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Thread: Handling College

  1. #11
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    Jan 2011
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    • starting strength seminar april 2024
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    I don't know your specific circumstances, but unlike most people I know I look back on University as 3 year panic attack. 100 hour weeks, 4am assignments, setting my alarm for 0700 on a Sunday to study. I felt so time-poor, yet somehow if I really do think about it I still somehow managed to have no difficulty getting through all the Starcraft 1 campaigns, Grand Theft Auto games, Adult Swim and Jenna Jameson catalogues during those years.

    90 minutes, 3 times a week is really not a big ask for training.

    Not only that but it will synergise with your academia - help with stress and sleep, keep your mental discipline and timetables in check, and won't hurt on the college dating scene.

    Any college student has my respect, I'm not saying it will be easy - but very do-able. And here is the bad news: after college life doesn't exactly get easier.

  2. #12
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    Apr 2011
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    College was the easiest period in my life to maintain training consistency, second easiest was medical school. The only time mental stress got out of control was once when I had been sick and was skipping the gym. I echo what has been said above, schedule your gym time like any class. Jog between classes and use the 10 minutes you save crossing campus to study. Breaking a block of study time in half with training can be a good way to improve your concentration. Beer will still exist when you graduate, you will never be in your early twenties with access to a university strength training facility again.

  3. #13
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    Feb 2016
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    Manhattan Beach, CA
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    I think you’re looking at it the wrong way. College will be stressful no matter what you do. Life is hard. What I think you need to do is be happy that you have such an engaging, healthy, and productive activity that you’re committed to doing while you're in college. It’s a gift really. Here are two pieces of wisdom:

    Quote Originally Posted by MWM View Post
    Physical exertion is complementary to mental concentration in my experience.
    Quote Originally Posted by Brodie Butland View Post
    You simply have to carve out time for yourself. I wished I could give a more profound answer than that, but really there isn’t one.
    Both true. Organize your time well. Set aside the time for both. If I was so fortunate as to be in strength training when I was in college (over 40 years ago) I would have started designing my schedule around training then plan my school work (classes, study time, etc.) around it. I believe that strength training benefits more than schoolwork by being scrupulously consistent and organizing your sessions at roughly the same time on training days. Schoolwork can be done at varying times of the day. The important thing is to think of these two activities as supporting each other rather than being in conflict. The discipline you develop doing each will help the other.

    Remember, the average college student wastes incredible amounts of time. I doubt many graduates will disagree with me on this point! The time to do schoolwork and training is there if you want it with plenty of time to spare for other extracurricular hijinks.

  4. #14
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    Feb 2010
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    College will challenge different personalities / different strength and weakness constellations differently. You have both freedom and opportunities to learn, socialize and generally progress in a way you likely have not had before (especially when it involves any immediate adult supervision other than your own) and likely in ways that won't repeat themselves in this particular form (you are at this weird point where all your peers are dealing with the same ultimately self-directed and surprisingly freedom-filled transitional state at the same time - most of life is either more controlled by others or more mixed in terms of where everybody else is at/ what they are dealing with).

    If it were just about classes or just about working out — or whatever other well-structured activity you can imagine it wouldn’t be as maddening or as fun/useful. The social side may be the most mysterious and challenging, in some respects (the academic side is mainly challenging in terms of your ability to structure it and/or fuck it up *all on your own* — with the social side of life being one of the main things pulling against but also happening along side those efforts).

    "Social" doesn’t just mean the bar on the cheap drink nights — it means exploring the world along side folks who are at a similar level of development and just about everything you do that you do along side them (from the boring and every-day to the sublime). You are all sorting out who you are and where you fit in the grander tapestry of life with a completely unprecedented (in your own lives) freedom to think and behave according to your own standards (which you will all need to from/hone for yourselves - which despite what you may think has aspects of group activity as much as lone thinker activity when it is done best). You will mess this all up and will also be learning how to come back from mistakes. So, start where you think you are (plan to work out 3x week and get A+’s in all of your classes), but stay open. Learn as much as you can *on all fronts* in these years and you will have used them the best way possible.

    The lessons from weightlifting that regular application to the task is what makes progress and that recovery (good sleep and adequate nutrition) is as important to the endeavor as the weight you lift will put you ahead of most of your peers when it comes to applying yourself successfully in almost any domain I can think of -- but the crazy stuff that this frame will only make you more resilient to enjoy without bombing out may well be the point of these years, in retrospect. Aim, foremost, to respect yourself and try to say "no" as infrequently as you can tolerate within that frame. At the other end of the spectrum, don't get freaked out or intimidated by boredom -- it's never infinite and often a part of passages to growth.

  5. #15
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    Jan 2018
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    Weight training gives you discipline which crosses over to other areas of your life

    I got up every morning at 3:30 am and studied until around 8:00 am then went to classes till noon

    Took a nap then hit the weights hard

    I wish I would of known Marks Starting strength methods back then I would of got more out of it but I did get very big and strong mostly with sheer determination

    Graduated with a 3.8 GPA at North texas state in Business and am now the head engineer in a pump company

    Truthfully I never remember being stressed about anything back then
    I was young nothing hurt and I could sleep like a baby

    Now I’m old, every thing hurts, I have tons of responsibilities .

    Save your “ stress” for old age lol

  6. #16
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    Dec 2018
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    A friend of mine who grew up working for his fathers construction company treated college like a 9-5 job and always got excellent grades. He would always pick the earliest classes he could, then stay on campus until all of his school work was done. He said it was usually 8-5 or 6, which is usual for a work day when you get out. I found it too hard to do that and drink beers all night, but turns out I was just being a pussy because I ended up drinking and going out more in my early and mid 20s with a full time job than in college. Also, maybe try to get to the gym early before class, such as 7am? You’ll get your training in and it will be empty

  7. #17
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    Jun 2019
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    Hey DM,

    Lots of good replies on here so far. One thing I always think about looking back on my 36 years is that I will never in my life have more free time now or in the future than I did in the past. A full time job, house, working wife, three kids, two dogs and a turtle will do that to you. But my experience is also that the more I have going on in my life, the more I tend to plan my days/weeks better. Make training your job - it is a non-negotiable part of your week that you make sure gets done. Set a consistent time/days to do it and then do it. For me, that means 4:00am wake-up calls MWF. Even if I was up at 1:00 to snuggle the three year old, and then up at 2:30 to feed the baby. Discipline >>> Motivation. Just gotta do it! Good luck!

  8. #18
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    Dec 2013
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    Indiana
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    Learn to thread your work throughout the day. Don’t wait for the “perfect” time and place to do that problem set. Start it now, resume it later.

  9. #19
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    Apr 2016
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    Chicago Burbs, IL
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    Life is a stress we adapt to.
    In four years you will look back at college as "easy", much like you look back at high school as "easy".
    The fact is, in real time it never seems easy.

    Keep in mind that YOU will adapt and grow. Just like that 9th grade assignment that seemed so hard, at the time would be a breeze now. So will today's "hardships" be.

    Bottom line, you will be better than this and more than this.
    Like it or not, a certain amount of pain is involved. Misery is optional.
    You are not a victim of stress, stress is self inflicted.
    Use stress if it helps you but it should never be your focus.
    Focus on a good attitude, set goals, become who you want to become.

    The only thing for certain is you have to do your squats.

    Make the most of this opportunity.

  10. #20
    Join Date
    Aug 2016
    Location
    NoVA
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    starting strength coach development program
    Echoing most of what has been said here, it's all about time management. I'm a fair distance from undergrad, but I graduated from law school last year, my wife and two preschool-age kids in tow. I still managed to train 3-4 times a week, no problem. I got great grades and landed a great job. My training was complimentary to everything, and was a huge psychological stress reliever and outlet--something that took my mind out of the stress and grind of school. I set lifetime PRs in all my lifts during law school.

    Specifically, I took my class schedule each semester, figured out the best times to train, balancing class and study time at the library. I scheduled my training sessions as a regular part of my weekly routine, along with class and studying. I actually wrote gym time into my Google calendar, along with everything else. Around finals time, I would take time off from the gym to focus entirely on study and prep for the test (in most law school classes, your grade is 100% dependent on your final exam), but this was planned and programmed for. In fact, this is exactly what I do now that I'm working--my day-to-day does not look very different than what it did as a student.

    OP, I assume you're in your late teens/early twenties, so if you eat enough at the D-hall and get some amount of sleep, you'll be fine as far as recovery goes. You will have plenty of time. You will have time for class, for studying, and for partying (college should be fun too), in addition to training. The people that succeed in college may share a host of attributes, but I think one of them has to be time management. Set your priorities, set your schedule, stick to it and you will thrive.

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