Prof. em. Dr. Urs Boutellier

Urs Boutellier is full Professor of Exercise Physiology at the ETH Zurich since October 1, 2001, and Associate Professor at the University of Zurich since October 16, 1995. He heads the Exercise Physiology Group which is located at the Institute of Physiology of the University of Zurich-Irchel.

Urs Boutellier was born on January 17, 1948, in Winterthur ZH. He studied Medicine at the University of Zurich, passed the federal board examination in 1975, and received his doctorate in 1976. He became an assistant at the Institutes of Physiology of the University of Zurich (1976 - 1980) and of Geneva (1981 + 1982). His main research focused on the human physiological adaptation to acute (with a low pressure chamber) and chronic (during a Himalaya expedition) altitude. In the following years (1983 + 1984), he investigated the adaptations to gravity (with a human centrifuge) as Research Assistant Professor at the Department of Physiology of the University of Buffalo, New York. After this return to Zurich, he turned to exercise physiology. He worked 50% at the Institute of Physiology of the University of Zurich and 50% at the Department of Physical Education of the ETH Zurich. In 1989, he completed the habilitation requirements of the Medical Faculty at the University of Zurich. He investigated the influence of the endurance of the respiratory muscles on overall performance in humans. He found - contrary to the text book knowledge - that respiratory muscle endurance is very important during endurance exercise, it can even limit overall performance also in healthy subjects. Product of this research is the SpiroTiger®, a device for respiratory muscle training. A second focus became the non-invasive investigation of human muscle metabolism with magneticresonance spectroscopy.

Urs Boutellier teaches Human and Exercise Physiology in theory and practice for students in:

1) Human Movement Science, Pharmaceutical Science, and Physical Education of the Department of Applied Biosciences,

2) Medicine, and

3) other academic fields.