My Career in Science - Charles M. Tipton
Living History Project � Charles M. Tipton, Ph.D.
00:02:06 Tip
can you give us some idea of your background; where you grew up, your education,
and how you got interested in Exercise Physiology?
00:03:47 Dr.
Cureton was sort of a legend in his own time in terms of Physical education and
testing and performance. What was your experience with him; and what was that
like; what role did he play?
00:04:36 And
after leaving Illinois you went and taught at the high school level?
00:05:21 So
when you went back to Illinois, who was you mentor?
00:06:21
While at Illinois what was your Ph.D. thesis topic on?
00:07:52 Now
after you finished you Ph.D. at the University of Illinois You took a teaching
and research position at Springfield College where you went and worked under Dr.
Peter Carpavich a renowned Exercise Physiologist and also apparently a rather
strong personality and sort of an aristocratic sort of individual. What was that
like in his lab working for him at Springfield College?
00:11:40 So
essentially you initial studies at Springfield looking at the spindle reflex was
sort of a motor learning type of a study rather than exercise physiology?
00:12:27 Now
after being in Springfield in 1963 you took a position at the University of Iowa
and that was a joint appointment in Physical Education and Physiology and
Biophysics, and you were able to establish and maintain a nationally renowned
Ph.D. training program over almost 20years or so. Can you describe what was
unique and supportive about the University of Iowa environment that enabled you
to accomplish this?
00:15:47 Now
if you look at the list of graduates from that program you can see people that
went on to study in a variety of different areas and some of the larders in
specific fields and remember the ground rules for this interview is that you�re
not allowed to tell any stories about any of these students, especially not
about Frank Booth.
00:17:01 Now
when you began you career who were some of the Physiologists that really had a
positive impact on you at the early stages?
00:18:53 In
Iowa, once you were establishing the training program did you resume your
studies trying to determine why trained individuals have a lower resting heart
rate?
00:22:05
Before we go on and discuss some of the other studies that you under took at
Iowa, can you give us some information on the Iowa wrestling studies? This was
sort of a series of studies over many years; wide notoriety, and involved a lot
of aspects of these high school scholastic wrestlers in terms of their trying to
make weight to compete. You dealt with the issues of how much weight was lost,
prediction of minimum body weight, the issue of dehydration came in, weight
classification system, so it was a multifaceted approach. Can you give us some
of the background history on this Iowa wrestling study?
00:25:48
What about the aspect of the prediction of the ideal weight for a wrestler?
00:31:54 So
this project involved almost 30 years of scientific research, I wonder whether
or not the importance of it was not so much the science that we provided but
rather the awareness and education and sensitization to the coaches and
wrestlers in terms of how to do it smart, the problems of weight loss.
00:32:52 If
we move on to some other aspects of science, particularly your science, most
people in their careers specializing in one particular area or maybe three or
four areas but if we look, as I think you�re going to illustrate, you are really
active in a wide variety of areas. What�s different about Tipton versus most of
the people?
00:34:01 Can
you start by going into some of your studies on Ligament properties?
00:35:48 How
did that change with things like exercise training or ageing?
00:37:40 You
also looked at exercise training and ligament conjunction strength, is the
correct?
00:39:01 My
recollection is that people used to think that ligaments were inert
metabolically but didn�t you do some studies to activity address this issue?
00:40:23 Now
when you talk about immobilization and if you�re talking about repair and
recovery what did you learn about the time course of these things?
00:42:34 So
essentially a lot of these studies with a long time course, many months of time
to recover, this also is consistent with a new way that they�re treating knee
injuries. I remember back then when a person had knee surgery they put the leg
in a cast and there was a long time recovery where as now they�re wrapping it in
an Ace bandage and loading it with as much pain as pain permits.
00:44:22
Moving on to a different area. Over the years you�ve been very interested in
Endocrine control or changes with training and adaptations and you applied some
techniques and all that perhaps traditional endocrinologists would have applied
but you used it in the exercise training setting can you describe some of those
studies?
00:46:15
Along the way you started to investigate exercise training on cardiovascular
function and there are a wide array of studies, can we go through some of these
briefly?
00:49:35 Now
when you say �training� you�re introducing a whole new aspect here in terms of
intensity of exercise particularly in a rat model by using a percent of VO2 max.
I mean how did you actually measure the intensity of exercise in this rodent
exercising model?
00:51:34
Aside from using aerobic/ treadmill exercise you also did some studies looking
at resistance exercise in a rodent model can you explain those studies?
00:55:53 One
of the last studies that I recall involved the issue of cardiac hypertrophy, we
know we have disease hypertrophy of the heart which is deleterious, we know that
exercise causes hypertrophy, didn�t you do some studies putting these two things
together?
00:57:16 If
we to onto a different topic as you involved, particularly as you transferred to
Arizona, you got involved in some studies on micro gravity can you brief us on
some of those?
01:02:30 In
looking back at all those different studies, which do you find the most
rewarding?
01:04:16 Now
the you tiered those of us that know you know that you�re still engaged. In some
of the activities that you�re doing what do you find the most important or
what�s your priority now?
01:05:45
Earlier you gave us a list and showed some pictures of some of the mentors and
role models. As you career progressed who are some of the individuals that sort
of had an ever impacting effect on what you did and what you thought?
01:06:50
What advice would you give to a person starting out or considering a career as a
research scientist in the area of Physiology?
01:09:00 Do
you think a person could survive with a generalist versus a specialist?
01:09:28 In
terms of the advancement of Physiology as a discipline what advice or input
would you give to the American Physiological Society or the Council?