By: Tyler Solomon and Artem Dolgushev

   Many students may take interest in improving their physique and overall health. However, with social media, biased reviews, and a focus on consumerism, it may be difficult to make accurate choices. This list hopes to guide students on unbiased choices for their fitness journey.

Underrated:

Sleep: 

   Many prioritize their exercise and diet, but they don’t know one of the most important things, sleep! A majority of people lack sleep and they are concerned about why they aren’t seeing any progress with their physique. Everyone, especially highschoolers should be getting a minimum of 7-8 hours of sleep per night. Anything less than that, and your body won’t be able to fully recover. 

Micronutrients:

   Most people in the fitness space worry about their macronutrient intake, however, not nearly enough people regard their micronutrient intake. While macronutrients such as protein, carbohydrates, and fats are important, especially when it comes to building muscle, micronutrients ensure you have more energy, a stronger immune system, and more balanced hormones. 

Rest between sets:

   One of the most important things when working out and building muscle is resting between sets. Many may try to skip this, as they may be in a rush or deem that working out more means more muscle gain. Rest between sets not only gives you time to recover to go harder the next set, but it also gives your muscles time to recover. There are ways to workout that ensure your muscles have adequate rest times between sets by doing exercises that target different muscle groups. Everyone should be striving for 2-3 minutes rest between sets minimum while working out.

Overrated:

Creatine: 

   A commonly discussed supplement in the fitness community is creatine. Recommended for everyone from casual runners to pro athletes, it can benefit anyone without any known side effects. However, most people take it wrong. Creatine works by storing water in your body providing you with energy. Due to this, creatine consumption requires drinking 3-4 liters of water per day, which most people fail to do, leading to them wasting their time and money 

Daily Workouts:

   Mustangs chasing greatness may want to train daily to maximize performance, however, this is actually one of the worst things you can do. Daily training not only overstrains muscles and causes burnout, but it also doesn’t allow time for muscle repair and recovery, leading to injuries, strain, and worsened performance. While it may seem optimal and intuitive to work out daily to improve, it may cause the opposite.

Protein foods:

   Right now, high-protein is one of the most popular and advertised foods in the bodybuilding and fitness world. They promise normal foods with extra protein added, but this is largely misleading. First, these foods mostly have negligible amounts of extra protein, and additional calories that could cause you to gain weight. Not only that, these foods tend to be more expensive despite minimal benefits, making them not worthwhile.

   When it comes to fitness, it’s easy to get lost in the noise of trends, supplements, and quick-fix solutions. However, true progress comes from focusing on the fundamentals. Prioritize sleep for recovery, make sure you are getting a balance of micronutrients to fuel your body properly, don’t underestimate the supplement user, and don’t fall into people trying to sell you snake oil.