Money Saving Ideas For Students

A common excuse for not exercising is lack of time and money. The money factor seems to be even more important for younger people. In this post I’ll give you some ideas I’ve found on several forums about how a student can save money (enough to buy dumbbells, quality food and maybe even a gym membership). Here we go:

  • Get a job on campus
  • Buy used textbooks or borrow them from library
  • Quit smoking
  • Pack lunch, don’t buy lunch
  • Quit drinking alcohol (That’s incredible how much you can save with this one)
  • Stop eating outside and going daily to a coffeeshop
  • Cut down on your telephone calls
  • If you use to make long-distance calls, try VOIP services
  • Do you really need a cell phone?
  • Turn down the heat, lights, tv, etc.
  • Learn to cook and make your meals yourself instead of buying pre-cooked meals. This is healthier and saves at least 50% of your food-budget (depends on what you eat though)
  • Keep track of your spendings. Plan a budget for each month/week. Don’t buy anything on impulse if it’s not within your plan.
  • Use a bike or public transportation. Gas prices are going up.
  • Stop buying videos and music CDs. RIAA hates you anyway ;)
  • Write down a list of everything you buy and then decide if you really need what you buy. You may be more wise next time you shop.
  • Buy a water bottle and fill it up. Never use vending machines
  • Graduate early by taking summer classes
  • Work your ass off in the first year. That may give you some chances to get a better scholarship
  • Ever thought about e-commerce? Ebay? etc.?
  • Maybe you are good at something like fixing cars or computers or maybe you’re a good carpenter? Maybe you can fix just ANYTHING? Write some ads in local newspapers like “A responsible young man fixes ANYTHING for small fee” ;)
  • Maybe you are smart enough to tutor others for a reasonable fee?
  • A part-time job?
  • Basically become a bodytweaker :)

Muscle Cramps – A Deadly Inconvenience

Today I’ve been researching some info about muscle cramps.

Last month in the mountains, while climbing a practically vertical wall of about 120 feet, I’ve got a severe muscle cramp in both hamstrings. Basically I couldn’t use my legs and was hanging there for several moments, a 50lbs backpack behind my shoulders, clenching my teeth together in pain. Luckily I was only a few feet away from a plateau, so I could get there and rest a few minutes, stretching and making the cramps go away.

All this happened after 4 hours of hiking. I consider myself a fit person, so it was kindof strange to get in that situation in the first place.

So after some research I’ve found that fitness doesn’t always play a big role when it comes to muscle cramps. Some of the reasons for muscle cramps may include:

  • Poor Hydration, which was probably my case
  • Fatigue (I’ve been sleeping only 2 hours the night earlier)
  • Poor Flexibility (not really my case)
  • Poor Nutrition (Maybe it was my case)
  • Not enough oxygen (Usually I don’t do any hiking at those altitudes)

Even the strongest swimmers can get a muscle cramp in moments they don’t expect. I’ve heard some swimmers take a needle with them when they swim long distances into the sea, because apparently a muscle cramp goes away when you strike the muscle with a needle. I don’t know if I’d have the guts to do that, but I guess the perspective is a little bit different when you are “on the edge”. We all can do wonders when it comes to our pesonal life ;) .

A needle wouldn’t help me much on that wall though, as my hands were a little bit busy in that moment :P

You can read more about muscle cramps here.

Strength Training – Save Your Bones

According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation, 28 million US citizens suffer from this desease. 80% of them are women. This has been recently linked to the fact that women are physically less active especially when it comes to strength training.
Osteoporosis is a desease of bones in which the bone density is reduced and therefore the bone becomes less stable and breaks with minimal “effort”. The most affected bones are the vertebral column, hip and wrists. Severe pains as well as bent stature are the results of osteoporosis of the vertebral column.

Osteoporosis isn’t something old people get either. More and more people show tendency to develop osteoporosis in their 40′s and even 30′s.

So how can you reduce the risk to suffer from this desease? Strength training. When you work out with weights your bones naturally become stronger.

The problem is that women try to avoid dumbbells, because they don’t want to build muscle mass and to look like men. What women don’t realize is that they have 10 to 30 times less hormones needed to build muscle than men. This means that if you did work out with the same weights a man does, and eat as much as a man does, you’d still develop 10 to 30 times less muscle mass.

You don’t have to lift the same weights nor eat as much proteins though. This means that the muscular mass you could develop is close to zero. Women can’t get huge muscles “by accident”. It requires very big weights, enormous dedication, scientifically designed diet, huge ammounts of protein and sometimes even chemical hormones to get any closer to a muscular body.

On the other hand strength training can give you a toned body, help you burn fat and make your bones stronger. Keep pumping!

Next

Prev