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HHP Alumni Featured on CNN.

HHP Alumni Mark Guilliams was recently featured in a CNN article on health an fitness for astronauts. Mark who is currently working as a trainer at NASA, gave details on the advanced Resistive Exercise Device, aRED for short, that is used by astronauts to stay fit.

Current HHP graduate student Stuart Lee is working on related projects to combat bone loss and improve the fitness of astronauts in space.

Below are some excerpts from the article, read the entire article at CNN.com (pdf version)

The advanced Resistive Exercise Device, aRED for short, functions like a weight machine in a gym on Earth, except it has no conventional weights. Instead, it has vacuum cylinders -- canisters with air that have had a vacuum applied -- that provide concentric workloads up to 600 pounds, NASA says.

The device works somewhat like a bicycle pump, only in reverse, said Mark Guilliams, a NASA trainer. For example, if you are squatting, the vacuum gets pulled out as you stand up, and when you squat back down, the vacuum pulls the bar back to the normal position.

Between the vacuum cans and the bar, there are small flywheels that spin in opposite directions, creating an artificial gravity when someone lifts the bar.