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Broncho Bites Program Receives Award

Lauren Bieri, director photographic services

UCO’s Broncho Bites Food Recovery Program received the Keep Oklahoma Beautiful 2023 Towering Spirit – Education Award at the annual Keep Oklahoma Beautiful Environmental Excellence Awards Celebration held Nov. 17, at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. The program was honored for its positive impact . . .  read more

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Are You Thinking About Retirement?

Molly Steel, benefits specialist

Are you thinking about retiring from UCO in the next few years?  If so, you may want to join UCO Benefits on February 13th at 10am for a Retirement Seminar.   We will be talking about the steps to retirement, Oklahoma Teachers’ Retirement System (OTRS), retirement timelines, insurance in retirement, and voluntary retirement accounts.   . . .  read more

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Shop Central UCO

The goal of Shop Central is to encourage UCO students, alumni and employees to find new and unique local spots while supporting the Edmond and Oklahoma City metro communities. The best part? These businesses are offering you an exclusive discount or special offer. Just present your UCO ID to any of the participating vendors to receive your discount . . .  read more

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Faculty Senate Update

Kuang-Chung (Glen) Hsu, professor of economics 

The Faculty Senate met on Dec. 14. At the beginning of our meeting, we had open sessions with University President Lamb and Provost Simmons. President Lamb talked about current financial and enrollment issues. Although the enrollment of freshmen this year has improved, we still need a strategic plan to continuously increase student enrollment. Senators . . .  read more

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Warm Up End of Semester Gatherings with Food Inclusivity

Liz Wallace, director of inclusive community – student hub

End of semester celebrations and winter gatherings offer opportunities for community-building and creating a sense of belonging with colleagues, friends, and family. The warmth of spending time with others is a reminder of the difference we make in others’ lives and the value others hold in our own. As communities, the centerpiece of our celebrations . . .  read more

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The Benefits of Workout Splits

In the last ten to five years, health and fitness has made enormous strides into the world of the everyday person. Although many of the general population have begun to use resistance training to their advantage and benefit, not much information has been given to them about how to go about resistance training. There are many ways people in the general population can benefit from resistance training through designing their workouts. There are many different types of resistance training workout splits, but we are going to talk more about the big two: Full Body Resistance Training and Push/Pull/Legs Resistance Training.

Full Body Resistance Training

Cathe Friedrich’s workout regimens say, “training your whole body in one session can improve how your muscles function together. With a total body approach, you don’t isolate muscle groups and work them independently of each other. Instead, you work them as a unit. In this way, muscle groups ‘learn’ how to work together rather than in isolation” (Cathe pg. 1). While working through a full body workout your muscles tend to learn how to work together through physical activity. For those in the general population full body workout routines can help you to get through those everyday activities in your lifestyle.

Full body workouts can also help improve your proprioception. Proprioception is the ability to be aware of your body position and where you are in relation to another object or in space. Cathe explains, “With full-body training, you aren’t just strengthening and hypertrophying muscles, you’re training them in an integrated manner” (Cathe pg. 1). This can allow you to prevent falls and improve balance which can be more beneficial for those who are elderly.

Push/Pull/Legs Resistance Training

BoxRox Competitive Fitness says, “One of the first pros of PPL (Push/Pull/Legs) is the flexibility of focus. This means that you can follow the split regardless of if your training focus is strength, hypertrophy, general fitness, or athletic training. You can alter the scheduling and the workouts themselves to reflect your specific goals” (BoxRox Fitness pg. 1). This is a great benefit of the push/pull/legs workout routine because it fits into all areas of fitness no matter what your goals are. As well it allows for more flexibility in your training regime and allows you to improve your specific goals of resistance training without having to increase or decrease your workout load.

The next pro of the PPL workout routine is it allows your body’s muscles to work as synergists, which means they are using the surrounding muscles to work together to complete the task. An example of this on a pull day would be instead of doing isolated bicep curls you could do supinated chin-ups which allows you to hit the Forearms, Biceps, and Latissimus Dorsi (Lats) muscles in unison. Which will improve your overall upper body strength rather than just hitting one muscle group.

References

Friedrich, C. (2019, April 15). The Pros and cons of full-body training routines. Cathe Friedrich. https://cathe.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-full-body-training-routines/

Hudson, R. (2022, March 16). “How to Build Muscle – Pros and Cons of a Push Pull Legs Split Program (PPL) | BOXROX.” Www.boxrox.com, 2022, https://www.boxrox.com/pros-and-cons-of-a-push-pull-legs-split/

Nitro Cut. The Ultimate Full Body Workout, www.nitrocut.com/blogs/blog/the-ultimate-full-body-workout. Accessed 2 Nov. 2023.

Bowman, Peter. Push/Pull/Legs, 13 Aug. 2018. Accessed 2 Nov. 2023.