Student Fitness

By: Ryan Imbach

After a long hiatus – being super busy with school projects – I’ve decided to devote some of my time again to Student Fitness! I am hoping that the readership has grown since I’ve been gone. Thank goodness I’m back, because you were getting sick of that pumpkin pie oatmeal and you want some more creations! Well, I’ve concocted some more nutritional goodness for you. So eat up!

Neon Green Shake

Before, you attempt this, I highly suggest you get a blender. You could also beg your parents to get you one, which is the option I usually choose. A small one like the Magic Bullet is pretty useful in college. Anyway, this smoothie packs a pretty good nutritional punch, and it will keep you quite full, especially if you use the casein protein and the flax seeds. Here’s the goods:

-1/2 an avocado

-1 or 2 scoops any flavor whey or casein protein

-large amounts of fresh spinach

-2 tablespoons of ground/milled flax seeds

-water or milk

First, I put the spinach in the blender, then I add a small amount of liquid and blend into a watery green mess. Then add your other ingredients and blend. Trust me on this, the taste is way better than the looks. Your friends will think you are crazy for drinking bright green liquid. On the other hand, they may think it’s some sort of crazy fruit juice. But you know what you’ve got: pure nutritional goodness.

Banana Nut Oatmeal

Okay, so maybe you’ve already thought of this one. But for some readers who haven’t, here’s yet another oatmeal recipe that is pretty tasty. The ingredients:

-1 cup of old-fashioned oats

-1 scoop banana whey or casein protein

-1 tablespoon flax seeds (optional)

-slices of banana

-small handful of crushed walnuts

-Water to cook oatmeal

-A few shakes of cinnamon

Heat the water and oats in a glass bowl in the microwave. Put the protein, flax, and cinnamon in, and crush the walnuts and throw them in, too. Stir in and chow down, my friend.

French Toast Eggs

Here’s a twist on my previous microwaved scrambled eggs recipe. It’s supposed to taste like French toast. And since fried toast is covered in sugar and whipped cream, it is not the best choice for your body. Here’s the ingredients:

-Ingredients from scrambled eggs article, plus…

-A sprinkle of butter buds (butter flavored flakes, sweet!)

-1 to 2 packets of Splenda

-A few shakes of cinnamon

Make the eggs in the microwave as usual. Then, when they’re done, sprinkle Butter Buds, Splenda and cinnamon on your eggs. It will be a taste explosion. Okay, so maybe not that great, but it’s pretty close to tasting like French toast. And that’s a good thing.

Tuna Burgers

Yet another recipe that floats around in health food circles is the tuna burger. This requires you to have some hardware and to get a little messy. The hardware you’ll need is either a George Foreman type grill, and Pizzazz type rotating pizza oven, or a microwave might work. The tools and ingredients are:

-A glass bowl

-2 cans of tuna

-1 egg

-crushed oatmeal (oat flour); about ¼ cup or less

I’m not saying sneak it in, but if your college doesn’t allow a Pizzazz pizza oven…well, do what you have to do, right? But these are great. They cook from the top and the bottom, so it’s almost like a real oven. First I’d suggest starting your pizza oven or grill to get it warmed up. Then you combine all your ingredients in the glass bowl with a fork. Next you’ll scoop up about half the mixture with your hands (gross!), and put it on the grill/oven in a nice patty shape. Put the other half on the oven, and then wait for it to cook. I honestly could not tell you how long to cook it. If you’re using the grill, I would say maybe 3 – 5 minutes. With the oven, I’d say 5 – 7 minutes. You’ll just have to experiment with the cooking times. To change up this recipe a bit, you can always add in extras like curry powder, chili powder, lemon pepper, onions, chives, or chunks of bleu cheese. It will be tasty in no time.

Frozen Peanut Butter Balls

This is another messy recipe, and one that requires a very cold refrigerator or a freezer. It is pretty tasty, however, even though you’ll have to play with the amounts of ingredients to get the perfect texture. The goods:

-2 mashed bananas

-1 2/3 cup natural peanut butter

-About 4 scoops whey or casein protein

-About 1 cup water

-Oat flour (optional)

-Very large bowl (trust me) and very large spoon

First, mash your bananas. Now the hard part. Combine all your ingredients except your oat flour (I have never actually tried it with oats in the mix, but it might help to make the mix hold together). Stir and mix; mix and stir. Keep going because it will take a while, and it will be sticky. Once everything is combined, you roll the goop into little balls. You can then proceed to cover them with oat flour (or flax seeds), and pop them in the freezer in zip lock containers or bags. If this doesn’t work for you, don’t be discouraged. It took me a few tries to get it somewhat correct. And even then, they weren’t balls so much as they were blobs of goop. But they were mighty tasty!

Another installment of recipes for you dorm-dwellers. Enjoy, and remember, not too much longer and it will be summertime!

By: Veljko Petranovic

In my gym, everybody seems to be on something. I’ve recently talked to an Egyptian fellow, a mass monster by anyone’s standards, and he swears that his immense bulk is the result of heavy training and branch-chained amino acids. He’s an arm-wrestling competitor and looks like he could lift a house. This other guy, Mirko, my buddy from school, has a very lean physique and looks like one of those model types. He takes German creatine, whey protein, glutamine, aminos and ZMA. His home looks like a supplement warehouse. And then, there’s this dude we call “Cold”, who used to be really big and fat, but now sports a tiny, ripped waist and unhuman mounds of muscle everywhere you look.

Cold works as a bouncer, and I guess that’s a good career choice, since he has a very nasty disposition. A few days back, he took his shirt off, and you could really tell he was on something. Great muscle separation, paper thin skin, lumps and bulges up the yazoo. His traps have took the place of his neck, and he can bench 450 for reps. Despite all this, one couldn’t help but notice terrible acne which cover his entire back. For lack of a better word, it looks disgusting.

A lot of other people in my gym take steroids as well. The thing is, noone competes in powerlifting, or bodybuilding, or baseball or whatever. Guys buy a membership, and a few short months later, their arms swell up like balloons and their backs block out the sun. You see them some time later, and they are back to a more reasonable size, more human proportions. And, without fail, they all look terribly depressed. Once you were Superman, being Clark again really sucks.

My viewpoint on this is, unless you are making money from a sport that demands strength or size, you have absolutely no business taking anabolics, androgens or hormones. Due to a shift in our collective conciousness, women have gained more power and rights, and men, especially younger guys, seek to compensate. This „compensation“ can manifest itself in a variety of ways, but a very common one is the Adonis complex, bigorexia, muscular dysmorphia, whatever you want to call it. A lot of men feel inadequate, and resort to chemical enchancement.

The list of side effects of these drugs is as long as my arm. Hair loss, acne, testicular atrophy, damage to the liver, mood swings, high blood pressure, acromegaly, water retention, impotence, organ enlargement. Death is a big one, too. Need I go on? The thing one has to ask himself is, is this really worth it? Are you really going to put your health in danger for the sake of sheer looks? Isn’t it stupid? Is it not downright idiotic?

There is something to be said about moderation. It applies to some things. But, let’s take Heroin for example. There is no moderation with it. Either you’re addicted or you’re clean. In my opinion, the same goes for steroids. No one ever does „one cycle“. Taking „low doses“ actually means suffering less side effects, and there is no safety involved once you start tampering with your body’s natural hormonal balance. You can try, and get out of it relatively unharmed, but for what? Being huge? Bah.

Any recreational athlete can achieve his goals naturally, provided that his goals are realistic. You’re not going to look like Ronnie Coleman with weights and food alone. But just about anyone can take crappy genetics, apply hard work and dedication and produce a marvelous looking body. It’s a matter of consistency and figuring out what works for you. You can gain 20 pounds in a month and lose them in two months, or you can accept fitness as a lifestyle and keep looking great no matter what. Think of it as brushing your teeth. Think of it as an investment in your future, and the future of your kids. Think of it as playing smart.

By: Veljko Petranovic

1.Don’s start a bulking phase if your body fat level is above 10 percent. Fat begets fat, remember, and the more you have, the more additional adipose tissue you’ll gain along with the muscle. Ideally, you should start bulking up after you’ve dieted down for the summer/competition/photo shoot/girlfriend. That way, your muscle/fat gain ratio should be about 1:1. When you’re chubby to begin with, the ratio is more like 1:4 in favor of fat.

2. Eat a lot, but no junk food. You’re looking for quality sources of protein and complex carbohydrates. Despite the fact that ice cream is made of milk and therefore must contain protein, all that extra sugar will not do anything good for your appearance. Some fat is acceptable, heck, it’s unavoidable, but don’t let this be an excuse for regular gorge-fests. Eat up to six times a day.

3. Bump your calorie intake by a set number of calories per day. Space the extra calories over all your meals, don’t just eat double your normal breakfast. Do not exceed 1.000 calories over your normal diet per day, it’s overkill. Instead, gradually increase your food intake. If you need, say, 3.000 calories to maintain a 200 lbs of bodyweight, calculate the needed increase for 210 lbs and eat accordingly. Don’t eat like you should be weighing 250 lbs right off the bat, or the fat gain will be much larger.

4. You should never be hungry. Overfeeding takes a lot of effort, endless mastication and loads of food on the go. Don’t kid yourself by starving for the majority of the day, then pigging out for dinner. That approach is a sure way to fail.

5. Don’t forget the fiber. When it comes to eating a lot of food, all the excess must go somewhere, and a good digestion goes a long way. Well known side effects of bulking include, but are not limited to, gas, stomach cramps, hard stool and even more gas. Also, it would be a good idea to include fish oil capsules in your diet.

6. Train no more than three times a week. For the rest of your time, you should be eating and resting. Bulking phases are ideal when you’ve got a lot of study material to go over. Preparing for a big exam, or three, includes a lot of sitting on your ass, which goes hand in hand with gaining mass. Seize the opportunity.

7. Compound exercises should dominate your training program. Don’t miss out by not squatting, deadlifting, benching, stand-pressing and barbell rowing. Also, this is a great time to focus on a lagging muscle group. Specialize on your weakness and bring it up to par, lest it becomes even more apparent. Work that muscle group first in your training, and give it more volume.

8. Forget both cardio and a ripped six pack. For normal people, like you and me, it’s not natural to add pounds upon pounds of lean muscle. What’s required is singleness of purpose. It is during this time when you should care less about aesthetics. Think of it as an investment in your future self. Gaining muscle without some fat is nigh-impossible, unless you’re chemically assisted (which I don’t recommend) or genetically blessed.

9. Sleep for no less then 8 hours every single night. Ten hours would be even better, if you can manage. Your sleeping patterns should be just as important as your training, though a bit less so than your diet. If nutrition comprises 70 percent of your fitness goals, the rest is divided between lifting and sleeping.

10. Live a little. Once your fitness goals, regardless of what they are, become routine, you’ll view them as a chore and a burden. You don’t have to be miserable in order to get big. Socialize with your friends and family, and let them in on your current efforts. They are the best support group one could ever want. Go shopping for your new, bigger clothes. Go out and have some fun. Fitness is a great way to live, but it shouldn’t be life itself.