Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

Yikes! Excuse early morning typing - and let's hope that lunch time break typing is better!

I would split as:

DAY 1: lower body/back:
squats - use barbell or dumbells
lunges - use dumbells
wide grip pull ups/ lat pull down
seated row/bent over row
push ups (with planks or planks after)

DAY 2: chest and shoulders:
bench press/dumbell flyes
triceps dips
military press
upright rows
crunches

Check the exrx.net exercise directory if you want to know more about these exercises or you want pointers as to how to do them - I've always found this site really helpful
And I'd stay well away from Smith machines (before anyone hits me, my personal preference only!), because you just don't get a full range of movement.
You could, instead of lunges, also find yourself a step aerobics kind of step, if it has several settings put it on highest and step up and down (stepping onto the platform with both feet) while holding dumbells.

Before starting either workout I'd do a 10 minute warm-up on a treadmill, Xtrainer or rower. You're not training for endurance then, just to give your muscles advance warning that work is aboutto be started As for the number of sets and reps it appears that for endurance sports 2X10 is generally recommended, although again I'm sure opinions differ on this one.

And I wouldn't want to do a heavy lower body workout one or two days before you're planning a long run, simply because DOMS would make that run a damn sight less enjoyable

Hope this helps, and I'd be really interested to see other people's opinions

I agree, compound exercises over isolations.

I used to do 4x/week routine: 2 days upper and 2 days lower. Now I'm favouring a 3x/week full body routine, just because I'm building base with my running, biking and swimming and I found 4 days a week lifting to be too much. Whether you do 3 or 4 days a week is up to you and what you prefer, but definitely make sure you have lots of compound lifts in there...things like squat, bench, deadlift, etc. MalcKiera posted some great compounds.

hmmmm will have a think about gym routines - I can always manage one session a week and sometimes two, but more than that doesn't fit around work + dogs

Tuesday

Brekkie: porridge and soy, smoothie
Snack: 2 apples
Lunch: soup
Snack: 2 pears
Dinner: Risotto (mushroom and butternut squash) with carrots and brocolli, glass of wine. Small scoop vanilla glace and one chocolate mint!

Wednesday

Evening gym: 5min run to gym / 20 min intervals on X trainer - ouch!! / 2000m rowing machine 10.45min / 10min fast run on treadmill

Brekkie: 2 oatibix plus smoothie
Snack: 2 apples
Lunch: left over risotto
Snack: decaf soy gingerbread latte
Energy gel before gym
Dinner: bean and potato casserole with veggies

If you're looking at one or two sessions a week then I would say definitely do full body workouts.

Thursday

Exercise: cycled couple of miles to pub and back : jogged to gym to warm up (5mins)
Swim in the new pool for about 40 mins: 200m w/up, 200m leg/200m arm/ negative splits of 50m/75m/100m, then cool down

Social (Mountaineering Club) 2 pints lager and lime, two big handfuls of crisps

Food:
porridge for breakfast + smoothie
2 apples
Pot-luck lunch at work = left over risotto, some green salad, lovely fresh olive bread, vegan mushroom pate, raw veggies, 2 homemade brownies!
Think I drank a can of coke today?
Dinner: the end of the risotto plus lots of brocolli

Friday

Exercise: cycled about 3 miles total doing errands: GYM session was awesome - loads of weights (put details in later)

Social: Xmas party at friends - drank 3 glasses wine, small glass port. Ate Vegan filo pastry things, some onion bajiis and several of my chocolate brownies *yum*

Food:
Brekkie - beans on toast plus one Frys sausage
Lunch - two toasted sandwiches with Frys polony and pickle
Snack after gym - three oatcakes and hummus
Dinner - small bowl of curry and rice

Saturday

Exercise - nothing much

Social: more parties *sigh* drank 2 glasses red wine and ate a handful of cashew nuts

Food:
Brunch: Beans on rye toast with falafel on the side!
Snack: apple and smoothie
Dinner: bruschetta and lots of salad stuff from restaurant - more carb heavy than usual for me

Sunday

Exercise: nasty gym session - too icy to travel for a good run and body feeling a bit overloaded from all the food and drink and not enough sleep *yuck*
10 mins X trainer: 60 mins treadmill (!!!!) just under 7 miles total: plenty of stretching to cool down

Felt ing up till about 20 mins into the run and then finally got it back!

Food:
Brekkie: beans on toast (again!)
Lunch: sandwich of some kind I think?
Isotonic drink to shift some of the headache!
Post-gym: 2 brownies - all gone now!
Dinner: small portion rice pasta plus chilli


Monday

Exercise - day off today

Food:
Brekkie: 1 oatibix and soy, small glass smoothie
Snack: one apple
Lunch: 4 oatcakes and mushroom Tartex plus homemade veg and barley soup
Snack: 3 oatcakes and tartex
Dinner:
TBD!

post weights post weights post weeeeeiiiiigghhttssssss!!!

okay okay okay

Friday weights only session

(so I don't know how to log these - please correct my mistakes!)

10 min X trainer warm-up
Squats with dumbells: 2 x 10reps of 5kg per hand
lunges with dumbells: 2 x 10 reps of 5kg per hand per leg
Lat pull down: 2 x 10reps at setting 2 (20lbs I think)
seated row: 2 x 10 reps at setting 2
Bench press: 2 x 10 reps of 5kg per hand
Triceps dip: 2 x 10 x 4kg per hand
Crunches/planks/pushups - lost count but there's a lot of abdominal DOMS!

Better, thank you! You know how I like my weights
Lots of core work in there, you must be getting pretty strong by now!

I'm finding it seriously fascinating to see how mentally I've gone from doing weights just because I felt I had to, into really enjoying the slow steady movements and wanting to do more and more!

So - whats the convention on how to record sets/weights? pretty please

on you starting to enjoy weights. Nice one!

Okay, how "the" convention is I'm not sure, my own convention is
sets x reps @ (or 'x') weight of type, i.e. your "Squats with dumbells: 2 x 10reps of 5kg per hand" in my "convention" would be "Squats: 2x10 @ 5kgs DB" or "2x10x5DB" if you want it even shorter. Hope that helps

so I totally failed at keeping any of my logs up to date over Xmas - BUT continued to eat really well, have lost another couple of pounds and have been getting at least 2 workouts in a week - though the snow has made things a bit tricky!

Most amazing was I went for a short hilly run on Xmas day, because I really felt like it! And two days later I ran over 13 miles in 2hrs 45mins which is by far the furthest and longest I have ever run

Still on track for the Hebden challenge which is a VERY hilly half marathon distance off road trail run - Saturday 23rd January, just trying to keep things ticking over at the moment and planning a longish (1 hour plus) run tomorrow if possible.

Hopefully I'll have the time to get back to posting a regular log and even contributing on some of the threads too!

Awesome on the run!