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We are excited to announce the launch of F1000Prime’s newest Section: Exercise Physiology.

In this blog, our Director of Operations and Certified Personal Trainer Steven Lokwan Ph.D. explains why we decided to add this section and introduces the Section Heads as well as the inaugural Faculty Members.

While the beneficial effects of exercise were recognised over 2000 years ago by Hippocrates, for many, the guise in which we know it today seems like a relatively modern concept, which started in the 1960s with Arthur Lydiard and Bill Bowerman popularizing jogging, continuing in the 1970s with the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger popularizing the, then niche, culture of bodybuilding and, in the 1980s, with Jane Fonda and her contemporaries extolling the virtues of the exercise video.

Since those dim and (not so) distant times, we’ve come a long way in our understanding of the benefits of exercise to both improve our sense of wellbeing and overall life- and healthspan. We only have to look at the outstanding achievements at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, where 91 Olympic and 27 world records were broken to appreciate what the human body is capable of. However, none of these great achievements would be possible without research in the field of exercise physiology underpinning and pushing the boundaries of our understanding into how the effect of physical activity permeates through virtually every physiological process.

In recent years, research in exercise physiology has exploded, not only to help those elite athletes to the wining podium but also to prevent, reduce, manage and treat disease in us mere mortals. We all reap the benefits of this important work, which ultimately improves the quality of our lives, so it is only fitting that F1000Prime recognizes the emergence and prominence of this field with its own dedicated Section in our Physiology Faculty, covering the following fields:

• Cardiovascular adaptations to exercise
• Endocrine & immunological adaptations to exercise
• Exercise & bone
• Exercise & skeletal muscle (incl. muscle fatigue)
• Exercise & the environment (incl. thermoregulation)
• Exercise bioenergetics & mitochondrial function
• Exercise in aging & disease
• Exercise metabolism
• Exercise, brain & nervous system
• Molecular & cellular adaptations to exercise
• Physiological factors in exercise performance (incl. nutrition & ergogenic aids)
• Respiratory function & ventilation

It is, therefore, with great pleasure that we welcome Stephen E Alway and Mark Hargreaves as our inaugural Section Heads of the Exercise Physiology Section.

Stephen E Alway is Professor & Chair of Exercise Physiology, Executive Chair for the Department of Human Performance & Applied Exercise Science and Senior Assistant Dean for Research & Graduate Studies, Professional Programs at West Virginia University, USA. His research focuses on the cellular and molecular adaptations to sarcopenia, and the effects of aging on muscle loading/exercise and disuse.

“Along with seeking funding, keeping up with the literature is one of the hardest and most time consuming roles that researchers face today. I am delighted to co-Head, with Dr Mark Hargreaves, our new Exercise Physiology Section in F1000Prime because I believe that it represents a major step forward in helping members of the Exercise Physiology community identify key research papers in our field.” – Stephen E Alway

Mark Hargreaves is Professor of Physiology at The University of Melbourne, Australia. His research focuses on the physiological and metabolic responses to acute and chronic exercise, with particular emphasis on carbohydrate metabolism in both healthy and disease states.

“The addition of the Exercise Physiology Section to F1000Prime represents an important recognition of the growing prominence of our field. I am honored to Head this new Section with my colleague Stephen Alway and I look forward to it becoming a valuable resource for your ongoing research endeavours.” – Mark Hargreaves

As a Certified Personal Trainer myself, I am particularly excited about the launch of our newest Section, as I am sure that our Faculty Members’ insights will not only benefit the immediate research community but also the trainers, coaches and health & fitness professionals at large who ultimately put the ‘theory’ into practice. In addition, on a personal note, I will be able to berate certain members of the F1000 team even more (than I do already) as they reach for the office cookies and slouch back into their chairs.

We are also delighted to welcome so many prominent and leading figures in the field of exercise physiology as our inaugural Faculty Members for this Section and look forward to reading their opinions on the key studies published in their respective fields:

• Frank W Booth University of Missouri, USA
• James Carson University of South Carolina, USA
• Paul D Chantler West Virginia University School of Medicine, USA
• Joel T Cramer University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA
• Michael Delp Florida State University, USA
• Jerome A Dempsey University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
• Brendan Egan University College Dublin, Ireland
• Mark Febbraio Garvan Institute for Medical Research, Australia
• Glenn A Gaesser Arizona State University, USA
• Martin Gibala McMaster University, Canada
• Craig A Goodman Victoria University, Australia
• Brendon Gurd Queen’s University, Canada
• G Gregory Haff Edith Cowan University, Australia
• John Hawley Australian Catholic University, Australia
• John M Hollander West Virginia University, USA
• Joe A Houmard East Carolina University, USA
• Li Li Ji University of Minnesota, USA
• William J Kraemer The Ohio State University, USA
• M Harold Laughlin University of Missouri, USA
• Benjamin Levine UT Southwestern, USA
• Carsten Lundby University of Zurich, Switzerland
• Christopher T Minson University of Oregon, USA
• Robyn Murphy Latrobe University, Australia
• Darrell Neufer East Carolina University, USA
• Stuart M Phillips McMaster University, Canada
• Emidio E Pistilli West Virginia University School of Medicine, USA
• Erik Richter University of Copenhagen, Denmark
• Michael N Sawka Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
• Douglas R Seals University of Colorado Boulder, USA
• Luc van Loon Maastricht, Netherlands
• Henriette van Praag NIH, USA
• Håkan Westerblad Karolinska Institute, Sweden
• Zhen Yan University of Virginia, USA

On this auspicious occasion, it’s only fitting to leave the last words to our newest Section Heads, Steve and Mark, who have helped us build and launch this fantastic new Section:

“We are proud and honored to be heading the new Exercise Physiology Section. The Exercise Physiology Section of F1000Prime should become an indispensable tool that will help our growing community identify key papers in the field, as well as providing brief critiques of papers from other disciplines that are relevant to research interests in exercise physiology.”- Stephen E Alway & Mark Hargreaves