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welcome back to mission control that was

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a look at some of the training that mike

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hopkins has been doing as he got ready

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for his launch yesterday at 3 58 p.m

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central time we have witness today uh

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mark gilliams who is uh one of the one

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of mike hopkins trainers and the lead

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conditioning and strength specialist for

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for us here at johnson's space center

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right

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joining us i think mark's going to be

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able to tell us a little bit about what

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mike has been doing and the importance

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of that in general but why don't we

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start out um by just talking about what

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what generally is required for astronaut

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training

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we start about two years out from flight

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with these guys

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and we just take them basically through

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physical conditioning so it'll it'll go

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from everything from

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uh just general running to weightlifting

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getting their

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the body prepared for flight if they're

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doing eva we'll do some special

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training for getting them prepared for

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doing eva

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and then

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other than that it's just general

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overall fitness

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so for people who who don't know the

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lingo eva that's a spacewalk what's some

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of the things that might be

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specific to that well with eva

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one of the the main

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because you're working against the

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pressurized suit you have a lot of hand

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and forearm fatigue so we'll do specific

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exercises that will work

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a lot of

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forearm and hand fatigue so we try to

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strengthen those up to get them used to

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that fatigue factor so you you think

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about what the requirements are for

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anything that the astronauts might be

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doing and what they might need the

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strength to do right yes yes okay well

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what generally just for somebody going

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into space what what what do they need

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to think about

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well

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there's one of the there's a couple of

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things once you get to flight

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zero g

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creates kind of the physiological

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changes that happen we lose muscle we

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lose not only muscle size but we lose

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muscle strength we

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lose power the

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ability to develop power we lose

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cardiovascular conditioning and then we

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also lose a lot of bone

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so when they get

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those things they need to be aware of

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and most of them are

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highly aware of what happens in zero g

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so when we put together our program here

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we're training them here in 1g to

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prepare them for in flight and the

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things that we need to do in flight to

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mitigate those particular losses

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so it's not necessarily i guess you know

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zero gravity you're not lifting heavy

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stuff it's all pretty pretty weightless

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i guess so it's not that you need to be

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particularly strong for the work but so

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that you can stay healthy in general yes

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yeah i mean we're lifting they're

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lifting some of these guys are lifting

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pretty heavy loads but i

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so

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but that's mainly just to counteract

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that stuff it has nothing to do with

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space flight i mean the ability to

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deadlift 450 pounds

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is not preparing them pretty much for

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something they're doing in space it's

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actually conditioning the bones for the

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bone loss and muscle mass loss well mike

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hopkins seems like he's probably a

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really good example of fitness um it

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seems watching that video it was pretty

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impressive what he can do yeah is that

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the norm or

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and i think this is maybe some some

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other video of his training that we're

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here we're seeing here uh looks like

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he's doing some weightlifting yeah he's

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actually doing some squatting there

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that's in that's our our gym in there in

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russia

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uh

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so i can't tell how much loads on there

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but it looks about 300 and some mod

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pounds

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so yeah he's getting pretty he's getting

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he's pretty strong guy

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so i am are most astronauts able to do

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that or is he the exception um well the

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the funny thing about zero g now

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you think about it from a 1g perspective

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he if he's doing 300 pounds and he

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weighs 200 pounds in flight that now

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becomes 500 pounds because body weight's

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removed

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so on certain exercises we actually add

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back in the body weight okay so to

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counter because we lose it once we get

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there so

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uh for him i mean you know for him to be

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able to squad 500 and some pounds in

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flight probably he's not he's already

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doing that down here so

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so for most people what it would it is

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very interesting is because you add that

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body weight back in a lot of them aren't

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used to having that much load

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particularly just on their back they're

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used to it being through the whole body

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okay so is that something that i know

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the the equipment they use in space is

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called the a red the advanced resistive

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exercise device which is basically

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weightlifting type exercise but in zero

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gravity right yes yeah and it enables us

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to pretty much do anything we can do in

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the gym

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so uh we squat with it we dead lift with

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it those which are our two main

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exercises for maintaining bone and

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muscle strength and uh it can go up to

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about 600 pounds so we can get a fairly

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good load out of it okay so that should

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be able to keep mike

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uh busy and

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keep it straining up um

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i don't think that most of the

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astronauts are quite that advanced

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though right or is that true or no i

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mean all of them are trained up really

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well before they get up there i mean

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every astronaut we have once they're

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assigned a flight

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you know they're squatting they're dead

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lifting they're doing those things in

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the gym prior to flight so when they get

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up there they're pretty much well

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prepared to do that and it'll vary i

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mean yeah i mean mike is the is is

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fairly strong i would say he's probably

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one of the strongest astronauts we have

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pound for pound but it's relative to any

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individual okay i mean if mike is

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lifting 90 of his strength

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you know you would be lifting 90 of your

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strength so it's relative to you so it's

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and that's kind of how

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that's how we do yes yes ma'am we we

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develop it off of

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from an individual standpoint so 90

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is 90 regardless of whether it's you or

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me so it's it's still relative to us

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okay um how how far ahead do you start

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working on

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coming up with the plan for the

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astronauts when they're in orbit and

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working with them on what they need to

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know well uh well we start working with

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them as soon as they actually come to

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nasa i mean we've been working with been

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working with mike since he's been here

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once he's assigned to a flight then

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we're going to get more much more

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general in what we're doing and try to

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be more excuse me more specific to what

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we're doing in related to flight

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um

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and then

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what was i'm sorry i've got the other

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close the other question about that

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how early do you start working with them

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it sounds like that's pretty early on

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yeah it's pretty early yes it's really

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early on so

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it you know we've had some crew members

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that we've started with and you know

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they could be in their mid-40s that have

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never really done a squat before so we

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we have to take that

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into account when we start training them

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so

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uh with mike i mean mike played football

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in college he's been he was doing squats

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for a long time so it wasn't a lot of

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training with him it was just more

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putting the program together and getting

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him to follow the program now as far as

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the in-flight program goes

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we pretty much have a set program that

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we use with every individual and we'll

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tailor it a little bit

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and maybe change a few things depending

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on a strength or weakness within that

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particular crew member if we need to for

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in flight okay well i know once they get

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up on orbit they work out about two

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hours a day is that right it's their

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schedule two and a half hours a day

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and that will include uh the resistive

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exercise portion as well as the aerobic

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proportion so

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and but that also includes

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they have to set up it's a little more

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overhead to get ready to run on the

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treadmill than it is down here you just

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run in and push the button and go you

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you have to clean up set up there's you

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have harnesses you have to hook into and

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different types of things so it's it's

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just a little more overhead but that

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time includes all that stuff as well

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okay um and then

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is that is there a requirement for

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before they go to flight how much they

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exercise

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a day or once they get back well there

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there is a minimum requirement of once

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they're scheduled once they're assigned

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that we

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they're

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week at least twice a week for two hours

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a day we try to usually break that up

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and try to get it to at least four days

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or one hour a day

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with mike for example mike

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it didn't matter when it was in his

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schedule his schedule is we work out at

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six o'clock in the morning so he works

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out before work so every morning prior

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to flight five days a week he and i are

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in the gym at six o'clock in the morning

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so okay yeah and then when he gets back

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will that will there be a set regime

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regimen for him to follow there as well

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yes uh once they return home for the

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next four about six weeks roughly

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there are two and a half hours a day

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seven days a week they're assigned to

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to us and we just go through

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reconditioning with them and at that

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point again we we pretty much have a set

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program that we use but depending on how

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each individual crew member comes back a

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little different than the next crew

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member depending on how spaceflight

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affects them and that then um

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tells us how fast we can progress into

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the next stage of training from a from a

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post-flight perspective okay well just

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one more question for you then i think

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um okay you know one of the things that

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we've been talking about a lot with mike

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hopkins is the train like an astronaut

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program and talking to kids about the

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importance of fitness and nutrition um

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i know you know in general you have to

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be basically physically fit to be an

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astronaut right would you what would you

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encourage kids to do now if they were

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going to want to be an astronaut well i

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think physical fitness not even just

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from not even an astronaut standpoint

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but just in general is extremely

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important it it

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you know when you talk about the obesity

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issues that we have in our country and

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you look at disease just you know high

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blood pressure diabetes all the things

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that we have that are very academic

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um

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academic proportions in this country

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then i think that exercise and physical

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fitness will definitely help those so to

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me you should always be moving you

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should always be doing something and

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it's going to help you in every aspect

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of your life so okay and i guess if you

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are interested in learning more about

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that the train like an astronaut program

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does have some

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suggestions on some of the exercises you

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might be interested in trying out and

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you can find out more about that by

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going to their facebook site at

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facebook.com

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train astronaut you can see that here on

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the bottom of your screen and you can

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also keep up with kind of the weekly

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workouts and fitness tips from mike

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hopkins and other astronauts

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at their twitter site which is

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twitter.comtrainastronaut

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thanks so much mark for talking with us