Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

Okay. My question is: how much time should I be taking off between workouts? Is there something else I'm missing?

I'm a very small guy and am becoming increasingly frustrated with my lack of size/muscle/weight gain.

Right now I stand at 5'1 and I weigh 94.5 pounds.

I bench press 50 lbs and complete situps with 60lbs of weight on my chest. I also use a dip station and pull up bar. I train normally every second day with a rest day in between.

In spite of this I am still TINY and SCRAWNY with minimal muscle tone.

My diet is mainly whole food based...along with lots of beans, lentils, quinoa, and steel cut oats, as well as healthy fats each day from various foods such as cold-pressed oils, avocados, and nut butters. I also use Vega Sport PW protein on training days (2 scoops), and Vega One (one scoop) on rest days.

Any advice would be considered valuable and very much appreciated!

Most bodybuilders pick a day to work each muscle group, so they will say

Monday - Chest ( I don't know why, but everyone likes to work chest on Monday)
Tuesday - Lats
Wednesday - Abs/Cardio
Thursday - Legs
Friday - shoulders

That's pretty generic, but it's just an idea, not scripture or anything. Then They may do a variety of different exercises that target each of those muscle groups. I like to work them pretty hard, 9-12 sets or so on each day. It's hard to quantify that any more than I just did over the internet. Find someone to workout with that you like, and that knows what they are doing.

Diet - you mentioned foods that you were eating which don't seem too bad. Your basically eating a lot of grains, fats and synthetic protein. You might consider adding fruits. I live off fruits, greens and other vegetables which you may not be interested in, but they are your friends. At any rate, make sure you are getting enough calories. 15-20 calories per pound of body weight would be an ideal number to shoot for. You might try actually using cronometer.com or something similar to make sure you are getting enough for a little while until you get a feel for it.
Bottom line is that as long as you are getting stronger, that's a good gauge. If you're not getting stronger than something is off.

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Justin Morgan

http://www.youtube.com/user/RawVegaCaliBB

You're right about the break up of muscle groups. I'll give that a try. Thanks =]

Though people train the way Justin has shown, you don't have to do it this way.

When people have chest/tricep day the movements shall be pushing, back is the reverse...you'll pull.

I have trained  for a while now where I push & pull, this keeps the workout actually balanced. So when I bench or over head I'll do 5x10 pull ups between the sets, dumbbell rows on bench day.

I Made great gains on size & strength by training full body Mon-Wed-Fri. 

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"Don't fall for that crap that people are peddling on the message boards, in magazines or on TV. Get your shit in order, and get your training in order. Start kicking ass, and take out the crap that doesn't matter" Jim Wendler

Also to put things into perspective, I'd sooner miss a training session than a days worth of food

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"Don't fall for that crap that people are peddling on the message boards, in magazines or on TV. Get your shit in order, and get your training in order. Start kicking ass, and take out the crap that doesn't matter" Jim Wendler

Same as above. When I first started lifting, I used the standard muscle split day-by-day (chest monday, shoulders thursday, etc etc). However my results from this were poor to say the least. I switched to a full body routine that placed more focus on pushing/pulling and lower/upper body rather than individual muscle groups themselves, and I immediately saw great results (and still train like that to this day, getting better and better results).

Many highly rated and recommended beginner weightlifting programs involve full body workouts. I definitely recommend trying out a standard 12 week program such as the Texas Method which is aimed at new lifters looking for both power and volume to get you started. Ask around here, as well. : )

Starting strength or stronglifts both for beginners. also builtfit had a great 3 day strength template, this pushed me to a 135kg barbell row for 3 reps in the space of 8 weeks

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"Don't fall for that crap that people are peddling on the message boards, in magazines or on TV. Get your shit in order, and get your training in order. Start kicking ass, and take out the crap that doesn't matter" Jim Wendler

I was pretty sure that what Im already doing would have been fairly successful. (dips, hanging rows, pullups, bicycle pullups, oblique raises, benchpress, situps, reverse crunches, inchworms) These are my main exercises.

There are limited options for me due to my being in a wheelchair. No, Im not paralyzed. I can stand..but not very well. Certainly not well enough to complete anything that requires a standing position. Im not sure if knowing this changes any advice anyone has...but I figure it's probably an important factor and not something I should leave out.

The nutrition is still the same, but here is a guy I found on youtube that is in a wheel chair and does some workout/bodybuilding routines. He might have more specific advice for you.

http://www.youtube.com/user/WheelChairBB?feature=watch

Nick Scott - I don't know much about him, but he seems to do a lot with wheel chair bodybuilding and "wheel chair" Ballroom dancing. He also has a web-site.

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Justin Morgan

http://www.youtube.com/user/RawVegaCaliBB

Oh yeah, Ive heard of that guy! I actually invested in one of of the weight lifting products he promotes. "The Burn Machine Speedbag" .