Research July 2007 - 1

A little while back I heard through a friend that the UOttawa Human Kinetics department was seeking fit individuals for research projects. I have participated in two research projects in the past and so was eager to do another one. The research project involves measuring a person's body-thermal response when working in hotter and hotter conditions. The formal part of the research involves cycling for a fixed period of time under progressive hotter conditions while hooked up to a variety of internal and external measuring devices. Today, I was suppose to do a VO2 test but postponed it a couple of days to allow my legs to recover from the hiking. Instead, we measured my height, weight, blood pressure (normal), heart rate (low) and got wet. The getting wet part is cool as I had done this a couple of times, it is not what you think. The goal was to figure out what was my percent body fat. There are a couple of way of measuring body fat. The most common and least accurate is using skin fold method. The technique which gives a better estimate is known as hydrostatic weighting. The gold standard is something called the DEXA scan. In the past, I have done all three tests. For the current project, we did the hydrostatic weighting which involves getting into a tank of water and sweeping the bubbles off your body. The next part is to sit on a platform under water and blow out all the air from your lungs. You sit on the platform for a couple of seconds and they measure your in-the-water weight. We did a couple of hydrostatic measuring sessions until we got similar results. Early next week, we will do the VO2 test on a bicycle and then later in the week, we will do the first test session. Each test sessions will be under hotter conditions. Most of the protocols that we will use are things I have done in the past so much of it is familiar which is great. In future entries, I'll describe what happens at various sessions.