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Strenuous Science – Montana Center for Work Physiology and Exercise Metabolism keeps going and going and going…

Growing UM center tests limits of human endurance

After cycling for 20 minutes, Walter Hailes’ temperature rose nearly 1 degree. Hailes, who once guided on Alaska’s Mount McKinley, began to sweat profusely as he bent into the handlebars, breathing heavily, countering the 212 watts of resistance against him.

Only through one-third of an indoor low-intensity bike workout, Hailes felt like he was working harder than that. Despite the winter weather outside, he cycled in a 90-degree “hot box” that felt like a July afternoon in Montana.

“Once his temperature hits 39 degrees (Celsius), he’s going to get a lot more uncomfortable,” says Brent Ruby, the director of UM’s new Montana Center for Work Physiology and Exercise Metabolism http://www.soe.umt.edu/hhp/ .

The center, awarded a federal grant in 2006, studies the limits of human performance in harsh occupational environments. The experiment Hailes tested was part of a graduate thesis studying how the body recovers from strenuous activity in heat and is representative of the center’s research methods, which mimic real-life settings.

Full Story: http://www.umt.edu/urelations/rview/spring08/strenuous.html

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