Black Hills State football is gaining an edge in the weight room and in athletic performance with the help of Nutrishop Rapid City.

Yellow Jacket football and the BHSU strength and conditioning program began working with Gunnar Swanson, the owner of Nutrishop Rapid City in January to further improve the student-athlete experience.

"Having Nutrishop is an incredible resource for us," said Athletic Performance Co-Director Derek Van Blarcom. "Nutrishop helps supply protein and supplements for our athletes, and also provides the In-Body scanner technology that helps us track our lean body mass gain and body composition over the course of our off-season training program. We can't thank Gunnar enough for coming out and working with us."

When Nutrishop Rapid City delivers the team's supplements and products every few months, they bring along the InBody 270 BMI scale to measure each individual athlete.

"The pressure's on here because now you have to show it on the scale that you've done what you're supposed to be doing," said Swanson.

The InBody 270 machine provides an ID for each student-athlete, and then measures their muscle mass and progress to make sure they're doing the right things in the weight room. It tracks each athlete individually, and graphs out body weight, muscle mass and fat percentage to show their progression from their last measurement.

"Weight is simply just telling you your relationship to gravity, but it's not really telling you what's going on inside," said Swanson. "What is that weight made of? Is it water? Body fat? Muscle mass? This kind of eliminates all that questioning."

Swanson first came out earlier in the year and measured each student-athlete to create a baseline, and is now providing them checkpoints to track their summer progress.

"Being able to show people what they're getting, showing coaches how much weight you've put on as a team and your certain players is huge, but this is actually going to track what that's made of," added Swanson. "Are these guys gaining muscle and increasing performance? Or are they just putting weight on?"

Of course, this progress comes with the help of the supplements Nutrishop Rapid City provides to improve the team's recovery and performance with products such as weight gainers, proteins, amino acids, pre-workouts, and performance enhancer supplements like creatine.

These products make it especially easy right after a workout to get our athletes the carbs and proteins they need. In addition to what Nutrishop Rapid City provides BHSU, they also offer a discount to our student-athletes to ensure they're not getting any questionable products online that may jeopardize their playing eligibility.

Every product they supply is an approved supplement to ensure everything an athlete puts into their bodies are safe.

About Nutrishop Rapid City
Nutrishop Rapid City has helped various individuals achieve various health and fitness goals by offering top-quality dietary and nutritional supplements and services coupled with unparalleled personalized attention. In addition to being a supplement store, Nutrishop Rapid City also offers BMI services using the InBody 270, and will also be adding the Evolt 360 system which will measure not only body mass, but what fat is subcutaneous under the skin, and what is visceral around the organs which in high levels can lead to higher risk of developing diabetes or heart disease. For more on Nutrishop Rapid City, click here.