Kinesiology adds another new accolade

The Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of Calgary has another tremendous achievement to celebrate. It is now ranked No. 1 in expertise in muscle fatigue, according to the website Expertscape. That recognition is thanks to our numerous publications by Drs. Brian MacIntosh, PhD; Guillaume (Gui) Millet, PhD; John Temesi, PhD; and Saied Jalal Aboodarda, PhD.

What causes muscle fatigue? Simply put, repetition of movement may leave your muscles feeling weaker and tired. The work of MacIntosh suggests that acidosis, a metabolic change at the cellular level, is not the cause of fatigue, but that the muscle actually regulates its own activation to prevent use of too much energy. Fatigue will limit performance in races, and affect the outcome of any sport from running to figure skating. Fatigue also can be emphasized in diseases. It is important to note that the muscle fatigue referred to here is not the fatigue associated with sleepiness; it is really muscle fatigue.

“We know, for example, people with cancer suffer fatigue but we don’t really understand the why and how,” says MacIntosh. “I have always looked at muscle fatigue from a fundamental perspective trying to understand it at the cellular level and Gui took it to another level, considering the consequences and outcomes for those who suffer from muscle fatigue.” One consequence could be an impaired ability to engage in adequate exercise for health benefits. In severe cases, fatigue can prevent the ability to complete tasks of daily living, like going up stairs or even rising from a chair.

Methodology

Expertscape objectively ranks people and institutions by their expertise in more than 29,000 biomedical topics. According to Brendan McAdams and Dr. John Sotos, MD, the website Expertscape.com used PubMed-based algorithms to place researchers in the Faculty of Kinesiology “in the top 0.1 per cent of scholars writing about muscle fatigue over the past 10 years, a level we label as ‘World Expert.’ ”

Back-to-back ranking

News of the Expertscape accolade follows the recent announcement that the Faculty of Kinesiology was again ranked No. 1 in North America, according to the ShanghaiRanking’s Global Ranking of Sport Science Schools and Departments, and 11th out of 429 universities in the world.

“This is terrific — we have excellent researchers in our faculty. Not only have we maintained our No. 1 position of schools of sport science, we now have, thanks to our faculty members, this new, worldwide No. 1 ranking expertise in muscle fatigue,” says Dr. Penny Werthner, PhD, dean of the Faculty of Kinesiology.

The faculty’s goal is to improve the health and mobility for all, from youth to older individuals, and from recreation participants, elite athletes to Olympians, as well for those with a disability or surviving a disease.