For the past year, North Hall, generally a quiet part of campus, has been busy with the sounds of blood pressure cuffs rapidly inflating and deflating and students partaking in hour-long tri-weekly exercise training. This is all part of a project led by Todd Shoepe, professor and chair of the Health and Human Sciences Department. The goal of the project is to study how a unique exercise intervention could improve bone mineral density to decrease the risk of osteoporosis.
Osteoporosis is a disease where bones are weak and susceptible to fractures. The risk of osteoporosis increases dramatically with age and is very common in women above the age of 70. To date, there are few effective interventions to slow the decline in bone health. Exercise, predominantly heavy resistance exercise, is perhaps the leading intervention to prevent osteoporosis.
Researchers, including Professor Shoepe, are now studying a relatively novel modality of resistance exercise, called “blood flow restricted resistance training,” which is targeted toward clinical populations, such as those who are frail or recovering from injury.
The intervention involves lifting very light weights while blood flow is restricted by blood pressure cuffs. The occlusion of blood flow leads to an accumulation of exercise metabolites and promotes muscular fatigue, which are thought to stimulate more beneficial adaptations to the exercise. Previous researchers have found that this type of exercise can increase muscle size and strength as well as traditional resistance exercise. However, less is known about whether this type of exercise can improve bone health.
Shoepe and his team just completed collecting data to study the effect of eight weeks of blood flow restricted resistance exercise training on muscle strength and bone health. This year, Professor Shoepe and his team continue their efforts. They will be analyzing the data they’ve collected over the year. Next year they hope to present their findings at conferences and publish them in an academic journal.
“Teamwork is the key,” says Shoepe. As with many projects in the HHSC department, such as INVEST, SELFY, and IMPAACT, testing interventions require hundreds of hours of effort from students. His team of undergraduate researchers have spent the past year recruiting over 50 participants, supervising over 700 hours of training, and 320 hours of testing for their study “B2RT.” In turn, these students gain valuable experience.
“I was able to take what I was learning in anatomy and apply it to real research,” says HHSC senior Victoria Batlle who also credits Professor Shoepe for making sure she is always learning – whether that be the technical skills, the science behind the research, or the project management skills.
It had been a year of heard work as Batlle has recruited subjects and coordinated 50 people’s schedules for “pre-and post-testing, blood draws, maximum repetition testing, schedule weekly training sessions, and staff each session with research assistants” which is exceptionally challenging. However, she relishes the challenge and opportunity for growth.
“As a research manager, I am responsible for managing all participants’ schedules. We practically oversee the entire project for the whole semester and are responsible for making sure it runs smoothly.”
