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Imagine that you are a highly competitive 40-year-old age-group triathlete who lives for daily
workouts of swimming, cycling, and running. But in the interest of science, you elect to spend the
next five months in bed. The goal of this experiment will be to examine the effects of complete
bed rest on the body of a healthy, well-conditioned athlete.
Astronaut and triathlete Dr. Jerry Linenger essentially placed himself in this sedentary
position when he elected to spend five months aboard the Russian space station Mir.
When he returned to Earth, he discovered, much to his dismay, what a prolonged period of
weightlessness can do to the human body. He had lost 13 percent of his bone density in
weight-bearing areas of the hips and lower back; his bones had weakened to a level similar to
that of an older woman with osteoporosis.
It gets worse for the good doctor. He could not do a single pull-up. His muscles and upper body
strength had atrophied. His first time back in the pool was like trying to wade through quicksand.
He thought he was going to drown. Only after a year of serious and consistent workouts did his
energy level return, but not his bone density, which still showed a 6 percent deficit. It took
him 18 months to recover.
Life on Mir
I recently discovered these facts by reading Linenger’s autobiography, Off the Planet, which is a personal narrative of his own right stuff aboard the accident-prone Mir space station. His days and nights were packed with conducting scientific experiments, interacting with his two Russian-speaking crewmates, keeping the decrepit space station in working order, dealing with a dictatorial band of mission-control apparatchiks in Russia, and just trying to staying healthy and alive in this rickety habitat the size of four school buses linked together. Daily exercise became his much-needed relief, his escape hatch from the pressure and responsibilities of living inside this orbiting tomato can. Strapped down with heavy weights, he would pound out mileage on a treadmill for up to an hour at a time.
Like a true scientist he recorded his peaks and lows. His pulse would ratchet up from a
space-adapted, opossum-like 35 to 40 beats per minute to 150. He also set a world record by
running nonstop around the world in 90 minutes.
One fringe benefit of being spacebound was that Linenger saw his height increase by two inches to
a strapping six feet, two inches. One downside of being in space was the lack of bathing
facilities—he admits that he became skanky.
One thought kept caroming in my head while reading this book: To succeed in life, one needs a
tremendous level of willpower. By all accounts, Linenger was an overachiever—a Navy flight
surgeon, scientist, Ph.D., astronaut, triathlete, family man. Each year NASA gets thousands of
applicants, only a few make the grade. Even fewer make it into outer space.
I do not know if Linenger has returned to triathlon. But the book ends with him telling readers
that has retired from the Navy and NASA and now lives in northern Michigan with his family. His
enjoys his new status as an Earthling. If you need one book this summer to provide you with
sufficient motivation to get off the couch and into better in shape, Off the Planet
provides the necessary liftoff. To stay in orbit, well, that depends on your own mission
control.
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