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By Tuff Buffs

Maintaining a balanced lifestyle in college is tough, but University of Colorado students are finding ways to succeed at both.

In May of 2013, a Gallup poll named Boulder the fittest city in America and CU Boulder students seem to keep up with those standards by prioritizing fitness in their already hectic schedules. Another Gallup poll released in March of 2012, named Boulder as the number five city for well-being in the United States. At a university that emphasises fitness, the students at CU care about their own health as much as they care about the grades on their term paper or the party on the Hill on Saturday night.

“If we look at statistics, there is only about 20 percent who aren’t exercising aerobically, they may be doing other things,” said CU Boulder Health Care Manager Robin Kolble. “So they may be doing yoga and all that other stuff, but only 20 percent. So 80 percent are meeting the criteria and the guidelines so that’s good.”

This high number creates an interesting group dynamic amongst students. Since so many students are committed to a healthy lifestyle, it is easy to find someone to motivate you towards your fitness goals.

Student, Recreation Center staff member and water polo player Kelsa Middough is motivated by the people around her.

“Most of my friends are from my team or people I met at the rec center so we all kind of just go do activities together or come work out together,” said Middough. “It’s like a group activity.”

Kolble says she thinks sometimes students at CU exercise past the point of being healthy.

“I don’t push exercise because that is a problem here, so we kind of push just moving and doing things that make you happy and things that get you outside, you know not any criteria that the sports medicine people have out there because it can be detrimental, because I think everybody, whatever size can be physically happy and move for whatever they want to do”

According to a study done by the American College of Sports Medicine, college students who exercised intensely 20 minutes a day, seven days a week had an average GPA that was .04 higher than students who did not exercise at all. At CU, the emphasis on exercise is not only beneficial to individual physical health but also mental integrity.

“Being physically fit is a healthy part of life, and being physically fit can actually help you in all those other things as well,” said Dr. Don Misch, assistant vice chancellor of the Wardenburg Health Center. “When you feel good, when you’re healthy, you study better, you tend to have better relationships, life is better in general.”

Even though fitness is so crucial it is very hard for students to fit it into their already crammed schedules. Student Lyndsey Derus not only has classes and her social life to keep up with, but she also lives off campus and says she struggles to work everything in.

“During the school year, it’s a lot harder,” Derus said. “You have to work around classes. Since I live off-campus, I like to attach it to when I’m on campus for class, so if I have an early class I’ll go to the rec center before class or right after a class so I don’t have to do the walk twice.”