Studying health and human performance experientially

Our Health & Human Performance Lab, operated through a partnership between Fort Lewis College and Durango Performance Center, offers students the opportunity to gain firsthand experience working with real clients to evaluate body metrics in the context of their personal health, fitness and performance goals. Put your passion for understanding the human body, healthy living, athleticism, and human performance to service in the community as a student.

Durango, Colorado is a training destination for world renowned athletes, particularly endurance runners and cyclists. These are some of your clients, and you’ll have opportunities to:

  • Analyze running gait using a high-tech pressure runway
  • Conduct body composition analysis using multiple methods such as hydrostatic weighing, bioelectrical impedance analysis and skin calipers
  • Conduct resting and exercise metabolic testing to evaluate important metrics such as oxygen consumption (VO2max), fat and carbohydrate utilization, energy expenditure and more
  • Analyze electrocardiogram (ECG) to evaluate heart rhythms at rest and exercise
  • Utilize different motion capture systems (such as Retul, Dartfish, PerfectPhorm) to analyze biomechanics with any type of human movement
  • Take advantage of our large and capable 5' x 8' treadmill to accommodate two runners at once, cycling, skiing, skating, wheelchair and more

While Durango Performance Center’s focus is on serving athletes of all levels, from fitness to high performance goals, our lab also serves as an educational resource for students learning about therapeutic interventions, wellness and physiology. You may reserve the lab or check out equipment online for the purpose of coursework and research.

Printout of foot pressure dynamic analysis