Applied exercise physiology: a personal perspective of the past, present, and future.

Editor’s Note: To commemorate a year of celebration for its 50th Annual Meeting in May 2003 and its 50th anniversary as an organization in 2004, the American College of Sports Medicine and Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews is pleased to publish personal historical perspectives from leading sports medicine and exercise science professionals. This article is one in a series of articles based on the impact ACSM and ESSR has had on the fields and disciplines covered in this journal. During the past 50 yrs, since the founding of the American College of Sports Medicine in 1954, our understanding of how the body responds physiologically to a single bout of exercise and adapts to the chronic stress of exercise training has increased dramatically. This knowledge explosion has resulted from both technological advances and an increase in the number and quality of exercise scientists. Technological advances are discussed below. The increase in exercise scientists is best indicated by the fact that there were fewer than 100 members in the ACSM during its first 2 yrs of existence, whereas today’s membership exceeds 20,000. Not all of today’s members are exercise scientists, but that has been true since the beginning. Further, the quality of graduate education has been exceptional, with many mentors interested in the personal and professional development of their students. Technological advances have been extraordinary. This is demonstrated clearly by the following examples: measuring oxygen uptake during exercise, and data analyses and manuscript preparation. In the 1950s, exercise oxygen uptake was measured while either walking, jogging or running on a treadmill, or pedaling a cycle ergometer. To conduct a single graded maximal test of 12 to 15 min required the assistance of approximately four technicians and up to 4 h for the collection of the raw data necessary to calculate oxygen uptake. Expired air usually was collected in Douglas bags or meteorological balloons, using one bag or balloon for each minute of exercise. At the completion of the test, each bag or balloon was emptied into a Tissot spirometer for the measurement of the expired air volume. A fan on top of the spirometer mixed the air within the spirometer to assure a uniform composition of gases. After a volume reading was obtained, a small sample of the expired air was taken from the spirometer and stored in a sealed syringe or a neoprene bag for subsequent analyses for O2 and CO2 concentrations. Oxygen and CO2 concentrations were determined by either Haldane or Scholander chemical gas analyzers, a process that took from 10 to 20 min per sample for a duplicate analysis, with additional analyses necessary when there was not close agreement (e.g., 0.02 to 0.04%) between the two initial analyses. Today, with computerized metabolic measurement systems, incorporating flow meters, rapid responding electronic gas analyzers, and sophisticated computer algorithms for breath by breath analyses, the complete results of the entire test are displayed in both graphic and table format as the subject begins the cool-down period. With respect to data analyses and manuscript preparation, mechanical calculators were generally used, although raw data could be key punched onto 80-column computer cards and fed into a mainframe computer for subsequent data reduction. This process generally took many hours (unless you were first in line at the campus computer center at 2 A.M.). Manuscripts were typed on typewriters, so each draft required retyping the entire manuscript. This was such a laborious process that you were very careful to get it right the first time! Today, laptop computers allow you to conduct your data analyses, develop your PowerPoint presentation, and write your manuscript while in flight to present your research paper at the Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine! With that introductory background, let’s see how the area of applied exercise physiology has changed over the past 50 yrs. Because of space limitations, remarks and reflections will be limited to the areas of sport physiology and individual responses to training.