[ Music ]
>> Amiko Kauderer: [Silence] Welcome
to the International Space Station flight control room.
We were looking at a video there
with Mike Hopkins aboard the International Space Station.
Pumping some iron.
Using the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device.
Today I have a special guest.
He is Mark Guilliams.
He is the long-title Astronaut Strength, Conditioning,
and Rehabilitation Specialist.
Welcome Mark and thank you for coming today.
>> Mark Guilliams: Thank you.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Alright.
Well, let's -- before we get into talking
about what Mike was doing,
it looks a little like bananas to me.
>> Mark Guilliams: Yeah.
>> Amiko Kauderer: But before we get
into that let's talk a little about your background
in strength and conditioning and tell me how you came
about working with the astronauts.
>> Mark Guilliams: Well, it started about 1992 when I was --
after graduating I went to graduate school and did my work
in exercise physiology.
One of my professors was actually a physiologist here.
Worked here; did research on exercise.
And I did an internship with him and I've been here ever since.
I worked about 5 years in the exercise lab doing research
and then kind of transitioned into this group,
when this group was formed back in like 1996, 1997,
and I've been here ever since.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Okay.
And so how is it that you found your way working
with the astronauts?
>> Mark Guilliams: Well, you know,
I've always been an avid weightlifter
through high school and college.
When this group was formed back in 1997 it was --
actually it was formed to build the station.
It was to prepare crew members to do all the EVAs that had
to be done to actually build the station.
So they decided to form a group that would work basically
like you would in college.
You have strength coaches that train football players
or basketball players.
It's the same thing.
It would be specific to EVAs
and training crew members to do EVAs.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Okay.
EVA's -- space walks.
>> Mark Guilliams: That's kind of how it started.
Yes. Space walks [chuckles].
>> Amiko Kauderer: Okay.
Well now let's get to talking about Mike.
I've seen it on the Twitter verse and everywhere else
in social media that Mike is basically a beast [chuckles].
>> Mark Guilliams: Well yeah.
He can be.
>> Amiko Kauderer: He's a machine.
But we can all kind of do these kinds of things, correct?
>> Mark Guilliams: Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
>> Amiko Kauderer: It's about conditioning.
>> Mark Guilliams: Yeah.
>> Amiko Kauderer: So let's first talk about how do you go
about determining what an astronauts training program
would be, for example, Mikes?
>> Mark Guilliams: Well, for example -- for the most part,
when it comes to in-flight training,
every crew member we have a template that we use
that there's certain things that every crew member's going to do.
Then that -- then we take that.
We take their strengths.
And we take their ability, or capacity or whatever,
and then we design that to their work capacity.
So each crew member will pretty much do the same exercises,
they're just going to do it at their levels.
With Mike, what we did with Mike is Mike wanted
to do a little bit extra.
And he did it when he was down here at pre-flight training.
He likes to do what you saw in the video
where we take multiple exercises
and put them back-to-back-to-back.
Where you're training different movements, but trying to do it
with as very little rest as possible
to make it a little bit more intense.
He likes to do that.
So what with him what we did is I work with some outside folks,
and to come up with ways
of substituting different exercises for certain things.
Like in this video we saw he was supposed
to be doing pull ups and push ups.
Well we can't do pull ups and push ups in 0 G
because there's no gravity.
So we had to compensate for that
so we did bench press and bent over row.
Which are fairly similar exercises.
So what we did is we just substituted that.
We did that for multiple workouts
that he's been adding extra on top of what he's been doing.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Mm-hmm.
So that brings me to a question
that I found actually on a social media.
We had a social media question coming
from a John Viewer [phonetic].
He wanted to know, "Do rubber bands
and elastics have the same resistance in space?"
>> Mark Guilliams: Yes they do.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Okay.
>> Mark Guilliams: They do have the same resistance in space.
>> Amiko Kauderer: So explain though now,
we saw him using the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device.
Explain that device just a little bit.
>> Mark Guilliams: Well the Advanced Resistive Exercise
Device, or the ARED, it uses vacuums to create the load.
And what we want to try to do, as --
it would be a little different for rubber bands --
as rubber bands, there's a place
and point using those when you're training.
But as you stretch the rubber band it gets higher
in resistance.
The lower you go, the lower resistance.
With the way that we use ARED with the vacuums,
is it provides a constant load.
More consistent with free weights.
So if I put 100 pounds on the bar, it's 100 pounds regardless
of where it is in that movement.
It's how we accelerate or decelerate it
that it applies the force.
It's not controlled by a rubber band.
The rubber band is a little bit different
that it gives what we call an Asymmetrical force curve.
As far as -- you know, as far
as a descending force curve is what you get
with resistive exercise.
Not to get too technical about it, but yeah --
>> Amiko Kauderer: Too technical [chuckles].
Work. Okay.
So also there are a couple of other pieces of equipment
up there, can you tell me a little about those?
>> Mark Guilliams: Yeah we also have the treadmill.
T2. And then we have this cycle, the Cvis [phonetic]
and it works -- they work basically the same way they
would down here.
The only difference is with the cycle you're not --
it's a little harder to ride; it's a little tougher to ride
because you don't have gravity assisting you.
You don't have handle bars to hold onto.
It's almost kind of like riding a unicycle,
but doing it 350 watts.
It becomes a little bit more challenging, so --
>> Amiko Kauderer: Mm-hmm.
Okay. And also -- what -- was there anything different
that you did with Mike Hopkins as opposed to any
of the other astronauts?
I mean what different kinds of things that you did with him?
I mean you kind of talked about some of it that --
>> Mark Guilliams: Well
from a pre-flight perspective we didn't do much differently.
The in-flight perspective is just going
to be we've added some of these extra workouts
into it that he wanted to do.
That he enjoys doing.
That's kind of the only real difference that we did.
We're still doing basically the same exercises,
we're just putting them together in a different manner,
trying to make it a little more intense for him.
>> Amiko Kauderer: It's insane.
>> Mark Guilliams: Yeah [chuckles].
>> Amiko Kauderer: But fun to watch and --
you know, so this is about all the time that we have right now,
but I do understand that the crew members work
out about 2 hours every day.
Can you tell me briefly how do you maintain --
is there some kind of way
that you monitor what they are doing while they are --
>> Mark Guilliams: Oh --
>> Amiko Kauderer: -- because they're up there for 6 months.
And so how do you monitor their activity.
>> Mark Guilliams: Yeah.
Okay. So basically what we do is they do 2 hours --
they're scheduled for 2 1/2 hours ever single day,
which equates to about 2 hours of actual workout time.
And then we get data down pretty much on a weekly basis
so we know -- we're monitoring what they're doing on T2 or C --
or the cycle or the ARED.
And we can do it by spreadsheets or we --
and we also have other data that comes down through a station
through computers that we can look at heart rates.
We can look at loads.
We can look at -- pretty much just like you would
down here in 1G environment.
And that's how we control it.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Mm-hmm.
Well and so you just said,
just like what you can do down here --
>> Mark Guilliams: Yeah.
>> Amiko Kauderer: -- and so you guys can actually follow along
and train with Mike.
Be like Mike.
Go to facebook.com at /trainastronaut
and take the challenge.
Thank you.
Thanks Mike for coming.
>> Mark Guilliams: Thanks.
My pleasure.