SPLENDID ISOLATION

“WE HAVE A TREADMILL WHERE YOU’RE STRAPPED IN WITH A HARNESS THAT PULLS YOU DOWN. WE ALS O HAVE A WEIGHT - LIFTING DEVICE THAT SIMULATES GRAVITY USING COMPRESSED AIR. THEN HERE’S CEVIS – CYCLE ERGOMETER WITH VIBRATION ISOLATIONSY STEM”
DOUGLAS WHEELOCK, THE ASTRONAUT

It’s a fact that American Douglas Wheelock has twice been one of the most isolated cyclists on our planet. Well, we say on our planet, but the trim 59-year-old resident of Ohio is an astronaut who first went on a 15-day space mission in 2007. Three years later, he spent six months on the International Space Station. “Down on Earth, I cycle a fair bit and run or walk with my dog,” Wheelock tells us. “Up in space, well, it’s a similar story.” Without the dog, of course.

Wheelock and his contemporaries exercise between two and two-and-a-half hours daily. That’s about half the 30-hour weekly effort of the pros, though the goal is more important than wearing a form-fitting yellow jersey in Paris. “It’s a fact that micro-gravity – gravity is found everywhere in space, just in differing amounts – can lead to muscle atrophy,” says Wheelock. “Your body’s such an efficient machine that it doesn’t take long to think, ‘Hang on, I’m not using these large quadricep muscles, let’s take energy from there and redirect it.’ Without exercise, bone density also drops, especially in the hips, pelvis and