The HUFF 50K Trail Notes

Thought our endurance athletes might enjoy reading about the early years of the human performance lab at Ball State University. Ball State is located about 35 miles southeast of The HUFF.

Gail Koch, writing in The MUNCIE STAR ,reported today:

Forty years ago, Ball State University's Human Performance Laboratory was nothing more than a storage room in the back of a gymnasium.

Today, the lab is recognized as one of the nation's top research centers for exercise physiology, conducting research on topics that cover everything from aging to space flight.

To celebrate its achievements, the HPL will host the Midwest American College of Sports Medicine annual fall meeting today through Saturday at the Horizon Convention Center. The conference is expected to attract 500 researchers, educators and students from around the world.

One of those attendees is Bill Evans, the first graduate to complete his doctoral degree from the HPL in 1980. Evans now oversees the nutrition, metabolism and exercise lab at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

Like so many other alumni of HPL programs, Evans can't speak of the lab's success without mentioning its founders, Leroy "Bud" Getchell and long-time director David Costill.

"Dave was the first person I knew who really thought about exercise in terms of biology and science," said Evans, who studied at Ball State from 1974 to 1978.

Up until the late 1960s, much of what the country was learning about exercise was through studies conducted in physical education programs, Evans explained....

You can read the rest of the story in The MUNCIE STAR here.

Yours truly went through the Human Performance Lab nearly 20 years ago. The verdict? "VO2 Max. is pretty good now; but you could up your mileage considerably." I followed that advice for awhile...and need to follow it again.