Sports Performance Lab at Texas Tech University

Dr. Sekiguchi’s first (two) PhD students graduated this week!!! 🤩 Huge congrats to Dr. Marcos Keefe and Dr. Ryan Dunn for this achievement!!! 👏

So grateful for both of them coming to Sports Performance Lab for their PhD journey and building and expanding the lab together!!! 😉 Without them, our lab would not be the same as today for sure 👍

Good luck for the next step as a tenure-track assistant professor (Marcos) and a postdoc at world-class lab (Ryan)!!! Most importantly, they are going to places where they can do what they want to do as next steps!! 🙌

We also celebrated another huge milestone for our master student, Alex, to complete her MS!!! ☺️ Her contribution and commitment to our lab was significant to perform all projects!!! She is going to be a PhD fellow at a very competitive athletic program next, and we are very happy for her future!!! 🤝

Congrats to all and enjoy your special moments!!! 👆🔴⚫️

Congrats to our master student, Tyler, to be awarded for the Graduate Student Research Grant from National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA)!!! 🤩

We will be looking at the effect of body heating and muscle temperature on neuromuscular performance in various environmental conditions!!! 👍

Looking forward to this study and potentially using as the way to increase performance and prevent injury!! 😉 🔴⚫️👆

This past February, Dr. Sekiguchi was officially approved for his tenure and is becoming the Associate Professor!! 🤩

Thank you so much to students, colleagues, mentors, friends, and the Department and University for all of your help on his tourney to achieve this milestone!! 👍

Let’s keep it up!! 👆⚫️🔴

Our new publication!!! ✅✅✅

Oral rehydration during exercise induced better thermoregulatory and performance outcomes compared to IV infusion!! 💧💧☀️☀️

We know IV is not a realistic rehydration method during exercise, but we wanted to see if drinking itself would provide benefits and it looks like it does!!! 🤩 While this study is not perfect and more mechanistic studies are required, thirst sensation and/or oropharyngeal reflex might be potentially linked to physiological and performance responses!!! 😉

Stay hydrated!! 🤩👍

.sekiguchi

Congratulations to our second year PhD student, Mario, to successfully pass his qualifying exam for both written and oral portions!! 🤩 Thank you for the committee members for guiding him throughout the process!!! 👍

Great job and you are officially a PhD candidate now 👆⚫️🔴

Let’s keep it up!!! 😉

.sekiguchi .research

Our new publication ✅✅✅

Dehydration increase sympathetic activity and reduce parasympathetic activity with resistance exercise!!! 🏋️🏋🏻‍♀️💧💧

Recovery and readiness in autonomic function with resistance exercise might be impacted by fluid balance!! 😎

Great job my PhD student, Mario, to lead this paper!!👆⚫️🔴

Dr. Sekiguchi received 2026 Excellence in Research Award from Texas Tech University, College of Arts and Sciences!!! 🤩🙌😉

Thank you for all students, colleagues, friends and mentors to support him and our Sports Performance Lab!!! 🏆

It is truly Team Effort!!👆⚫️🔴 Keep it up 👍

Another PhD student from our lab successfully defended his dissertation on “Performance and Physiological Adaptations to Circuit-Based Heat Acclimation” yesterday!! 🤩

He did an amazing job on study planning, data collection, analysis, writing and presenting 👏👏👏

We are very excited to publish papers from this project to show how a short duration of alternative heat acclimation approach can induce novel adaptations!! 👍😉🙌

Thank you for all who attended the defense and supported him!! Huge thanks to all committee members as well 👆⚫️🔴

Congrats Dr. Dunn!!!!!!

.sekiguchi

Marcos Keefe, PhD student from our lab, successfully defended his dissertation yesterday!!! 🤩

It was a big project investigating heat acclimation of male and female elite runners and its effect on performance in cool environment!!🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️👍 He did a great job not only on his presentation and writing but also the study planing to data collection 👏👏👏

Thank you so much for attending his defense online and in person and supporting his journey!!! We heard really nice comments about his presentation and writing from many people after that 😊

Thank you all committee members, also and to fund this study!!😉

So proud of you, Dr Keefe!! 👆🔴⚫️

.sekiguchi

Our new publication ✅✅✅

After muscle damaging exercise in the heat compared to normal environment, slow wave sleep and REM sleep duration increase 💤🛌😴

One muscle damage exercise in the heat can induce interesting response to our body, such as increasing cellular tolerance to the subsequent exercise bout!! 🔥

Great job team!! 🤩