Protein Packer

As costs pile up with textbooks, class fees and rent we all need to be conscious of our spending. According to an article (shift+click) over at MSNBC.com suggestions for food spending should range from 5% to 15% of your monthly budget. There is a certain affordable spread that happens to be a fan favorite for most. Both creamy and crunchy, the super food in question is peanut butter.

Slap some peanut butter down on a slice of wheat bread and pair it with another slice smeared with jelly and you have a cheap and appetizing snack. Just ask our Intramural Supervisor Joshua Pullens what’s on his menu, and he’ll always reply “peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

Peanut butter is an inexpensive purchase at the grocery store and can last a long time in your cupboard. Helping contribute to what I refer to as “ballin’ on a budget,” peanut butter and jelly sandwiches have always come through in a time of need or financial constraints. But you don’t always have to enjoy this amazing mixture in a sandwich, there are plenty of other possibilities.

An astonishing statistic noted by Men’s Fitness Magazine reports that 90% of American kitchens have peanut butter. You can enjoy peanut butter with celery sticks; slap it on your pancakes or make delicious cookies. According to Fooducate.com “peanuts are rich in monounsaturated fats, which help reduce the risk of heart disease.”

Peanut butter is also a great source of protein and contains 100 calories per tablespoon. Suitable for all meals, this versatile food is a must-have for any kitchen or dorm room. Feel free to add any peanut butter recipes you have in the comments section.

-Andrew Reddish

Wearing the Fivefingers...

Hey everyone!

It recently came to my attention this past summer that there is a new craze in running...running "barefoot" or using the innovative Vibram Fivefingers. Once I laid eyes upon these "rubber soles" I couldn't resist but buy them. I gave them a trial run while training on my summer packet for soccer and definitely fell in love.

According to vibramfingers.com/technology/health_wellness, the shoes will benefit you in the following ways:

#1 Strengthens Muscles in the Feet and Lower Legs-wearing Fivefingers will stimulate and strengthen muscles in the feet and lower legs, improving general foot health and reducing the risk of injury.

#2 Improves Range of Motion in Ankles, Feet and Toes-no longer 'cast' in a shoe, the foot and toes move more naturally.

#3 Stimulates Neural Function Important to Balance and Agility-when wearing Vibram Fivefingers, thousands of neurological receptors in the feet send valuable information to the brain, improving balance and agility.

#4 Improves Proprioception and Body Awareness-those same neurological receptors heighten body awareness, sending messages about body mechanics, form, and movement.

#5 Eliminates Heel Lift to Align the Spine and Improve Posture-by lowering the heel, our bodyweight becomes evenly distributed across the footbed, promoting proper posture and spine alignment.

#6 Allows the Foot and Body to Move Naturally, Which Just FEELS GOOD.

For any of you interested in Vibram Fivefinger's it is recommended that you GRADUALLY break them in just for the simple reason that they are so different, it will be a very unique experience when you first start wearing them. Start with your high cushioned shoes and progressively move down to shoes with less and less cushion. For my fitness lovers, this is a great way to spice up your routine! Believe me your gastrocnemius and soleus will be feeling it the next day. I've done quite a bit of research on these and there are some pro and con articles out there. These may not work for YOU, however, it is a matter of physically going to a store and testing them out for yourself.

Here are a couple of websites to look at that will give you some more info on these awesome shoes:

• http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/
• http://www.birthdayshoes.com/

Have a great first FULL week of school everybody! Hope to see all of you get your "fitness" on at the Bronco Fitness Center :)

-Stephanie Sandino

Bulking Bulking Bulking!!!

Summer has been officially over for a few weeks but with classes starting today and The Office season premiere tonight, fall is here. So what does that have to do with Bulking? Everything. Fall signifies the beginning of the season where gym rats gain massive amounts of muscle and the truly dedicated use holiday eating to their advantage to gain inches in their arms, chest, shoulders and legs.

Of course I just can't tell you what you can do right? What help would that be? You want to know how to do it, right? Well besides resistance training and following the weightlifting tips from Ryan H. and Turo along with one of our many NSCA Certified Personal Trainers; you'll have to follow some basic rules of nutrition.

Well first of all we have to understand that when the human body has a surplus of energy (calories) the body does a few things with it. It either A. stores it as fat and/or B. stores it as muscle. There are also a few other things that I wont mention such as replenishing glycogen sources but telling you why and how this happens is beyond my scope of knowledge. We can just ask Katie a bunch of questions when she's on shift.

One misconception or a mistake that people will make is that they will eat massive amounts of food that are way beyond the necessary caloric surplus to achieve muscular hypertrophy. This is because our body's ability to build muscle is limited. If this were not the case everyone would pack on 50 pounds of muscle overnight and only have to workout for a day, assuming they had enough calories to support this growth. According to the NSCA's Essentials of Personal Training a caloric surplus of 350-700 Calories (big 'C') will support a "1 to 2-pound weekly gain in lean tissue as well as the energy requirements of the resistance program." (134) Protein requirements are also estimated "to be 1.5 to 2.0 grams per killogram of body weight per day" (134). And just for clarification a caloric surplus means that you are eating more than what is required daily for your body to maintain its weight. Check out www.freedieting.com to figure out what your caloric needs are. It is also important to note that everybody is different and these are only estimates.

So if a 150 pound person would like to gain some lean tissue mass how much protein would he/she need?
150lbs = 68.18 kilograms and then
1.8 x 68.18 = 122 grams of protein.
2 x 68.18 = 136 grams of protein.

So the answer is between 122 to 136 grams of protein a day. But weight (spelled wrong on purpose) there's more. One cannot eat 135 grams of protein and expect to gain muscle mass. He/she must also have an adequate amount of calories coming from carbohydrate and fat sources to have energy for the body to function normally as well as use extra energy to build muscle. Which was explained earlier.

So there you have it. Bulking broken down without all the broscience. Feel free to comment. I don't write blogs but I do now.

Thanks for reading.

Noel C.
NSCA-CPT