TRANSCRIPT:

Mack Burke: I'm Mack Burke, host of We Are Land Grant and I'm joined today by Lance Walker. Rick and Gail Muncrief, Executive Director of OSU Human performance and Nutrition Research Institute, or HPNRI for short. Lance, welcome.

Lance Walker: Thanks Mack

Mack Burke: First can you tell us a little bit about the Human Performance and Nutrition Research Institute and its mission?

Lance Walker: HPNRI is one of three applied institutes at the university now focused on creating change and our change happens to be focused around human health and the vision for HPNRI comes from a vision from our president, Dr. Kayse Shrum, to transform health in the state of Oklahoma through a unique lens, the lens of human performance and nutrition.

When you think about the words HPNRI that make up our, our name, they're very intentional in that way. Applied search for truth transforming health. Through the lens of human performance and nutrition.

Mack Burke: How does that work?

Lance Walker: You're on a continuum. Every day. Every day. Today I'm sitting here and I'm on a continuum of optimum performance at my best to one foot in the grave.

And every day we're sliding up and down that continuum. Elite performers are no different then my Uncle Wes in Freedom, Oklahoma, we are all on that continuum every day, striving to be the best versions of ourselves for what it is that's important to us. And it just so happens that elite athletes are, are trying to be the best versions of themselves for an event.

My Uncle Wes, is the example in Freedom. What was important to him was being able to build fence, was being able to, to get on that horse and ride that horse to check his cattle. That was what's important to him. And so his performance is just as important. As the Saturday performance is to him, and taking that as a performance mindset is what do I do every day from my recovery, from my nutrition, from my movement, or my exercise habits?

What do I do every day to optimize my ability to be the best version of myself for what it is that's important to me. No different than the elite performers in the NFL, the NBA, Major League baseball. They're all looking to do the same things, and that's what HPNRI is all about, leveraging that performance mindset.

To bring out the best performance in all of us, whether that's for sport or just for life.

Mack Burke: As a land grant institution, OSU has a mission to spread knowledge and improve lives. What are some practical ways HPNRI research is making an impact right now?

Lance Walker: The gap that exists right now between scientific knowledge and actual rubber meets the road practical application.

There's a huge gap there. And so, in a lot of cases, the papers that are published, the research that is created, the new knowledge that's generated from amazing research around the world in a lot of cases, get left behind in our ability to provide that to practitioners. It gets left at the conferences; it gets left at the publications.

And so that's where HPNRI plays a really critical role, as do other institutes and other departments here on, on campus that are already doing a lot of this great work. And a great tangible example of that is already happening through our work at Project Echo. Project Echo, a virtual element of our extension effort at Oklahoma State University whereby we're able to surround a practitioner.

In this case, the athletic trainer in Enid, let's use them as an example. How do we surround that athletic trainer that's providing care to our young athletes in Enid, Oklahoma? We know that that care is going to optimize their ability to be the best performers of their sport. It's also going to optimize their ability to stay healthy, to recover from injury, to have a positive experience from their sport, which we know is a great conduit to them being an active adult.

Mack Burke: Lance, thank you for joining us.

Lance Walker: Thank you, Mack. I appreciate the opportunity.