PRESS RELEASE
February 11, 2009
Fircrest Business Secures Innovative Patents
Incorporated in 1987, the Exercise Science Center of has provided exercise and fitness assessment services for the Puget Sound Region. The Exercise Science Center has gained national recognition for their expertise developing innovative methods and techniques for assessing health and fitness. Blake Surina, Executive Director of the Exercise Science Center, noted metabolic irregularities while assessing the strength and oxygen consumption of subjects of varied body dimensions. Developing his own mathematical algorithms he began to make sense of the complexity involved in metabolic scaling.
The accepted practice of doing metabolic calculations was to use linear models. If the subject is twice as large, they would need to perform twice the work of the smaller subject to obtain the same fitness level. But the larger individual would do not possess twice the blood volume, twice the lung capacity, twice the stroke volume… it was not that simple. In fact, the scaling would follow a exponential relationship closer to mass to the ¾ power. The value of proper scaling would provide a correction factor that could increase the accuracy of metabolic research by nearly 20%, with much larger improvements realized for subjects of extreme body dimensions. For the first time exercise physiologists could obtain physiological measurements of calories and metabolism that could be individualized for any sized person.
In 2001, Blake J. Surina was given a special audience to share his findings with General Lester Martinez, United States Army Surgeon General Kevin Kiley, and other top ranked officials at Fort Dietrich in Virginia. The result of the meeting was to develop a monitor to individualize fluid loss deficits to protect American forces against the detrimental effects of dehydration. Soon Mr. Surina developed the Hydra-Alert series heart rate monitors made by Acumen, hydration technology for Vetta bicycle computers, and the Hydra-Pedometer that will be released this summer. During the last few years Surina’s products have been on such television shows as “Buggin with Ruddâ€, Gina Lombari’s Fit Nation, and Popular Science’s issue on the top 100 inventions of 2004. Recent work included a study on one of Mr. Surina’s inventions performed in cooperation with Dr. Mindy Millard Stafford at Georgia Tech University, President of the American College of Sports Medicine, and Dr. Maxime Buyckx the Medical Director for the Coca-Cola, and one of the worlds leading experts on hydration.
March 18, 2008 patent number 7.344.508 “Method for adjusting metabolic related parameters according to a subjects body weight†was accepted by the United States Patent Office. With the incorporation of this technology a standardized system can finally be developed for proper drug dosing of children, bariatric, cancer, certain respiratory and malaria patients. This will also even the playing field for pre-employment physical assessment’s for a number of government jobs, where larger subjects are in many cases being blatantly discriminated against.
February 17, 2009 patent number 7.493.232 “Device and method for monitoring hydration status†was accepted by the United States Patent Office. Constructed to monitor the effects the hydration status, this should provide valuable information for the elite athlete to the growing aged population at risk for falls. Products made and marketed by Acumen Inc. will incorporate the technology in pedometers and sport watches that will alert the user to their hydration status throughout the normal day, as well as during intense exercise sessions.
Other products developed by the Exercise Science Center include a glycemic monitor that will recommend the quantity (grams or calories) and quality (glycemic index) of carbohydrate to be replenished during daily activity, and an efficiency index monitor that will give the user an efficiency score from 1-100 for their physical performance doing a variety of tasks. For further information or future correspondence please address your inquiries to:
Blake J. Surina
Exercise Science Center
1101 Regents Blvd
Fircrest, WA 98466
(253) 564-6050
bsurina@net-venture.com