is cross-country coach, and we are setting up something where I'll be evaluating her long distance runners and it's certainly open to any other UD athletic department. It's free for them," Slaughter said.
Slaughter's own specific research in the lab is concerned with biomechanics, "An example might be a study I'm looking into but am not actively involved in now is the effect of carrying backpacks on children. I'm looking into a study on the impact on that, on how they move, and so the equipment will certainly support that research."
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