Jess Cerra: Exercise Physiologist Turned Professional Athlete

Jess Cerra says “After graduating from the University of Montana with a bachelor’s in Exercise Science, I moved to San Diego to pursue a master’s in Exercise Physiology at San Diego State University. Endurance sport had always attracted me from both a scientific and personal perspective. When I moved to San Diego, I saw gangs of people out on the sunny coast riding bikes and I secretly wanted to join them, but had no idea how I could. In order to quell this curiosity, I recruited cyclists to act as my research subjects as part of my lab experiments where I collected data on bone density, or lack thereof, and the relation to calcium lost through sweat. When my mentor-professor suggested that I put myself through the lab protocol I had designed for the athletes, including a test which measures oxygen-carrying and endurance capacity, I tested with an ‘Olympic’ level capacity on a bike.”

Learn more about Jess Cerra’s philosophy of food as fuel >>