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Living History of Physiology
Charles M. Tipton
 Charles
M. Tipton (Tip) was born in Evanston, Illinois in 1927. Subsequently, his
family moved to rural Maryland located half-way between Washington D.C. and
Leesburg, Virginia. In 1945 he enlisted in the Army and was selected to be
a physical training instructor for stateside basic trainees and for members
of an infantry company in Japan. He received a B.S. degree in Physical
Education from Springfield College in 1952 and an M.S. degree in the same
discipline a year later from the University of Illinois with Professor
Thomas K. Cureton as his advisor. After two years of teaching general
science, biology, physical education and coaching four varsity sports in the
high schools of Illinois, he accepted an Assistantship in Health Education
to supervise the exercise therapy for disabled students at the University of
Illinois in Urbana with Professor Howard Hoyman as his Ph.D. advisor.
Physiology was selected to be his minor.
With endorsement from Professor Hoyman, he included pre-medicine science
requirements in his graduate courses with summer employment as a physical
fitness specialists for the Illinois 4-H Program directed by Professor Darl
M. Hall of the College of Agriculture Extension Service. In this role, he
conducted fitness tests, explained results to members and parents, analyzed
field results,developed norms, wrote sections in manuals for 4-H members,
and became convinced that physiology was his scientific passion.
Consequently, he transferred to the Department of Physiology and Biophysics
and selected Professor Frederick R. Steggedra to be his advisor. Tipton’s
dissertation was on the mechanisms of the bradycardia of training in rodents
as it pertained to the influences from the diencephalon and to efferent
activity from the vagus nerve as evaluated by vagal sectioning and
electrolytic lesions. He found that regardless of the interventions, the
bradycardia of training was present in the trained animals. Besides
Professor Steggedra, Tipton was pleased that Professors Garth Thomas and
Robert E. Johnson had served on his Ph.D. Thesis Committee.
In 1961, he returned to Springfield College as a Research Assistant
Professor which meant to a post-doctoral position with Professor Peter V.
Karpovich while directing his research laboratory and teaching exercise
physiology lecture and laboratory courses to undergraduate and graduate
students. His memorable moments were replacing Dr. Philip D. Gollnick as
Karpovich’s assistant; conducting research on the influence of light and
heavy leg exercise on quadriceps femoris reflex time; investigating movement
patterns of normal and abnormal individuals using electrogoiometric
methods, and being highlighted in Time magazine for conducting
movement research on women wearing high heels.
Two years later, he accepted a joint appointment as an Assistant
Professor in the Department of Physical Education –Men and in the
Department of Physiology and Biophysics with teaching and research
responsibilities while developing a rigorous Ph.D. program in exercise
physiology. With support from Professor Louis E. Alley and funds from the
Graduate College, National Defense Education Act, and the National
Institute of Health, an inter disciplinary graduate program was established
involving courses within the Department Of Physical Education-Men, all the
Basic Science Departments in the College of Medicine and with the Department
of Zoology. Initially, the retention rate of the program was low; however,
with time it became higher and competitive which resulted in most graduates
receiving appointments in Research I institutions. Professor Tipton
established an Exercise Physiology Laboratory which essentially utilized
animal models to Investigate mechanisms associated with acute and chronic
exercise. During his 21 years at the University of Iowa with continuous
support from the University, Iowa health or medical associations, or Federal
sources, he studied sympathetic and cholinergic mechanisms for the
bradycardia of training; rates from isolated hearts; response of ligaments
and tendons to exercise, immobilization or surgical repair; the anatomical
and physiological effects from animals devoid of hormones from the anterior
pituitary gland, the adrenal glands or from the pancreas, and VO2
max measurements from rodents to use for exercise prescription and
evaluation purposes. To resolve a controversy created by the Iowa Medical
Society, he conducted an Iowa Wresting Study to determine a minimal
wrestling weight for Iowa scholastic wrestlers. Although his research and
involvements found a scientific solution that became implemented on a
national level in 2005, it required 38 years and even then, the State of
Iowa was mandated by a national organization to accept his original
recommendations.
In 1984 Professor Tipton accepted the position as Head of the newly
created Department of Exercise and Sport Sciences at the University of
Arizona and was responsible for creating an undergraduate curriculum and
major for their students. Because of financial and political problems, the
department was abolished in 1993 and the faculty, as well as its
undergraduate model, became amalgamated into the Department of Physiology
within the College of Medicine. Again with support from local health
organizations or from Federal Agencies, he conducted research on the acute
and chronic effects of exercise on blood pressure using genetic models for
hypertension and reported that habitual isometric exercise did not increase
the incidence of strokes or a significant elevation in blood pressure with
stroke prone genetic hypertensive rats. With simulated microgravity (tail
suspended model), he investigated exercise performance, VO2 max
changes , degree of muscular atrophy, blood flow alterations, modifications
in temperature regulation, and glucose metabolism. His laboratory was the
first to report that VO2 max was significantly decreased after
suspension and, in a 1-legged simulated model, that the soleus muscle in the
weight bearing leg demonstrated EMG activity and exhibited no evidence for
atrophy. Although in 1998 he was accorded emeritus status, he continues to
be active in professional matters.
Professor Tipton has been a member of APS since 1967 and has served on
the Membership Committee; the Publication’s Committee as a member and as
Interim Chairman; Program Advisory Committee; Section Advisory Committee;
Chair of the Environmental and Exercise Section; Chair of the History of
Physiology Group and as a member of Council. He has been a reviewer of APS
journals, member of the Journal of Applied Physiology Editorial Board, and
an Associate Editor for the Journal of Applied Physiology and for Advances
in Physiology Education. He was the Chair of the Committee that formed the
Arizona Physiological Society (AzPS) and the author of the 1998 “play” that
starred APS members to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the
American Journal of Physiology. It continues to receive mixed reviews.
Within APS, he has received the Honor Award from the Environmental and
Exercise Section and the Orr E. Reynolds Award. Outside of APS, he has been
The Editor- In-Chief for Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise; an
Honor Award recipient; honored with a Charles M. Tipton Award for a
Graduate Student Research Award and a President for the American College of
Sports Medicine. Tipton received the Excellence in Education Award from the
Gatorade Sport Science Institute and was recognized with a Founders Award by
the American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology Research.
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