Get Fit
In order to get bigger, you need to eat more calories but healthy calories. There is a difference between a handful of almonds and a handful of gummy bears.
“Have a plan,” Chris Shank, a Strength and Conditioning Coordinator at Defiance College. He states, “A lot of people will sit there, especially young athletes, with working out very little and eating whatever they want. That’s why you need to have a plan. {You] need to know how many carbs, protein, and fats per week, per day, per meal,” Shank said. “There’s good weight, and there’s bad weight,” Shank said. To reach your goals of getting bigger, you have to have a plan of what you eat for every time you put food in your mouth.
Supplements are something people all around the U.S. take to help them bulk up like protein powder and creatine. But supplements are not always the best thing for your body and can also be unsafe. “Anyone can, if you have the right marketing, just put a label on a supplement and have it say get big,” Shank said. Be sure to do your research on what is in the supplement you’re using because there could be something in there that you don’t like the way your body feels when taking it.
Nate Hall, a Junior Education and History major at Defiance College, intakes 4000 to 5000 calories a day and works out for about an hour and a half per day. “Best thing for building muscle is diet, it’s about 80% diet, and 20% is lifting,” Hall said.
It is recommended to work all your muscles to bulk up evenly, such as biceps, triceps, chest, legs, back, etc. But you should work them at certain times of the week. “Generally, if you take three days off of lifting for a certain body part or muscle group, then that’s when you start to see gains,” Shank said.
There’s a facility on campus that allows you to work out just for being a Defiance College student, which is the George M. Smart Center. Another option, however, is not on campus. The local Defiance YMCA, located at 1500 Palmer Drive, supplies students with a free membership using your student ID. For more info visit: https://defianceymca.org/
Written by: Seth Pearson
