Award for Distinguished Research and Creative Activity<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe $10,000 award recognizes faculty whose distinguished research or creative activity demonstrates outstanding research achievements, contributions to the training of future researchers, and strong performance in scholarly or creative performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cDr. Falk has given us important insights into how children\u2019s muscles function and the impact on children\u2019s growth, bone development, maturation and training,\u201d says Vice-President, Research Tim Kenyon.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnderstanding children\u2019s physical development has important implications for our expectations of their performance and how best to foster their growth,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Falk and her team are intrigued by their finding that children\u2019s muscles are not as strong as those of adults, even factoring into account children\u2019s relatively small size compared to their adult counterparts.<\/p>\n
The precise reasons for this are yet unknown, but Falk and her team are investigating two possible explanations.<\/p>\n
Human bodies contain various kinds of muscle fibres, which are classified into Type 1 and Type 2, with Type 2 being more powerful, larger and faster. Potentially, children may have relatively fewer Type 2 muscles, says Falk.<\/p>\n
The other explanation is related to muscle activation.<\/p>\n
\u201cChildren don\u2019t activate their muscles to the same extent as adults,\u201d says Falk. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to measure and assess how the nervous system sends down nerves and signals to activate and contract the muscle in children.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite these differences, children actually have a competitive advantage over adults when it comes to aerobic activity, says Falk.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we give children endurance training, they can run, they can exercise for a long time; in fact, they are probably in a better position to keep going than we are,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Falk\u2019s research can shape how adults perceive children\u2019s exercise capabilities. While adults shouldn\u2019t expect too much of children, neither should they view children as being a \u201cvulnerable\u201d population that shouldn\u2019t be challenged to do more, better and faster.<\/p>\n
The research can also guide those who design and deliver exercise programs for children.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we prescribe activity to children, it shouldn\u2019t be based on what we know is good for adults,\u201d says Falk. \u201cWe\u2019ve been applying adult guidelines to children\u2019s exercise where this doesn\u2019t lead us to good results.\u201d<\/p>\n
Falk says she is \u201chumbled\u201d and excited about receiving the 2021 Award for Distinguished Research and Creative Activity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will allow us to continue our research, to support graduate students, which is really, really important, especially today,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is a team effort; there\u2019s no way I could have done this by myself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If there\u2019s one thing pediatric exercise physiologist Bareket Falk wants the world to know, it\u2019s that children are not miniature adults.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":71561,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,7,3319,1,4,5],"tags":[1373,3712,2149,10477,996,2147,7488,5505,8562,3325],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71560"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71560"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71562,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71560\/revisions\/71562"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}