Human Performance Lab’s 44 years of setting the pace in sport, wellness

Moving to Calgary from Switzerland all came down to a gut feeling for Dr. Benno Nigg.

As one of the world’s foremost experts in biomechanics, he could have chosen to teach and do his research anywhere in the world.

Nigg, PhD, Dr.sc.nat., left his position as director of the biomechanics lab at the Technical University of Zurich after being courted to launch a new initiative at the University of Calgary in 1981.

“I always thought that when you want to understand your movement, mobility, performance or injuries, it’s not one-dimensional, it’s multi-factorial,” Nigg says. 

“Fatigue, brain, muscles, joints – it’s all much more than biomechanics and we wanted to create a world-class space for it all under one roof.”

Nearly 45 years later, the Human Performance Lab in the Faculty of Kinesiology has become a world-leading multidisciplinary research hub focusing on everything from anatomy and biology to nutrition and activewear.

For Nigg and the dozens of researchers in the facility, it’s just the beginning of what they believe they can accomplish.

Humble beginnings

Things started to really take off for the Human Performance Lab as the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary approached.

One of the main figureheads for the Games was then-dean Dr. Roger Jackson, PhD, Hon. LLD’11, who was the one who convinced Nigg to move to Canada in the first place.

As approvals for new facilities and equipment started to be made, Nigg began recruiting and found Dr. Walter Herzog, PhD, at the University of Iowa.

Herzog remembers 1985, when he first set foot into a long, narrow lab with a couple of platforms, a handful of cameras and a Xerox machine.

The lab’s current co-director says he never could have imagined how it was going to evolve to where it is now, as one of the most sophisticated labs on the planet with “the most up-to-date equipment you can imagine for life sciences research in kinesiology.”

Improving quality of life

When it comes to the “human performance” side of what they do, Herzog says they have been very successful in two specific areas: technology and health.

On one side, he says the research done with apparel companies to create better shoes with a foot plate and more elastic materials have helped athletes around the world, including superstar soccer player David Beckham, whose “Predator Pulse” supershoe by Adidas was developed in the lab.

On the other, the lab was the first in Canada to work on miniscule muscle tissues called myofibrils, a rod-like organelle found in muscle cells which are responsible for muscle contraction.

In 2010, its team became the first researchers to mechanically isolate a single sarcomere, the smallest functional unit of a striated muscle tissue.

“You have millions of them in a cell, so we were able to develop nano- and pico-technology to make the measurements of these teeny-tiny forces,” Herzog says. “There has always been a big emphasis on technological development, and I really think that’s really been part of the success of the lab.”

The research is impacting both athletes and non-athletes, alike, as they look to make life better for everyone who may be dealing with mobility issues.

A dream setup

It’s that societal impact that has the UCalgary lab ready to tackle future issues in human performance.

Ground has been broken on the new Taylor Family Kinesiology Building, which was made possible by an incredible $20-million gift from the Taylor Family Foundation, which has long supported Nigg’s work. It is scheduled to open in 2027.

“Our philosophy is that we involve clinical investigators; scientists working in the psychosocial areas of sport, health and well-being; and life-sciences researchers side-by-side in the same facility and common laboratories,” Herzog says. 

“The new lab will have everyone involved rubbing shoulders on a daily basis, sharing meeting and lab space, sharing knowledge and sharing students so that they are, in my dream setup, at the heart of true inter-disciplinarity science in kinesiology.”

Whether it is research around concussions or osteoarthritis, the Human Performance Lab has been at the centre of transdisciplinary research since its inception, and Nigg looks forward to seeing what is next for its wide array of researchers.

“If you want to do true multi-, inter-, and trans-disciplinary research, you have to put people under one roof,” says the emeritus professor. “When I came to Canada, that’s what I wanted to do, and I think I did that. People accept that we are leaders in the field of human health, wellness, and performance research.”