• Question: What does FRED stand for?

    Asked by #Monkanaut Twin to Andrew, Alex on 4 Dec 2015. This question was also asked by purplepanda, Max Tuckett, my name is name, Bob, 334nch28, DILL31, Neive.
    • Photo: Andrew Winnard

      Andrew Winnard answered on 4 Dec 2015:

      Looks like this is a big question since a few of you asked it!! FRED will be really happy to know you are all interested in him!

      So his full name is the Functional Readaptive Exercise Device, which really awesomely spells out FRED when you just take the first letters 🙂 He is a lot like a cross trainer and he lives in a lab in the unviersity where I work with him. He likes to travel sometimes too and has visited the European Astronaut Center in Cologne and he even went to Australia to meet some fantastic aussie scientists! While enjoying the sun in Aus the scientists out there did some important experiments that are helping us show FRED works!

      I suppose you’d like to know how he works a bit too…

      He is a bit like a cross trainer- but he has no resistance to your movements when you use him. The idea is to exercise on him very slowly with the most smooth and controlled movements you can do! When you get it right it looks like the exercise helps you learn to use muscles that keep your hips and lower back stable and hold yourself in better posture. Astronauts backs stretch so they get taller and they bend forwards most of the time they are in space. This causes back pain and injury risk after they come back. So exercising on FRED might help fix all this…. but thats what I am doing research to find out!

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