Fletcher has been a professor with the Department of Health and Physical Education since 2018 and helped establish the Fascicles, Tendons and Energetics Research (FasTER) Lab to uncover the secrets of human locomotion.
Jared Fletcher, PhD, and MRU students have been collaborating to understand the roles of muscles and tendons in the lower leg during exercise.
Fletcher and MRU students in the FasTER lab have been working to understand the roles of muscles and tendons in the lower leg during exercise. This includes solving physiological questions, such as what locomotive mechanics are facilitated by muscles as compared to tendons and vice versa, uncovering the differences in muscles and tendons in elite athletes compared to the average person and learning how and why different types of exercise cause fatigue in muscles or tendons faster than others.
The aim is to explore physiology across the lifespan. To help athletes perform better, for the average person to be more comfortable during exercise, and to ensure everyone exercises safely.
Fletcher will continue pursuing these questions as a CRC. The position will give him more time to perform the research and, importantly, new tools.
Fletcher now has his sights set on an important piece of equipment for the FasTER lab: A force instrumented treadmill. While it looks like a standard treadmill, this specialized machine is equipped with force plates underneath the belt that measure the force with which runners strike the ground.
A force instrumented treadmill is a key part of any biomechanics lab. Fletcher says he will combine data from this tool with existing equipment to get an even more accurate picture of what is happening in the lower leg during exercise.
"It's the last piece we need for us to say we are a world-class research lab that can answer our existing questions and any new questions that arise," Fletcher says.
Teamwork makes the dream work
Despite his designation as a Canada Research Chair, Fletcher says he doesn't feel comfortable calling himself an expert. Fletcher chuckles as he says that the word expert is "a tough one."
"It's hard because science is always evolving. What I wrote in publications ten years ago might not be wholly accurate anymore. Or we know more about it now, as we and others use that information to refine the paradigm."
While Fletcher hesitates to call himself an expert, he does have a lot of praise for his students. According to Fletcher, "the students run the show."
"We divide and conquer. We work a lot in teams, and we've shown in the past couple of years, since establishing the lab, undergraduates can do great work, they can be published as first authors, they can disseminate at conferences," Fletcher says.
In his next five years as a CRC, one of Fletcher's main goals is to expand undergraduate involvement in the lab. One of his measures of whether the position will be a success is by how many students are involved in research. Fletcher hopes to flip the script on undergraduate research and show how impactful it can be and keep the momentum going.
