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A tiny mouse puffs and wheezes but keeps pattering its feet along a treadmill. The mouse thinks it's chasing after a meal, but it's actually being monitored by kinesiology researchers at the University of Illinois.

"We use the mouse treadmill to study the effect of exercise on the heart," says Jennifer McCrae. Once the mouse has reached an optimum fitness level, researchers then examine its heart. "We use animal models because obviously we can't use human ones," McCrae says, although her research is devoted to improving the cardiac health of human beings.

McCrae studies the protein make-up of heart tissues because she wants to find out about the organ's molecular structure. "We look at the structural matrix of the heart," she says. This is the material that holds the heart in place while the heart is beating. The condition of this structure significantly affects how the heart beats and how well it's able to keep blood flowing in the body.

McCrae believes that exercise leads to a better-structured heart. Picture this: A man is puffing and wheezing. He reaches the landing of the stairs, stops and looks at the rest of the flight he has to negotiate. He clutches the railing as he tries to contain his breathing and stop the pounding in his ears.

The man has only climbed two flights of stairs but it seems his heart is going to give out. This happens to be a 90-year-old man, but the same condition can happen to sedentary people who don't exercise.

In fact, even the old man could probably improve his heart condition by exercising. "The structure of the heart deteriorates as you get older," says McCrae. "It becomes harder for the heart to contract and people get things like high blood pressure."

But hope isn't lost. "Exercise is proving to help all kinds of people," she says. "It even seems to blunt the deterioration of the heart in aging people. We're finding that exercise really is the key to a healthy heart."

McCrae's work won't stay in the laboratory. If she and her colleagues are successful in proving the link between heart health and exercise -- and can suggest ways to maintain a healthy heart -- it will be used in other areas of kinesiology and therapy.

"Every aspect of cardiac rehabilitation is important," says McCrae. "People who have just had bypass surgery will get the help of a kinesiologist to rehabilitate them."

Like other kinesiologists at the lab, McCrae has always been interested in exercise and fitness. "I've always been an athlete, competing up to the college level," she says. It was natural for her to continue her interest in fitness. "A lot of people who are interested in health or fitness are in our program. We've even had professional athletes come in."

Carol Putnam is a kinesiology professor. She also began her career in the physical education department. Even though Putnam eventually graduated with a PhD in biomechanics, she wasn't studying kinesiology in college -- this was the mid-'70s and kinesiology departments didn't exist then.

"All the principles were lumped together under physical education," Putnam says. "We studied how the body moves, but centered on the physical education aspect." Over the years, kinesiology has branched out to become its own department that covers many fields.

"Anything that has to do with human movement -- whether on the field, in the job environment or in everyday movement -- has to do with kinesiology," she says.

When Putnam finished her schooling, she opted to stay within the university environment rather than going into clinical practice. "It was almost by default, because there were very few opportunities then to work in a clinic," she explains. However, Putnam feels she made the right choice. She enjoys teaching biomechanics to kinesiology students.

Still, it can be difficult to stand up in front of a class of first-year kinesiology students who are only taking her course because it's mandatory. "It can be very tiresome to teach students who aren't interested," she says. "Either these students have a math phobia or they don't. In biomechanics, you need to know math, so some people don't want to be there."

An interest in both math and science is important if you're to succeed as a kinesiologist, says Rick Roach. "Make sure you're good and interested in the sciences, especially physics," he says.

However, teaching students who are interested is rewarding. At the graduate level, Putnam is directly involved in the students' research projects. "It's interesting to oversee all of their projects and see how they progress."

One of her students is currently researching an upper leg and knee prosthetic to see how it affects overall body movement. "He's interested in how the weight of the prosthetic affects the swing phase of the limb," says Putnam. "He experiments with altering the swing pattern." Putnam watches over these and other experiments with great enthusiasm.

Another student is researching how specific running shoe supports affect rear foot motion. "Things like the compliance of the sole compared with running injuries are investigated," says Putnam. "The variety is fascinating."

Generally, kinesiologists don't work alone when they're researching and experimenting in the real world. "It's becoming more and more of a team effort," says Putnam. "Engineers consider what are the best materials and what is the best design, while listening to what the kinesiologists have to say about human movement."

So Putnam helps with projects, sees them completed, and sees her students leave the academic world to find jobs. She doesn't regret that she has chosen to stay in the university setting. "It's interesting to teach others, see so many projects and to watch the field grow."