Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Happy Sunday. You are listening to Fit to be tied with Sheena and Whitney on 90.7 to Capstone and man Sunday. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: And this is Thanksgiving week. I know.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: So Thanksgiving. You going home to North Alabama?
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Well, I had to do Thanksgiving this weekend, actually, so we could all get together and see each other. And I've got tickets to WWE Smackdown, so I can't go too far because I gotta go to Birmingham to watch wrestling.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: No, actually, no, I get that.
I'm actually pretty excited because tomorrow I have some T shirts coming in. It's some specially designed ones that I have to wear on the Price Is Right. When are you going? I am going the. Basically, it'll be the.
A week from Wednesday, so. Yeah, well, technically I'm going to LA a week from Tuesday, but then we'll go to filming on Wednesday, so.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: Okay, how does that work? Do you have to wait outside to just see if you get into the prices right, or.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: No, there's actually a website where you can get tickets ahead of time. Like, they'll post them, like, so many months or days ahead of time. So you can get a priority ticket. And as long as you have a priority ticket and you arrive by the time on there, you're guaranteed a spot in the audience. That's awesome. While you're waiting in the audience, a producer comes by and makes little small talk with you and see if he'd
[00:01:30] Speaker B: be like, the right kind of. Well, you know, one of our own, Celeste, at the rec center, she actually was on the prices, right? And she couldn't tell us anything after she was on it because they haven't aired it yet. And so she had to sign something and not say anything. But then we kind of knew she was. Because she was like, we should all go watch the Price is Right. Like, we went to the staff, like, break area and sure enough, her and her husband were in the crowd and they, like, run down and she's, like, doing the whole dance and everything.
I don't know what I would do.
I don't know if I would act crazy or if I would just start dancing. I don't really know what my strategy.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: Well, I think in terms of talking to the producers, I'm hoping that Asian girl with a Southern accent is, like, very endearing. And I can go into like, oh, my gosh. I used to watch this with my grandparents, like, all this kind of stuff. So we'll see what happens.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: Oh, I can't wait.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: So we'll see.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: Keep me posted. I know if you get on the show you know, you can't, like, say anything, but, like, you. You can allude to the fact that, like, maybe you should watch this Day. Yeah, well, I don't even have cable. What am I talking about? I can't watch it.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: Well, we'll forget it. We'll figure something out.
[00:02:29] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll figure it A watching party or something.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: Neil. Okay, speaking of Thanksgiving, because obviously we gotta go back to the food. What is your favorite Thanksgiving dish? And is Thanksgiving, like, a little different for you as a vegetarian, or do you feel like that's a non factor for you?
[00:02:44] Speaker B: It's not really a factor for me. Cause honestly, I eat all the sides and I'm not a vegan, so I will still eat cheese and. Oh, macaroni and cheese. That's what it does. My mom makes homemade macaroni and cheese, and since I have an Italian family, we put some, like, extra Italian cheeses in it. So it's not like your typical macaroni and cheese. But no, I love all the stuff. And they're. They're great about, like, having extra side so that I can eat something that's not meat. So what about you? Do you have any favorite dishes?
[00:03:11] Speaker A: You know, I.
I like any of the sweet potato stuff, you know, green bean type things. Green bean casseroles are a hit or miss for me because sometimes I feel like can go a little too south on stuff, but if done correctly in my mind, I really like it. You know, and then I feel like there's some trendier sides that have come up recently, like roasted Brussels sprouts.
We talked about the brussels sprouts and everything else, so. Yeah, I don't know. And then I do like the desserts, so pecan pie.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: That's my favorite.
[00:03:45] Speaker A: Really?
[00:03:45] Speaker B: I love it. Yeah, I love pecan pie with, like, some ice cream on top. You know, I feel like. And y' all listening to us, you're
[00:03:51] Speaker A: probably like, well, aren't you all supposed
[00:03:52] Speaker B: to be talking about, like, health and wellness? Well, yeah, but you still gotta enjoy
[00:03:55] Speaker A: your holidays and you still gotta social wellness. Like, this is a time with family.
We also have a lot of Filipino dishes on my side of the family whenever we get together in North Alabama. And, you know, a lot of times people are like, oh, y' all celebrate Thanksgiving? And I'm like, you know, my parents actually now have technically lived longer in the US Than they have in the Philippines. So they're like, like, America, USA, live the American dream.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: 101.
So I love it. So it's Great.
[00:04:27] Speaker B: Let me ask you this, because then we'll have to go to a break pretty soon. But people always ask me because I'm in fitness. Oh, my gosh. Do you exercise over the breaks? And I'm like, well, first of all, no, because it's a break.
But what about you? Do you usually. Because being a dietitian, I'm sure people are like, well, do you eat certain things, or do you watch what you eat?
[00:04:45] Speaker A: I. You know, I enjoy myself. You know, there are certain things that I know about myself in terms of, like, what I prefer. Like, I don't like eating to the point of being, like, miserably stuffed.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: If somebody wants to do that, you do. You. But for me, like, I'm gonna enjoy the day more if I'm, like, satisfied because I want to have the ability. Like, if we're at Meemaw's house like, all day long, a couple hours later, I want to be like, okay, I got some appetite left for, like, second.
[00:05:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Such good food.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. But y' all may be thinking, oh, my gosh, are they going to be making a show about Thanksgiving food this afternoon? We're not. We're actually going to be talking about body composition and phys.
Absolutely. But y', all, we gotta take a break, grab something to drink, start building your recipes for Thanksgiving, because it's about to happen. But you are listening to Fit to be Tied with Sheen and Whitney, and we will catch you after the break.
[00:05:44] Speaker C: Hi, this is Drew Holcomb, and you're listening to 90.7 the Capstone.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: Welcome back. You are listening to Fit to be Tied with Shina and Whitney on 90.7 the Capstone. And if you were with us before the break, you were probably thinking, oh, my goodness, they love some Thanksgiving. Well, we do.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: We do. We love food. Get over it.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: Yes. But equally with that, we love some physical activities and exercise science, all the good stuff. And we kind of have an amazing guest for that today. It's true.
So without further ado, I'm go ahead and introduce our guest. We have Dr. Michael Fidawa, who is an assistant professor in exercise science here at ua. Did I get your title correct?
[00:06:29] Speaker C: You got the title and the name pronounced correctly.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: Oh, because I hear people say Fedawa sometimes. Have you noticed that? I'm sure you have.
[00:06:35] Speaker C: We've had to start answering to everything. And actually, when my wife and I first got married, she asked if we could just start mispronouncing our own name to match what everybody else was saying.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: Because I thought, because just from talking with students on campus and because I see a lot of the same students that, you know, you teach and they always say federal. And so in my mind, I was. I was like, fetua. And then when you said feed a while, that's why I was like, right,
[00:06:56] Speaker A: we got the feelers after that.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: I have to like, write it down. Like fee. Like fee.
[00:07:00] Speaker C: It actually goes with Thanksgiving. Like feed.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: Oh, that's so perfect.
This is meant to be radio. Yes.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: So, Dr. Fedua, tell us a little bit about yourself in terms of educational background, professional background before you came here to ua.
[00:07:17] Speaker C: Sure. So I started at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas, for undergraduate and majored in exercise science and kinesiology and thought at the time that I was going to do personal training and group exercise and that was going to be how I made my millions and actually went through and graduated and thought that that was going to be what I was going to do. But the first client that I had was a double knee replacement, congestive heart failure. I mean, the whole deal.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: Your very first client, first one ymca. That is a whammy at the YMC right there. Oh, my gosh.
[00:07:51] Speaker C: Completely and over my head. So at that point, I kind of kn.
I've got to keep going. And so I went on for a master's specifically in clinical exercise phys. And so did the whole cardiac rehab, stress testing, EKGs, the whole hospital scene. Really loved it and was convinced that I was going to do cardiac rehab forever and got a piece of advice and somebody told me to go on for PhD. If there was ever going to be a time to go on, go on and do it when you don't have kids before you get married and you can move across the country and do it. And so applied all over the place, got into University of Georgia and was offered a fellowship and so went there, came down south, fell in love and haven't looked back.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: You know, it's so funny because I. I'm not. Well, we kind of have a similar story with teaching and training. And we were just talking to our staff because we have students that teach for us, we have non students. Our staff's pretty mixed. And I remember those days of like, the hustle of like, you're an hourly employee. You if, unless you live in a big city, you're not going to get paid that much for personal training, especially at the ymca. I know what we pay at direct center, but it's like, yes, you get into exercise fizz and you want to help People. But then you realize, oh, I'm having to like really hustle and it's tiring,
[00:09:06] Speaker C: you know, very tired. And I remember like I realized that applying at different gyms and realizing that an hour long session, the take home pay was going to be like 12 to $15 at some of the bigger, some of the bigger chains. And I don't know how this is going to go.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: No.
[00:09:22] Speaker C: And so, you know, cardiac rehab at the time offered, you know, a 9 to 5 is more stable hours, much more consistent clientele that you didn't really have to do the hustle like you did in commercial fitness. And so that was really appealing to me kind of at the, you know, when I was just coming out.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: What got you interested just, I guess in the field of fitness in general. You know, when you start thinking about your days in high school and then declaring that major and thinking about doing something academically and professionally related to exercise.
[00:09:53] Speaker C: Yeah. So I guess my story is a little bit different because I started out in high school, I was about £300 and so lost about a hundred of it with diet and exercise.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: Yeah, that's great.
[00:10:03] Speaker C: Yeah.
Did a lot of it the wrong way. And now looking back, you know, a lot of the choices that I made and the ways that I was exercising and kind of the meat, you know, diet patterns and whatever trends were hot at the time, you know, it really slowed down the progress that I was making and took a lot of steps backward while I was doing it and so came to exercise science more for myself, selfishly to figure out what was the best way to do it for me and then to kind of help, you know, potential clients and eventually patients make the same changes for themselves because it, you know, when you go through a big transformation like that changes your confidence level and the way that you interact with people. And so I just, I needed to know how to do it and how to do it right. So I think I took maybe a different route. You know, I think most of our students that come through the major go. I played sports in high school.
[00:10:53] Speaker B: Right.
[00:10:54] Speaker C: I kind of want to do physical therapy. And so I think my story doesn't
[00:10:58] Speaker B: quite jive with your story. I was just thinking about. So Charles, he was on our show last week. He is one of our coordinators at the rec center, works with the personal trainers. He has a very similar story to you.
He was in. Actually his story happened in college where he lost a lot. He didn't feel good. He went to the doctor and he's like in his early 20s and the doctor was like, dude, like, come on. And so he started getting fit and eating the right kinds of foods and really going into it for himself. And then he became, like, interested in being a trainer and changing his degree. And now he runs our personal training program. And the focus that he has is so specific to certain things because he went through that himself.
[00:11:39] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:11:39] Speaker B: And so, I mean, y' all are very similar.
[00:11:40] Speaker A: Y' all need to meet.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: We should.
[00:11:42] Speaker C: The four of us, next time.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:11:45] Speaker A: Well, you know, and I love your transparency with saying you went into the field primarily or initially to help yourself and know how to do it correctly for yourself, because admittedly, I think a lot of people who go into the nutrition industry, it's the same thing. They want to have that self knowledge and eventually be able to apply it to other folks. But, yeah, I think there ain't no shame in that game as far as I want to go for myself.
Dr. Fidiwa, I know before we started airing today, you had mentioned not being at UAE that long of an amount of time. Tell us how long you've been on campus and what your role entails right now.
[00:12:27] Speaker C: Sure. So I got to campus 2015 in the fall, started as an assistant professor. And so my position is half teaching, half research.
And so I teach two classes a semester. Most of them are statistics and exercise physiology courses. And then the research that we do is body composition measurement, exercise training, physical activity assessment. And so everything related to body composition could be with athletes and monitoring progress during a season or with the training program, or we'll do weight loss interventions. And so we'll track progress and measure, you know, body composition changes, muscle mass, fat mass, the whole deal. And then, you know, that I think that gives.
When you need a break from teaching, the research gives you kind of a breath, like, oh, man. Okay. Just kind of slow down a little bit. And then when you kind of get a little bit burnt out of writing and writing and research and research, you know, the students, I'm sure you guys know, are kind of what keeps the job exciting a lot of times.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: They keep you on your toes.
[00:13:22] Speaker C: They do.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: They really do. And I like that there's sometimes, you know, I'm like, okay, you're keeping me way too much on my toes. I need you to let me chill a little bit.
But no, that's. I mean, that's great.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: No, and, well, you know, I mean, thinking about just the fact that you are with students, because what age group are you typically, or I guess what year of students are traditionally taking your courses?
[00:13:44] Speaker C: Usually Juniors and seniors. And so we're of catching them like they figured out their major, they've gone through some of their introductory classes and so most of mine are 300 and 400 level courses. And so I'm getting students right around the. I'm thinking about PT school pretty hard and so I'm starting to get applications out there, getting ready to graduate, looking for internships. And so the hands on experience that we offer in the lab is really beneficial because they're kind of at the getting ready to hit the real world stage. And so anything that they can put on their resume to kind of boost things as they're looking for jobs in grad school.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: So it's pretty clutch and we see so on our staff. I'm trying to think of who, I don't know if they're in your classes now, but I definitely have a handful of instructors and personal trainers. And so they'll always like you say, yeah, I'm in so and so's class. They're usually in Nika's class and I usually go speak to Nika's class and they all know me through her and vice versa. But it's cool now that I got to meet you because now I can put a name with a face and kind of like this whole connected, you know, kinesiology and rec. I mean it'd be cool to come up with some more partnerships as well.
[00:14:46] Speaker C: Yeah. And so when they come in and start complaining about all the numbers that they have to learn about and the stats behind the exercise, that's my fault. So I'll take full responsibility.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: Oh my gosh, y', all, it's been a minute.
Well, that's some great information. We are going to take a quick break and then we're going to continue this conversation on the other side. You're listening to Sheena and Whitney on Fit to Be Tied. Actually, you're listening to Fit to Be Tied with Sheena and Whitney on 9.7 the Capstone.
Hi, this is Eli Gold, the voice of the Crimson Tide and I love 90.7 the capstone.
You're listening to Fit to Be Tied with Sheena and Whitney on 90.7 the Capstone. Continuing our conversation about not just Thanksgiving, but body composition fitness. We haven't really talked a lot about fitness this semester, which is kind of strange because normally that's like most of the conversation fitness and nutrition. But we've been focusing on a lot of different aspects of wellness. But today is a fitness day. Yes, it is body composition day.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: Absolutely. And you know, Dr. Fidiwa, you had mentioned that with your role at UA, it's split between research and teaching in the classroom. And I know we've had separate conversations in the past regarding the current project that you have with a body composition app.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: So I'm just so. Interesting.
[00:16:10] Speaker A: Yeah. So I'm just gonna open it up there and let you kind of fly with that.
[00:16:13] Speaker C: Sure. So what we've been working on for the past year and a half or two years, we developed a way to measure body composition. So fat free mass, muscle and bone, and then fat mass from a single picture that you take on your smartphone. And we can do it with about 99.9, 99.7% accuracy.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: That blows my mind.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's like insert all the like brain explosion emojis like right now,
[00:16:39] Speaker B: you know, I mean, so at the rec center we use a BOD pod.
[00:16:44] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:16:44] Speaker B: And I think we've had a little, I think possibly some little error with it lately, so we're having to kind of figure that out. But. And you guys have also in your lab hydrostatic weighing, right?
[00:16:53] Speaker C: Yeah. So we have the underwater weighing tank. So you actually have the one piece of equipment that we don't have.
[00:16:58] Speaker B: Sounds like a rectangle. We should partner with it. Yeah.
[00:17:01] Speaker C: But we have a DEXA so we can measure body composition with X rays. We have the underwater weighing tank, which is really similar to the BOD pod. So we, we dunk people underwater and measure body fat that way.
And we have other methods, bioimpedance. So we really have pretty much every research grade lab piece of equipment that you would need. And 3D commercial body scanners were starting to get really hot a couple years ago because of the cost of the BOD pod. The radiation exposure with dexa, just kind of the finickiness sometimes of bioimpedance with the hydration.
The 3D body scanners were becoming really popular, but we couldn't them find any research behind them. And when we reached out to companies to partner her, no one wanted to partner. And so we thought, well, wait a second, there's got to be something going on here. We don't have any evidence backing these up. Nobody wants to partner and provide, you know, even give us like a free device to just test in the lab and see how it works.
So we decided to just make our own. Because if you could, the way we thought about it, if you can measure somebody with like this 3D scanner, well, why couldn't you just do it with at least two pictures? But we found out you can do it with one.
[00:18:14] Speaker B: So, so my question is, sure, how does this work?
[00:18:18] Speaker C: So we figured out if you take a picture of somebody from the tops of their head to their feet, so just standing in like a normal anatomical position, so with their arms to their side, we kind of adjust for the person's height and we figured out different anatomical markers on the body that we can kind of identify with the app and estimate body body volume first.
[00:18:39] Speaker A: So body size and the person, I'm assuming hopefully does not have to be butt naked in this photo. Is that correct?
[00:18:46] Speaker C: That was the biggest research question we
[00:18:48] Speaker A: got, was I had to ask it because I'm sure listeners are thinking, yeah, this is great.
[00:18:53] Speaker C: No, so for research we've done all of our pictures, obviously the participants are close, but so usually guys will come in with like a compression top and just compression shorts, leggings, yoga pants. For female participants, like the VOD pod,
[00:19:10] Speaker B: I mean people can wear a swimsuit
[00:19:11] Speaker C: or tight, you know, and so because of that, like we really kind of feel like you can do this at home. It doesn't really take any kind of special equipment. There's not really anything weird that you have to do because you just have to take a selfie pretty much standing. And so the instructions are pretty simple. And we can get research grade accuracy from just a single picture.
[00:19:31] Speaker B: So, so is this. So y' all are. This is a current project you're working on or is it already done?
[00:19:36] Speaker C: We're currently working on it. So we started last fall, kept getting no, no, no, no. When we reached out for partnerships, nobody wanted to, to work with us. And so we, right around Thanksgiving break last year actually, we figured out how to do it from a single picture with data we already had collected from another project.
Went through the whole intellectual property review for the university, kind of pitched to like this little mini special Alabama shark tank they sent us on for patent review. We were patent pending with a provisional patent in May. And so we're, we're out. We got to pick our own developers in Birmingham. We went and interviewed a bunch of them visit. And so it's been a really cool, really fast, wild ride.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: And no one's done this?
[00:20:20] Speaker C: Not commercially, no.
[00:20:21] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:20:22] Speaker C: At least not with the, at least not with the accuracy that we have. So doing it with one picture, no one has done before.
The accuracy that we have, not just the day to day kind of consistency, but also just compared to some of the lab grade methods, no one has the accuracy that we've found so far.
[00:20:40] Speaker B: So what other. So if you have the app and you take your picture, what other information does the participant input? Do they have to put anything else or is it just a picture?
[00:20:50] Speaker C: Yeah. So what we wanted to make sure that we wanted to use the app as a teaching tool also because there's a lot of misinformation about what a healthy body composition looks like. And so when a person would log in and kind of create their profile, we would have their age and we'd have their gender, and we would have their race and ethnicity. And so from there, we can kind of take their body fat numbers and compare them back to appropriate norms based on what we have kind of for the population. And so, like, you know, the misconceptions that we have about how lean you should be for your height or for your age, like, that changes. And so we wanted to make sure that, you know, when you get your numbers, you have something to compare them to and realistic goals and expectations for.
So we enter in those, and then we also enter in, you know, your height and your weight because we, we wanted to be able, you know, if you're using this for weight loss or if you're using this for, you know, to add muscle and bulk up or whatever, that we had kind of those, those raw numbers to track right along with your body composition changes.
[00:21:44] Speaker A: Do you have a vis for who would be specifically using this? Would this be for the health professional to have an easy way to obtain body composition information that would be in a. Very, very conducive to an office setting? Or would this be for a general consumer to be able to track themselves? Or, or has there been much thought in who the target audience for this is in terms of who you want to download and utilize the app?
[00:22:11] Speaker C: Sure. We were actually thinking the individual consumer, like, so the customer. Not, not necessarily gearing toward trainers specifically or group kind of exercise health professionals, but more, more to the individual. And so, you know, you don't have to come into the lab or go to the gym and, you know, maybe meet with a trainer or somebody that, who you've never met before. You don't have a gym membership. You've never gone and got a body composition test done. This is kind of something that you can do at home on your own when you're comfortable. No one else has to see your results necessarily. They're. They're just kind of your numbers. And so from there, we also want to make sure that the app is just measuring body composition.
That's really all we're trying to do with it. And from there, then we do Say for the individual. Once you have your numbers. If you're hoping to do XYZ with your workout program. Yeah, go find a trainer and yeah, for sure, go take some group exercise classes if this is what you want. Or if you're looking to maybe change your eating behaviors or dietary habits, go find an rd.
It's beyond our scope of practice to make those kind of broad general recommendations because you know, the practitioners that are doing it, that's their specialty and we don't want to step on toes or get in the way. We're just doing one really specific job.
[00:23:26] Speaker B: It's interesting, you know, I'm thinking about myself and like I've gotten in a bod pod before. It's not my favorite thing to do. I don't like closed in spaces. I would never get in the dunk tank.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: Right.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: No way I would ever do that. But this would be something I would literally do this at. Like I would do it at home. That comfort, my own home. Because one of the most like, I guess awkward things is when we get, you know, a new client in and we give anyone a bod pod. That's one of our clients. That's just something that we do.
That's how we track progress. They can do it whenever they want with their trainer, as many times as they want.
But if it's your first time to come into a gym, we know gym intimidation is a thing, well then you know what you've got to wear to get into the bod pod. Some people don't care, but like you have to not have a lot of clothes on. It's got to be tight, it doesn't need to be bulky. You can't come in like a big oversized T shirt and then you're getting a test done with somebody that you may not know. So it could be kind of uncomfortable. Some people doesn't bother. But I think this is a perfect. I mean I would do it and I don't really get buy into things like this because I'm just kinda like, whatever, but like I would do it.
[00:24:29] Speaker C: Confidentiality was something we were worried about too. And so the images aren't being stored on the app.
So when we take the image, it's just converted pretty much to a black and white kind of silhouette outline. And that's what the images are taken on. So we have like a profile of what the person looks like from their outline. And so you know, when you, if you're working remotely with someone as a health coach, you don't need to take the time to, you know, visit with them one on one to do a body composition assessment. You can save all those one on one visits for actual, like, progress and actually like intervening and making changes. And you can just do this at home and say, hey, send me your results real quick or take a screenshot or share it with me.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: I love the practicality.
I'm just excited for, you know, when it's the future. Exactly. And you know, we've actually, we've got to take a quick break and before we start segueing into other conversation after the break, I'm probably going to ask you a couple more questions related to the app, if that's okay. Well, you guys stick with us. Grab something to drink, run to the restroom, do all the things you are listening to Fit to be tied with Sheena and Whitney on 90.7 the Capstone.
[00:25:36] Speaker C: This is rachel mcduck, bridget calabrese from lake street dive.
[00:25:42] Speaker B: And you're listening to 90.7 the capstone roll tide.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: Welcome back. You're listening to Fit to be tied with Sheen and Whitney on 90.7 the Capstone. And oh my goodness, y', all, if you have been listening this afternoon, as I assuming you are, because you are hearing my voice, we have been talking about the wave of the future when it comes to body composition with Dr. Fidua who has been so kind to share about his research. And I know before the break I was alluding to wanting to ask a couple more questions about the app. So in terms of the official launch or timeline for everything, what all will this look like in a perfect world?
[00:26:26] Speaker C: We hope to launch spring in 2020. So our target date for completion is mid March, right around spring break. Ish.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:26:35] Speaker C: That's a pretty aggressive timeline and so we're not sure if we're gonna hit it. But that's the goal, is to have everything wrapped up by the end of spring next semester. And a lot of that ties with the academic schedule, academic calendar too, because, you know, the validation studies and the research, all of our lab help kind of goes away for the summer and we slow down a little bit. So if we can have this out by the end of the year, next year, by the end of spring semester, that'll be great.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: Sure. Neil, as far as an app being launched and shared on the interwebs and all of that good stuff, does that lay in the hands of the web developers or part of that task with your responsibilities or is that something that we'll cross that bridge when we get there kind of situation?
[00:27:16] Speaker C: Some of it is a bridge that we'll cross when we get there. A lot of it is just kind of being figured out.
We realized really early on that not.
There haven't been very many projects like this coming, especially out of our department, for sure. Out of the College of Education, where our department lives.
And then with the technology transfer at ux, most of the patents that come out of UA are through engineering and they're more products. And so, you know, people will come and they have a patent for product, and then vendors and kind of companies will license the product from them. But it's not something that's a service that's just like ready to go as soon as you download it.
So this is really unique and we don't know kind of what the springs kind of how all that looks actually right now.
So we're. I think with our roles as faculty at ua, this would be like a separate faculty startup. So we have our, like, roles and responsibilities for teaching and research. This is something extra on top of our normal 9 to 5. If we decide to take this on and launch this as a startup, this would be something that me, Dr. Esko and I, we would do kind of together. Sure.
[00:28:22] Speaker A: Well, sounds like we may need to have y' all back in the spring.
[00:28:26] Speaker B: Specific too. Like a check in be like.
[00:28:28] Speaker C: And hopefully with good news.
[00:28:29] Speaker A: Yeah, kind of like Shark Tank, where they do the little updates, like, here's what's going on.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: I still just can't get over how accessible and how easy that would be because in my mind, like, what you're talking about with our trainers, we love to push the BOD pod, but I mean, I would totally be like, hey, download this app. This is great. We know the people that created it. We stand behind their product.
That's awesome.
[00:28:51] Speaker C: We were seeing. Actually, you know, we were seeing it a lot with athletics too, because they have a DEXA and a BOD pod. And so when they do body composition testing for athletics, they have every single athlete on campus that has to go through one machine. And so this is.
Scheduling is a nightmare.
[00:29:06] Speaker B: We used to do it for them, actually, I think before they got a BOD pod. And I remember this was a long time ago. This was like 2013. And we would have athletic teams back there and it was just like one after another. It took forever to do.
[00:29:17] Speaker C: Right. And so now we're thinking like, okay, well, I tell you what, you guys already have your phone, so you have the exercise physiology lab in your pocket. Why don't you just take a. Take a picture and Send it to your new dietitian or to the performance nutrition team or whoever's working with you, and they can check your progress. And with dxa, you know, there's a lot of radiation oversight with the state of Alabama. This is something you could do as many times as you wanted to, whereas the DEXA were kind of limited with two or three times a year. And so this, this, you could check in a lot more regularly to get progress.
[00:29:47] Speaker B: So do you take a picture of yourself? Like, how do you take a picture of yourself? I mean, are you facing a mirror and you take it, or does somebody take a picture of you? Or, like, do you have to have somebody there to do it?
[00:29:56] Speaker C: You could have somebody take a picture of you, or you turn the camera into selfie mode and turn the timer on. And so you just kind of pop it up against something on the table
[00:30:03] Speaker B: and you just stand there.
[00:30:04] Speaker C: You just stand palms forward and. Yeah, actually, so the only thing. Palms forward or palms out, either one. We really just the. The anatomical landmarks are kind of on the trunk.
Trunk and then kind of waist down. So the arms.
We do store body fat in our arms, but really, if we're. If we're looking at big kind of landmarks, they're mostly around the midsection. And so that's kind of. It's kind of where most of them are. So we try to keep it as simple as possible. And even when we think about weight gain and weight loss, people really aren't that different from each other in the ways that they store body fat.
If we think just differences between men and women, most men kind of have this apple shape, this Android distribution, and most women have kind of this pear shape. And so if we're going to add body fat, it's not like we can just go, well, this hamburger is going to go to my arm or something like that. You know, it just kind of goes everywhere. So, yeah, the sites that we found on the body are pretty. They're pretty consistent for everyone. So we can do it.
[00:31:00] Speaker A: That's amazing. So stay tuned, you guys. And, you know, thinking about the additional services that your department has for the community, I know you've mentioned having all of this different equipment in your lab. So what kind of services does the Department of Kinesiology offer? The UA Community, or even Tuscaloosa Community?
[00:31:19] Speaker C: Sure. So we offer. We have a program called Crimson Fit, and the website is Fitness UA Edu. And we offer a lot of the services.
Some are offered at the rec center also, and some of them we offer that are just Exclusive to the department. And they're a fee for service kind of arrangement. But we do everything. We have body composition testing with some of the equipment that the rec center doesn't have. So we have bioimpedance, which uses electrical currents, and then we have underwater weighing, which the rec center doesn't have.
So we offer those two. We offer VO2 max testing for aerobic fitness. So in a, you know, in a lab setting, we monitor heart rate and EKG wave patterns and actually measure every little bit of oxygen and carbon dioxide that you're breathing in and out. So we can get a really accurate estimate of your max capacity.
We do lactate threshold testing. We do vertical jump testing. We kind of have.
If you come in for Crimson Fit and want to take advantage of those services, we really offer a complete all around fitness assessment.
[00:32:18] Speaker A: That's amazing. Now, given the fact that the word fit is in there. Have most of the people that have utilized those services already currently been in some type of physical activity regimen? Or could there be someone who maybe is just, you know, curious in general about their health? Maybe not the most aggressive exerciser that has just learned of these services and, and wants to get that information about themselves?
[00:32:42] Speaker C: Yeah, actually I was surprised. A lot of our, a lot of our patrons, a lot of our people that come through Crimson Fit are just normal every day.
They're not these recreationally trained, like semi elite cyclists, weekend warrior kind of deals. They're just moms and dads. And so they're coming in because they're thinking about starting a new exercise program and they want baseline kind of measurements to track their changes. And we would recommend that kind of. Anybody who's starting a new program, you can't measure how far you've come unless you know where you started. So come on in and get tested. And then, you know, we do have some kind of recreationally trained semi pro athletes that do come in for more advanced testing.
Those are a little bit fewer and far between, but we do, we do have some pretty, some pretty fit folks that come through.
[00:33:27] Speaker B: So Crimson Fit is assessment. It's all different types of assessment, correct?
[00:33:31] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:33:32] Speaker B: We need to like, we gotta partner up.
[00:33:35] Speaker C: We do.
[00:33:35] Speaker B: We seriously gotta do some.
[00:33:37] Speaker C: Yeah, we've realized, you know, a lot of the stuff in the university is, is siloed.
[00:33:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:42] Speaker C: So like, you know, the rec center offers a ton and then our department has a ton of research grade equipment. And then we just recently got over into athletics and from, I mean over in athletics, it's.
The world is at your fingertips.
[00:33:54] Speaker B: But There's.
[00:33:55] Speaker C: There's enough. There are enough resources here on campus. There are services that are already being offered. You can do anything.
[00:34:01] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely.
[00:34:02] Speaker B: Didn't Russell, they have a new nutrition lab?
[00:34:04] Speaker A: They do, yeah. So I know our department of Nutrition and Human Environmental Sciences, they just got their own bod pod as well.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: We got three on campus.
[00:34:12] Speaker A: So, I mean, yeah, absolutely. I would say we're just. We work in a great place.
[00:34:18] Speaker B: We really do. We really do. I'm still just. I think this has been such an awesome conversation and just blown away with this app that you guys are creating. And I can't wait to, you know, in the spring, hopefully, like, hopefully it'll be ready to roll and then you can be like, whitney, go download it on your phone. I'll be like, whooping and have it on my phone.
[00:34:36] Speaker C: We've already got two conferences. Two conferences that we're going to. So four research presentations we have planned. So the data. We have the data to back it out. We're pushing it out in the spring and so hopefully we'll have the product in hand ready to show you guys by March.
[00:34:48] Speaker B: That's awesome. Yeah, we'll for sure get you on check in.
[00:34:52] Speaker A: It sounds like we need Dr. Fidela to stay with us for our closing segment today. I agree.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: So on that note, we are going to take a quick little break and we will catch you on the other side. You're listening to Fitzpati with Sheena and Whitney on 90.7 the Capstone.
So this is Kritter from Old Crow
[00:35:13] Speaker C: Medicine show and you're listening to 90.7 the Capstone.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: Hello, friends. You're listening to Fit to be tied with Sheena and Whitney on 90.7 the Capstone. We are closing it out because we've had an awesome day talking about body fat.
[00:35:32] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:35:33] Speaker B: How to measure it and how pretty soon, within like months time, hopefully you can do it with just an app on your phone.
[00:35:41] Speaker A: I know. Like, we do everything else with our phone.
[00:35:43] Speaker B: I mean, shouldn't we. Yeah.
[00:35:45] Speaker A: Do this? No. Well, you know, one of the things that we were talking about earlier was with Crimson fitting during the break, I was mentioning utilizing your services for figuring out heart rate for stuff. And I know at one point in time you guys were doing a research study recruiting faculty staff related to getting some body composition measurements too.
I had a faculty member in he's. It was a friend of mine. She was like, I got weighed in this underwater tank and she was just so excited about it. So I think, you know, it gave a lot of Our staff on campus this opportunity to do something that they would have not ever considered.
[00:36:22] Speaker B: So.
[00:36:22] Speaker A: Yeah. So thank you.
[00:36:23] Speaker C: Very cool. You're welcome. Thank you.
[00:36:25] Speaker B: You guys were both talking during the break about some of the services about how you have a really low max heart rate and you have really low max heart rate. Was that the story you were telling us, that you got it tested over at Crimson Fit?
[00:36:37] Speaker A: I did, because basically, the boutique fitness place that I was working out in town, essentially, it would give you, quote, unquote points if you were within whatever percentage of your max heart rate. And I could never get points, even though I was, like, literally killing myself on the treadmill. And they're like, well, bring a doctor's excuse and we'll adjust it. And, yes, I could have gotten, like, a simple doctor's excuse, but I really wanted to know the actual numbers because I geek out about that kind of stuff. And so when I was looking on UA's website and I saw that that service was offered through Crimson Fit, I was like, well, I have to do this. So it was extremely helpful just to be able to do that. And, you know, I do like to be physically active. I'm an athlete, by no means, but it kind of felt fun to be, like in that setting. It's like, oh, man. I'm, like, training for the combine, and I'm, you know, doing, like, all the things. So it was a very positive experience.
[00:37:32] Speaker C: It is pretty cool. You know, we do a lot of the testing with athletes, with athletics and come in, and so, you know, for normal people, I've never. I'm not a Division 1 athlete, nor have I ever been. And so it is kind of cool. You know, you come in and get tested on the same stuff that the rest of our athletes do. So it's kind of a cool feeling. And you do feel like you're. You're training for the combine and you're getting ready for the Olympics.
[00:37:52] Speaker A: I see. So, you know, I think that's actually a great segue into. Do you have any kind of closing thoughts or recommendations for someone who might be trying to decide if Crimson Fit services for them? Or even just considerations when it comes to getting your body composition checked? Do you have any kind of words of wisdom for our listeners in that regard?
[00:38:15] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Go and get a chance.
Check out Crimson Fit, because we do offer a lot of really good services.
The app is going to be great. I think the most important thing that we always remind everyone is that these are just numbers, and they're by no means a reflection of who you are or your value or your success or failures. It's just a snapshot in time. And so if you're happy with your numbers, great. If you're not happy with your numbers, then go get help, and we can change them. But I think a lot of times people are worried about being judged when they come in for testing because their numbers aren't where they're supposed to be. And for us, like, we're just happy that you came in, and we can help, you know? And so I think get it tested and track them often and measure your progress.
[00:38:54] Speaker A: That's amazing.
[00:38:55] Speaker B: Measuring progress.
[00:38:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I like that.
[00:38:58] Speaker B: Not maybe over Thanksgiving, but, you know.
[00:39:00] Speaker A: Right.
[00:39:01] Speaker B: No.
[00:39:01] Speaker A: Well, you know, I mean, I feel like this afternoon has been a great show, so thank you, Dr. Fidawa, for being with us. And then, you know, guys, like, after Thanksgiving, we got to keep things exciting. We're actually gonna have folks from druid city derby.
[00:39:16] Speaker B: The derby girls are coming.
[00:39:18] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. So we're gonna talk all about what they do to stay active, like, all of the things that they have going on, how they're building the program in Tuscaloosa. So it is gonna be quite a wild Sunday. I mean, it's already a wild Sunday for us anyways.
[00:39:31] Speaker B: It always is. Yeah. On a Sunday.
[00:39:34] Speaker A: So we're gonna be talking about dirt, all the. All the good things. But y' all have a fabulous week. Have a fabulous turkey day. Enjoy the friends, the family, all of this stuff. But you have been listening to fit to be tied with sheena and Whitney on 90.7 the Capstone, and we will catch you next. And we will catch.
Sam.
