The Human Performance Lab, a room equipped with various machines for students to learn more about their physical well-being, is run by the School of Health and Kinesiology at Southern Adventist University. The lab, located in the Hulsey Wellness Center, is open to students and the public.
Darin Bissell, Hulsey’s facilities manager, talked about the lab’s focus in an interview with the Accent.
“Students are able to get the resting metabolic test, a treadmill or bike threshold test and then the bod pod test,” Bissel said. “Students get a pretest, and then eight weeks later they will get a post test. These three tests help students start to understand their health better and teach them how to stay healthy.”
The lab, which opened in 2008, has been run by Harold Mayer, a now retired professor who taught in the School of Health and Kinesiology, since its existence.
In an interview with the Accent, Mayer described the tests and their benefits.
The first, the resting metabolic test, helps show how many calories one burns when they are resting. This is important because it can help people understand the calorie outtake of their bodies, according to Mayer. This can help people make a diet plan to either help them lose weight, gain weight or stay at a stable weight.
The second test is the treadmill or bike threshold test, which helps reveal a person’s “sweet spot” for exercising. The sweet spot allows a person to exercise at an ideal rate and for the exercise to be most effective.
The third and final test offered by the lab is the bod pod test. This test helps people see their body fat percentage. It also shows the person’s muscle and fat mass.
Mayer has been training a new professor, Heather Neal, how to run the lab. Neal will soon take over the lab and help students use it.
Arlene Leavitt, office manager for the School of Health and Kinesiology, said in an interview that a number of classes in the school use the lab. One of those classes is personal conditioning.
Logan Cooper, junior business administration major, took personal conditioning in the winter of 2022. He described how the lab helped him.
“The lab was really beneficial to me last semester,”Cooper said. “It helped me learn how to exercise more efficiently and helped me understand more about the sweet spot.I think that it’s important for students to use the lab to help them understand the sweet spot and help further their knowledge of their own health.”
Students and employees can schedule free testing with Neal by filling out a form at southern.edu/wellness.
