From door to gymnasium

Junior Russell Saks dedicates hours to gaining weight — but he isn’t underweight or unhealthy.

Saks is a self-proclaimed gym rat, a workout junkie who has gained 20 pounds of muscle in less than a year.

His success did not come from exercise alone. Saks said he packed on the pounds with the help of athletic supplements: vitamins, proteins and nutrients meant to boost physical performance, energy and stamina.

“You see results so quickly,” Saks said. “I’m personally hooked on them. You’re lifting more. You get a more efficient workout. You just wake up and you’re not sore.”
But as happy as Saks said he was to gain the muscle, it didn’t come without a cost — literally.

Saks, along with fellow Delta Tau Delta brother and junior Mike Kunz, said in the past they have spent hundreds of dollars at GNC for supplements. When that left them broke, they ordered what they needed online. And when that left them staring at the clock for the UPS man, inspiration struck.

Now, Kunz and Saks run the website www.campusprotein.com, where IU students can order wholesale athletic supplements and receive same-day delivery from the entrepreneurs’ off-campus warehouse.

“We didn’t intend it to be a business,” Saks said. “We did it so we could buy cheap and stop getting ripped off, then a lot of our friends asked if they could get it from us.”

The website, which launched in April 2010, has seen strong success. Saks said sales have grown 100 percent since spring. And, he said, Lehigh, Vanderbilt and Boston Universities now have Campus Protein representatives who deliver supplements to students on their respective campuses for a commission.

The success, Saks said, comes from a number of things — including the growing focus on nutrition in American society.

“I think it’s the whole health craze going on right now,” Saks said. “Everyone wants to lose weight, be in shape. Now it’s all you see in the magazines, ‘getting in shape’ and ‘The Jersey Shore.’”

However, some experts are worried the health craze might leave young athletic supplement users misguided and uninformed.

Vijay Jotwani, an assistant professor for the IU Department of Family Medicine, said professional athletes have long used vitamins, minerals and proteins to gain a physical edge against their competition, but the motivation tends to be different for the casual runner or weight lifter.

The industry, Jotwani said, is part of the growing American culture obsessed with body image.

“Every study you look at, the percentage of people using supplements is growing,” he said. “I think you’re seeing a lot more young people use what athletes have long used but for appearance, to look better. They are not necessarily related to performing in a sport.”

Jotwani, who counsels high school athletes in Indianapolis, said recreational athletes lack patience with their exercise routine, often seeking results supplements claim to bring — faster weight loss, muscle gain and more.

Those assertions are rarely backed by medical research, Jotwani said, because they don’t have to be. Dietary supplements are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration as food products.

“They are not medicine,” he said. “It’s like selling apples and oranges. They don’t have to substantiate any claims they make.”

Because the medical world does not regulate or prescribe supplements, Jotwani said, doctors struggle when they are unaware their patients buy them. Few athletes, he said, tell their doctors what vitamins and proteins they are taking.

“I think it probably happens 99 percent of the time. Young people don’t consult a physician,” he said. “Even athletes, along with young people, don’t trust their doctors. They think doctors will say supplements are unhealthy.”

Saks, who said he does consult his doctor, does not believe any harm will come to his costumers from the products he and Kunz sell.

“It’s nothing harmful, nothing bad,” Saks said. “Supplements have a lot of stuff you’d take every day. Caffeine, that’s in a lot of pre-workout (supplements), and protein, which is obviously in a lot of things. Even creatine — honestly, if you eat red meat, you actually get that naturally.”

Although Saks said he and Kunz cannot predict what will happen to the supplement industry or health craze in the future, they have no plans to sell or leave www.campusprotein.com.

“We’re gonna try to stick with it as long as we can,” Saks said. “We both love it.”