Profile
Ulrik is an Honorary Professor in the School of Human Movement and Nutritioon Sciences and head of Cardiac Exercise Research Group and K.G. Jebsen Centre for Exercise in Medicine at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He is an internationally recognized researcher, professor and entrepreneur in the field of exercise physiology. He has a Masters in Exercise Physiology (NTNU-Norway) and a PhD in Cardiovascular Physiology (NTNU-Norway).
Research Interests
Early in his career Ulrik provided the first causative evidence that low exercise capacity was sufficient to dramatically increase cardiovascular disease risk. The resulting paper was published in Science with a commentary section in Nature Medicine and was ranked as one of the most important papers on metabolism at the time. Subsequently, his interest in high intensity interval training (HIIT) led to the discovery that HIIT was not only safe, but provided superior improvements both in aerobic capacity and cardiac function in heart failure patients. This paper was published in Circulation. This line of research formed the basis for his own research group, which, by employing the HIIT approach, demonstrated optimal results to various lifestyle-related disorders. Considering the tight link between cardiovascular physiology and longevity, he used the epidemiological HUNT-studies and showed that simple temporal changes in resting heart rate could predict cardiovascular death. The paper was published in JAMA and lead to establishment of the World Fitness Level algorithm, which estimates the cardiorespiratory fitness and thereby predicts death in the general population. More than 5 million people have used this algorithm. Ulrik also invented the Personalized Activity Intelligence (PAI), which calculates how much weekly physical activity one needs to prevent disease and early death. The PAI app is free and available in all app stores.