SPEC 102 –

PHYSIOLOGY OF EXERCISE
AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
WEEK 2:
European Influence on Exercise Physiology
 Terms to Ponder
• Exercise - activity requiring physical effort, carried out to
sustain or improve health and fitness.
• Physiology - the study of how the human body works
• Exercise physiology - the study of the body’s
responses to physical activity.
• Physiologists - medical experts that deal with the human
body and effects of processes and exposures.
PART 1

ORIGINS OF EXERCISE PHYSIOLOGY

• begins with acknowledgment of the early, but
tremendously influential Greek physicians of
antiquity.
Earliest Development – The Age of Galen
The first real focus on the physiology of exercise
most likely began in early Greece and Asia Minor.
 Physiology of Exercise
• Topics of exercise, sports, games, • The ancient civilizations of
and health concerned even Syria, Egypt, Macedonia,
earlier civilizations; the Minoan Arabia, Mesopotamia and
and Mycenaean cultures, the Persia, India, and China also
great biblical Empires of David recorded references to sports,
and Solomon, Assyria, Babylonia, games, and health practices
Media, and Persia, and the (personal hygiene, exercise,
Empires of Alexander. training
The greatest influence on Western Civilization came
from the Greek physicians of antiquity

Herodicus Hippocrates Claudius Galenus or Galen

(ca. 480 BC) (460-377 BC) (AD 131-201)
 Herodicus - a physician and athlete, strongly advocated
proper diet in physical training.

Hippocrates - the famous physician

and “father of preventive medicine” who
contributed 87 treatises on medicine
including several on health and hygiene.
Claudius Galenus or Galen
• emerged as perhaps the most well-
known and influential physician.
• began studying medicine at about
age 16.
• enhanced current thinking about
health and scientific hygiene, an
area that some might consider
applied exercise physiology
• taught and practiced “laws of
health.”
 Table 1. Laws of health according to Galen,
circa A.D. 140

1. Breathe Fresh Air

2. Eat Proper Foods
3. Drink The Right Beverages
4. Exercise
5. Get Adequate Sleep
6. Have A Daily Bowel Movement
7. Control One’s Emotions
• Galen produced about 80 treatises and 500 essays on numerous topics
related to human anatomy and physiology, nutrition, growth and
development, the beneficial effects of exercise and deleterious
consequences of sedentary living, and diverse diseases and their
treatment.
• One of the first laboratory-oriented physiologists, Galen conducted
original experiments in physiology, comparative anatomy, and medicine;
he dissected animals. As physician to the gladiators (probably the first in
Sports Medicine), Galen treated torn tendons and muscles using
surgical procedures he invented, and recommended rehabilitation
therapies and exercise regimens. Galen followed the Hippocratic School
of medicine that believed in logical science grounded in observation and
experimentation, not superstition or deity dictates.
Early United States Experience

• By the early 1800s in the United States, European science-oriented

physicians and experimental anatomists and physiologists strongly
promoted ideas about health and hygiene. Prior to 1800, only 39 first-
edition American-authored medical books had been published, several
medical schools were founded.

• Medical journal publications in the United States increased tremendously

during the first half of the nineteenth century.
Early United States Experience
• An explosion of information reached the American public through books,
magazines, newspapers, and traveling “health salesmen” who sold an
endless variety of tonics and elixirs promising to optimize health and cure
disease. Many health reformers and physicians from 1800 to 1850 used
“strange” procedures to treat disease and bodily discomforts.

• The “hot topics” of the early 19th century (also true today) included
nutrition and dieting (“slimming”), general information about exercise,
how to best develop overall fitness, training (gymnastic) exercises for
recreation and preparation for sport, and all matters relating to personal
health and hygiene.
Austin Flint, Jr., M.D.: American
Physician-Physiologist
• a pioneer American physician-scientist,
contributed significantly to the burgeoning
literature in physiology.
• A respected physician, physiologist, and
successful textbook author, he fostered
the belief among 19th century American
physical education teachers that
muscular exercise should be taught
from a strong foundation of science
and experimentation.
Austin Flint, Jr., M.D.: American
Physician-Physiologist

• he published a series of five classic

textbooks, the first entitled The
Physiology of Man; Designed to
Represent the Existing State of
Physiological Science as Applied to
the Functions of the Human Body.
Vol. 1; Introduction; The Blood;
Circulation; Respiration.
Austin Flint, Jr., M.D.: American Physician-
Physiologist

He published his medical school

thesis, “The phenomena of capillary
circulation,” in an 1878 issue of the
American Journal of the Medical Sciences.
His 1877 textbook included many exercise-
related details about:
(1) Influence of posture and exercise on
pulse rate;
(2) Influence of muscular activity on
respiration; and
(3) Influence of muscular exercise on
nitrogen elimination
 • Two physicians, father and son (Figure 2)
Amherst College pioneered the American sports science
Connection movement. Edward Hitchcock, D.D.,
LL.D. (1793-1864), served as professor
of chemistry and natural history at
Amherst College and as president of the
College from 1845-1854.

• On August 15, 1861, Edward Hitchcock,

Jr. became Professor of Hygiene and
Physical Education with full academic
rank in the Department of Physical
Culture - a position he held almost
continuously to 1911.
• William Augustus Stearns, D.D., the fourth President of
Amherst College had proposed the original idea of a
Department of Physical Education with a professorship in
1854. Stearns considered physical education instruction
essential for the health of students and useful to prepare
them physically, spiritually, and intellectually.

• In 1860, the Barrett Gymnasium at Amherst College, was

completed and served as the training facility where all
students were required to perform systematic exercises
for 30 minutes daily, four days a week.
 George Wells Fitz, M.D.
• Early “exercise physiology”
researcher helped create the
Department of Anatomy,
Physiology, and Physical Training
at Harvard University in 1891.
• Fitz established the first formal
exercise physiology laboratory.
 • Instructors in the initial undergraduate
B.S. degree program included
distinguished Harvard Medical School
physiologists Henry Pickering
Bowditch whose research produced
the “all or none principle of cardiac
contraction” and “treppe” (staircase
phenomenon of muscle contraction),
and W. T. Porter, internationally
recognized physiologist. Both men
were noted for their rigorous scientific
Henry and laboratory training. The new
W. T. major, grounded in the basic sciences,
Pickering
Bowditch Porter included formal coursework.
Prelude to Exercise Science: Harvard’s Department of Anatomy,
Physiology, and Physical Training (B.S. Degree, 1891-1898)

Harvard’s physical education major and exercise physiology

research laboratory focused on three objectives:

 Prepare students, with or without subsequent training in

medicine, to become directors of gymnasia or instructors in
physical training.
 Provide necessary knowledge about the science of exercise.
 Provide suitable academic preparation to enter Medical
School.
 Physical education students took general anatomy and
physiology courses in the medical school; after four years of study,
graduates could enroll as second-year medical students and
graduate in three years with an M.D. degree. Dr. Fitz taught the
physiology of exercise course; thus, he may have been the first
person to formally teach such a course. It included experimental
investigation and original work and thesis, including six hours a week
of laboratory study.

The prerequisite for the “Physiology of Exercise”

course included a course in general physiology at the medical school
or its equivalent. The course introduced students to the fundamentals
of physical education, and provided training in experimental methods
related to exercise physiology.
 Purpose of the New Exercise Physiology
• Nine men graduated with B.S. Research Laboratory
degrees from the Department of
• A large and well-equipped
Anatomy, Physiology, and
laboratory has been organized for
Physical Training, before it’s
the experimental study of the
dismantling in 1900. The aim of
physiology of exercise. The object
the major was to prepare
of this work is to exemplify the
students to become directors
hygiene of the muscles, the
of gymnasia or instructors in
conditions under which they act,
physical training, to provide
the relation of their action to the
students with the necessary
body as a whole affecting blood
knowledge about the science
supply and general hygienic
of exercise, and to offer
conditions, and the effects of
suitable training for entrance
various exercises upon muscular
to medical school.
growth and general health.
 By 1927, 135 institutions in the U.S. offered
bachelor’s degree programs in Physical Education with
coursework in the basic sciences; this included four
master’s degree programs and two doctoral programs
(Teachers College-Columbia University and New York
University). Since then, programs of study [with
emphasis in exercise physiology] have proliferated.
Currently, about 172 programs in the United States and
19 in Canada offer the masters or doctoral degrees with
specialization in some aspect of exercise physiology.
PART 2

Exercise Studies in Research Journals