Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

Alright guys, so I really started working out and sticking to it at the start of june. I weighed 250 pounds. Now I weigh in at 230 pounds here in September, which im proud of. The only thing is that I feel like im not seeing the kind of definition that I want to be seeing. I work at wal mart unfortunately but actually they are very relaxed with the scheduling so I want to hear from you guys. I always see that people split theyr work out into diffrent sections of the body in diffrent days. I on the onther hand work out mondays, wednesdays and fridays. My schedule looks like this:

Dumbell Curls, Wrist Curls, Dumbel Tricep Extensions, Tricep Dips, Dumbell Press, Upright Rows, Bench, Decline Bench, Dumbell Pullover, Lat Pull Down, Rows, Dumbell Rows, Shrugs, Squats, Leg Presses, Calf Raises, Leg Raises, and Side Bends. I do all these and then run for maybe a mile or two every mon, wed, fri.

Now I want to hear what you guys think. I want all ideas that you guys can throw at me. Change my schedule?

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"Don't let your outrage for injustice end where your selfishness begins"

If your routine is causing you to get stronger at all, even by a lift or two from week to week while you are also dropping fat than I would just stick with what you are doing.
To give you perspective though, Arnold Schwarzenegger competed at around 235 ibs. So if a BBer using steroids that was training for around a decade by the time he reached his pinnacle has a competition ready body at 235, then that tells you that you're going to need to drop down to well below 200 before you really start seeing definition at all. If you continue training smart and eating a good diet you might get near 200 ibs with low enough Body fat to see a little definition in around three years (just a guess). That's assuming you can put on around 10 ibs of lean muscle your first year, and 5 ibs the two following years.

And those are realistic numbers, not the made up hollywood crap where you build 30 ibs of muscle in a few months, all natural.
*Generally you won't just put on muscle, you'll put on a combo of muscle and fat. Eating a great diet can help you minimize that fat to a very small amount, but "generally" it's going to happen.

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Justin Morgan

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

WAIT! so are you trying to tell me that I cant lose 7 pounds a day by eating ice cream like the commercials? =[ damn, i give up!

I have such a hard time with my diet. Alot of soy meat and brown rice. Its just so hard to eat healthier when i dont want to spend a day cooking

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"Don't let your outrage for injustice end where your selfishness begins"

Agreed on a lot of what Justin said. Definition is a combination of size and low bodyfat - typically, you won't see much for definition as a man unless you get bodyfat under 15%, and that's when things just START to come out, like the obvious "horseshoe" shape of the triceps, an outline of the general "ab" area, etc. Seeing real cuts, the start of veins, and all the stuff of a stage-ready bodybuilder won't come in until you're sub-10% bodyfat, so it may be a while before you really see much of that. And, for some of us, going from the mid-teens percentage to that magical 10% is where it gets tough, and becomes a slow process. You have to remember, once you get bodyfat low, your body will fight you more and more to hold on to what it has left, so prepare for more battle as your bf % drops and you start to see more definition. But, once you start to see it coming in, you'll likely be more motivated to keep on with it, it does get motivating.

You note a lot of exercises, but to ask, are you doing ALL that in one workout? If you've been doing something like that for a while and haven't changed up much in months, then it may be time to find a more structured plan to work with for a bit. But, if it's a bad time to change up, you can keep doing what you're doing SO LONG AS you keep seeing slow-but-steady progress. If things have come to a halt, it's definitely time to change, as I've yet to hear of anyone's program no longer working, then one day magically kick-starting up again to success.

Also to consider, the more you cram into one workout at a time, the more the things done after the first 45-60 minutes will see less in the way of results as you tire out. So, say you didn't get to the squats until you were halfway through and had already hit 3 body parts, you'd definitely have less going for you on legs by that time and wouldn't maximize your potential for workouts. Perhaps consider changing to something like a 3-day split each week where you can have a little more recovery time for your muscle groups if nothing else, something like

Workout 1 - Legs, chest, triceps
Squats, glute/ham raises (if you have access to a GHR at your gym) or leg curls, incline bench press, close grip bench press, and one assistance triceps movement if you want (though, the close grip with hands about 14-18" apart may just do enough for that)

Workout 2 - Upper back, biceps, abs
Barbell or dumbbell rows, pull-ups or pulldowns, rear delt flyes or cable face pulls, dumbbell hammer curls, whatever ab work you enjoy

Workout 3 - Lower back, upper back assistance, shoulders
Deadlifts, shrugs (barbell or dumbbell), barbell or dumbbell overhead presses (preferably done standing), then either a lower back assistance movement like hyperextensions (a reverse hyperextension is better, but unless you are at a powerlifting gym, you probably won't have access to one), or, one other shoulder movement like DB side raises if you want.

Things don't have to be too complex - even just keeping a rep scheme of 10-12 on everything for now is fine if you're not strength-focused primarily, as the strength will come more with more attention to working some groups at a time instead of all at once. 2-4 warm-up sets before major lifts, 3-5 working sets on major compound lifts, 2-3 sets on minor lifts and ab work, and you can do something like this to devote more time to building each area without worrying about shorting your recovery too much with 3 full-body workouts in a 5 day stretch. Stick to the effective stuff first, don't worry much about isolation work for now, just get used to keeping on progressing and hammering out better focus on individual body parts while keeping the fat loss goal in mind. Like Justin said, the strength will come so long as you're still making progress, it's when you see your strength fading that you need to reconsider the approach as undereating and overtraining will be the two things that will cause you to backslide if left unchecked.

Best of success with whatever you do, but just remember that nothing keeps working forever, every so often you need to experiment and change things up to ensure you keep moving forward!

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"A 'hardgainer' is merely someone who hasn't bothered to try enough different training methods to learn what is actually right for their own damned body." - anonymous

I have heard that after so long into your routine in a day the exercises just arent as effective so thats why I was wondering if I should make my routine shorter. I havent made it shorter before and I think I will change it up some just to change things up. The gym has been getting blah lately doing the same things over and over. It would be nice to change things up a little. You kind sirs have been very helpful, thank

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"Don't let your outrage for injustice end where your selfishness begins"