November 12, 2009
New director striving to stay true to founder's vision for Ismail Center
 |
The Ismail Center has a new director, and he's on a mission.
For the past 22 years, Lane Yahiro has been faced with the challenges presented to him from various cardiac rehabilitation clinics. Now, he is faced with the challenge of reviving the three-step approach of Purdue's health and fitness research center.
Tucked away in Lambert Fieldhouse sits a small but cozy health and fitness clinic known as the Ismail Center. Named after the late A.H. Ismail, a pioneer in the field of exercise for health prevention and maintenance, the center has been under the direction of several individuals since its opening in 1999.
The center was built as an intersection for the health and kinesiology and food and nutrition programs. It provides faculty and students a living laboratory to conduct multidisciplinary research and hold adult fitness programs.
Yahiro doesn't want to deviate from Ismail's original vision.
Ismail always said "exercise is nature's medicine."
"I think he was well ahead of the time," Yahiro says of Ismail. "I think in terms of prevention — people are always looking for a pill to take — so if you can exercise and keep healthy, I think that's the best medicine."
Yahiro, who has been married for 22 years and has three children, enjoys staying fit himself. He is training for his seventh marathon, which he will run in the middle of October in Indianapolis. Yahiro says his training regimen uses the same skills he is trying to teach his students.
"That's the whole key - just prevent from injuring yourself," he says. "I think a lot of people end up with small injuries that end up becoming major injuries. They just aren't aware of their bodies. If you're training right and keeping your muscle strength in balance, you are less likely to injure yourself."
Yahiro earned a bachelor's degree in both biology and psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago, his hometown. He received a master's degree in exercise physiology from George Williams College in Wisconsin and has spent the last 17 years as an exercise physiologist for the Cardiac Rehabilitation Program, serving both St. Elizabeth Medical Center and Home Hospital.
Before that, Yahiro worked for five years as the coordinator of the Cardiac Rehabilitation Program at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago.
His new job as director of the Ismail Center, which he began July 1, has presented some different challenges.
"I was hired for basically three things: direct the exercise center, facilitate research and teaching," Yahiro says. "Over the past few years, the emphasis on the research and teaching was lost."
Yahiro is trying to emphasize these three components of the Ismail Center, and the first step was to reconstruct the curriculum for the health and kinesiology students.
"Before I arrived, Tarra Hodge, clinical assistant professor for Health and Kinesiology, integrated a new health and fitness concentration degree. The education component is now in place. " says Yahiro. We work closely together to make sure that what the students are learning in class, they are applying here. In terms of the assessments and interacting with our members, they are getting their first exposure to what this experience would be."
The Ismail Center is a health, exercise and nutrition research center that current and retired Purdue faculty and staff and community members may join. The students gain valuable experience in designing and applying individual exercise programs to members.
"Exercise is a prescription," Yahiro says. "You are prescribing an exercise. You have to know your member well."
This is the first year with the new curriculum, and according to Yahiro, it is being received well by faculty members who want to see the center "revive and be able to utilize it for research."
"From a student standpoint, I think they are excited about the opportunities that they'll have along the way," he says. "By the end of their second year they will be certified personal trainers. They will be able to do the assessments on our members and do the personal training sessions as well."
"My vision for the center is to expand our present services to include a clinical exercise research lab. This would allow us to provide quality services and programs for the prevention of low back pain, vascular disease, depression and anxiety, as well as an exercise program for breast cancer survivors. This also would open up a wonderful opportunity for our students to gain valuable experience working with these special populations. Researchers will be able to tap into this living laboratory."