American physicianKenneth H.
Cooper (born March 4, 1931, Oklahoma City)[1] is a doctor of medicine and former Air Force lieutenant colonel ♠ from Oklahoma, who pioneered the benefits of doing aerobic exercise for maintaining and improving health.
[2][3] In 1966 he coined the ♠ term, and his book Aerobics was published in 1968,[4][5] which emphasized a point system for improving the cardiovascular system.
The popular ♠ mass market version was The New Aerobics (ISBN 0-553-26874-0), published ten years later.
Career [ edit ]
A native of Oklahoma City, ♠ Cooper completed a 13-year military career in both the army and air force.
During his Air Force career, he devised the ♠ simple Cooper test, which could conveniently and quickly establish the fitness level of large numbers of people.
Originally the distance run ♠ in 12 minutes, it correlated well with the existing concept of VO 2 max.
Cooper left the Air Force in 1970, ♠ when he and his wife, Millie, moved to Dallas to start his companies.
Cooper is the founder of the non-profit research ♠ and education organization, The Cooper Institute, which was opened in 1970.
Cooper is also the founder of and Chairman at the ♠ Cooper Aerobics Center in Dallas and McKinney, Texas, which comprises eight health and wellness entities.[6]
Cooper received the Golden Plate Award ♠ of the American Academy of Achievement in 1986.[7]
Cooper developed the Smart Snack Ribbon guidelines in 2003 for the Frito-Lay division ♠ of PepsiCo.[8]
Cooper has published 19 books that have sold 30 million copies and been translated into 41 languages.
Cooper encouraged millions ♠ to become active and helped to launch modern fitness culture.
He is known as the "father of aerobics".[9][10]
He and his wife ♠ are parents of a son and daughter.
Cooper has written about the importance of Christian religious faith in his life.[11][12]
Ideas on ♠ exercise and training effect [ edit ]
Cooper studied the effect of exercise in the late 1960s and popularized the term ♠ "training effect"[13] although that term had been used before.
[14][15] The measured effects were that muscles of respiration were strengthened, the ♠ heart was strengthened, blood pressure was sometimes lowered and the total amount of blood and number of red blood cells ♠ increased, making the blood a more efficient carrier of oxygen.
VO 2 Max was increased.
[citation needed] He published his ideas in ♠ a book, Aerobics in 1968.
The exercise necessary can be accomplished by any aerobic exercise in a wide variety of schedules ♠ - Cooper found it best to award "points" for each amount of exercise[16] and require 30 points a week to ♠ maintain the Training Effect.[citation needed]
Cooper instead recommended a "12-minute test" (the Cooper test) followed by adherence to the appropriate starting-up ♠ schedule in his book.
As always, he recommends that a physical exam should precede any exercise program.
The physiological effects of training ♠ have received much further study since Cooper's original work.
It is now generally considered that effects of exercise on general metabolic ♠ rate (post-exercise) are comparatively small and the greatest effect occurs for only a few hours.
Though endurance training does increase the ♠ VO 2 max of many people, there is considerable variation in the degree to which it increases VO 2 max ♠ between individuals.
[17]See also [ edit ]Citations [ edit ]References [ edit ]
