Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

Damn makes me kinda wish I was a guy so I could have manly muscles!!! Rock on Mr Derek rock on

You got it!

Thanks! Women can build muscles too - represent!

I know they can but there is just something about man muscles....

Alright,I'm picking this back up after abut 7 months away - I'm gonna be annoyed with myself at all the notes I don't have to look back on! To catch up:

I competed in the OCB Bodysculpt Open on Feb 18th 2012 and got first in my novice class and second in my open class! I wrote the review here: http://www.veganbodybuilding.com/?page=article_derek_ocb It wasn't my favorite venue so far, but it sure was fun posing down for an overall title!

My wife Marcella was 8 months pregnant at the show, and on March 31st we had Miles Alexander Torres-Tresize! As if that weren't enough, not long after I left my management position at Gold's Gym and started working independently full-time at our new studio! Hence my long absence...

I took about two months off from training then got back into it with my favorite set-up, a 6 day per week chest/back, shoulder/arms, legs, repeat routine to hit everything twice per week. I especially love doing that in two a day fashion because I just love to train and it also gives me really fast results.... BUT as with the last few times I've followed this split, my chronic abdominal strain simply can't keep up and I had to back off.

I've since been working a twice per week program into my Y3T split, making it a four week breakdown of (1)Twice per week, (2)Heavy/low reps, (3)normal/volume based, (4)muscle endurance/burnouts . I should come up with a catchy acronym and market it... I'm still working out the kinks and it isn't perfected by any means, but on this split I hit my long time goal of 200lbs offseason! Really excited about that!

I'll catch up on some actual workouts soon, but for now I'll end with saying I'm 90% sure I'm doing a contest in about 6 weeks. 've been prepping for it since 10 weeks out, but given my higher than ever weight/bodyfat at the outset I need to make sure I can get into contest condition in time - things are looking good, but the last thing I want to do is be a poor representation of veganism onstage by not being at my leanest! The contest is the OCB Battle for the Tidewater, so hopefully 6 weeks from now I'll be in the thick of it!

I have to read through the last few pages of this log Derek, but good to see you back into it again !!

You will not be a poor representation of Veganism on stage in 3 weeks. get em!

Nice to see you hear too. We were active on VBBF at different times so it's cool to be online at the same time posting now

I love breaking up the workouts during the day also and agree that it brings fast results. Something about taking the 5-8 hours in between training sessions during the day.. you can train the same muscles just as hard again one more time before resting them. I do this on m, w and f. tues, th and sat I just get one workout in at the moment.

Hear you about the injury. My rotator cuff impingement affects every upper body workout I go through. Finally started to rehab it and I think it is helping!

Glad you're back at it too. Looking forward to hearing more about your potential upcoming comp.

Great to see u guys again here.
Here´s Daniela, from Brazil.

What's been happening Derek, still training hard?

Thanks guys - I am now two weeks out from the show and registered up, so it's a go! I'm not as tight as I'd like to be, but I'm coming in with more muscle than ever and still pretty lean (6-7%ish) so I hope to make my best representation yet! I am weighing in around the upper 180's right now, or about 190 if I eat a salty meal, so I expect to compete at 184-ish once I shed some water. See Pics below!

I also wanted to post a workout or two here, but before I do I forgot to mention in my last post that I hit an all time bench press max best of 315 this offseason! That has been a goal for many years and I wasn't sure I'd ever get to it, so very happy with it! A big contributor to the strength increase had to have been rack presses, when I worked in a lot of those I got stronger pretty fast! The downside is that shortly after hitting that max, my old pec tear (from 2007) flared up pretty badly and I had to skip chest for about a month - total let down! So I'm probably back where I've started, but now that I've gotten there I know I can again!

For my workouts, I mentioned I have been doing a 4 week cycle, but I haven't been keeping a notebook handy so here is an example of the work I've been getting in.

Week 1 Legs: Double Split

Monday
Donkey Calf Raises: 3x25
Squat: 5x 15, 15, 10, 10, 10
Leg Press: 4x15
Leg Extension: 3x10
Leg Curl: 4x15

Thursday
Leg Press Calf Raise: 5x15
Leg Extension: 6x10
DB Lunges: 4x8
Hack Squat: 3x10
Romanian Deadlift: 4x12

Week 2 Legs: Heavy

Squat: 4x6-8
Leg Press: 4x6-8
DB Lunges: 3x6-8
Romanian Deadlift: 3x6-8
Calf Press: 4x10

Week 3 Legs: Volume

Leg Extension: 4x15
Squat: 5x 15, 15, 15, 12, 12
Prone Leg Curl: 3x12
Leg Press: 7x12
Calf Press: 7x12

Week 4 Legs: Burnout

Donkey Calf raise SS Calf Press SS DB Calf Raise: 3x25 each
Romanian Deadlift: 2x50
Leg Extension: 3x40 (tripple drop set)
Leg Press: 2x50
Squat: 2x25

Pretty tough! But it's nice to work in variety and have something different to focus on every week. Plus if I'm not on a routine like this I'll just keep trying to do a double split with all heavy training and keep getting injured! For the final 3 weeks before the show I've gone back to an all double split, but I'm trying to only hit one exercise per workout heavy and the rest of the time focus on detail work with isolation moves and unilateral work. I plan on taking 3-4 days off before the show to make sure I'm 100% recovered. Here are some pics from last week:

dude..that's a ripped back!!

Holy hell! So much improvement across the board! Crazy how much 5-10 pounds of muscle makes huh? You got this.

You're looking awesome all round, especially your back. Impressive stuff !!!!

Two weeks out!

Looking forward to more progress shots and contest pics and results.

Keep after it. Great work, Derek!

Hey Guys! It is now the Thursday post-contest. I had a good time out there, but unfortunately I didn't place as well as I had hoped (4th of 5). It was an IFPA Pro Qualifier and there were a ton of jacked athletes there, so I'm glad to have mixed it up with that crow, and I think if I had tweaked my final week differently I could have done as well as second place. The guy in first had shredded glutes though so he was outa my league!

Prep wise, I started out carrying a bit more bodyfat than usual, and in addition to that I tried a full blown carb deplete and reload for the last week to really try and fill out. Since I diet with pretty high carbs I normally don't try this, but to do it I just ate beans, tofu and seitan for 4 days to deplete then loaded up on Thursday and Friday. Well, this plan backfired and I ended up looking really lean and tight when I was depleted then puffy and soft on contest day. Not too happy about that, but I learned my lesson and won't try any next techniques at the 11th hour next time around! I spoke with the judges after the show and they all said I had great proportions but just wasn't lean enough, and after talking with several of the more ripped guys backstage I learned that most of them dieted 14-20 weeks! Looks like I need to step it up and not diet 8-10 weeks if I'm gonna have a chance with that crowd!

I'm taking this week off and trying to plan my next split (as well as getting in plenty of cheat meals for being post-contest and celebrating my wife Marcella's birthday!), so once I have that hammered out it's back to the grinding stone and on to the next hurdle!