Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

Hi folks!

This is my first post, please let me know if you find it interesting!
Been trying the vegan diet for about 3 months now and i find that the pros is bigger then the cons.

before to the left after to the right.






Training was limited to 2 times a week, and each exercise ONLY performed ONE set each.
(inspired by tim ferriss experiment (which in turn was inspired by arthur jones "colorado experiment))

1 set leg press
1 set dips
1 set pullups
1 set rows

The tempo on each rep was 5 seconds up and 5 seconds down..
(pure hell on the leg press =) lol )

no stretching was performed
and no additional training of any kind was performed


this was done over 4 weeks and the before and after results:


Leg press 11 reps @ 86 -> 9 reps @ 159
percentage increase = ca 80-85 %

Assisted dips 9 reps @ (BW (82 kgs) - 17 plates * 1,8 kg) = 51,4 kg
to 9 reps @ (BW (88)kgs) - 12 plates *1,8 kg) = 66,4
Percentage increase = ca 29 %

Pullups 9 reps @ 6 plates
to 9 reps @ 8,5 plates
percentage increase ca 45 %

Seated rows 11 reps @ 5,5 plates
to 8 reps @ 8 plates
percentage increase ca 45%

45-50% increase in total


Before and after measurements (in cm)


Height 190 -> 190 ( no increase hmm ? lol)

neck 39 -> 42,5
chest 105 -> 108
thigh 56 -> 59
calf 38 -> 40
upper arm 34 -> 35
forearm 30 -> 32,5
waist 80 -> 81
ass (at widest) 98 -> 98

Age 23

Now I did follow a simmilar program/routine prior to this experiment BUT I did not consume no way near the amount of food I did during these 4 weeks.. THUS non of the acctual gains in strength is due to nervous system addaption like a beginer might experince (or a trainee changing excercises) etc..
I credit the increase in strength to acctual muscle gained.

Weight day 1 was 81,2 Kgs
Weigt day 30 was 88 kgs (now one week after im down at 87 so a part of the bodyweight was probobly undigested food)
(at around two weeks I was up in 90 kgs but I was unable to keep this weight for long..

Net gain maybe around 4-5 kgs
Fat percentage rougly the same (4-5 kg of pure fat increase would not result in strength gains)

The food consumed during this 4 weeks was the guidelines of "MNP" wich i belive "veganmaster" on this forum has written! much credit there!

10-20 % Protein, and 80-90 percent Carbohydrates (complex) no kind of sugars or simple carbohydrates..
Fat was keept to a minimum (thus no avocado etc)

The diet was 99% vegan or so.. (some mozarella on a pizza once etc... lol)
(Im only vegan for health purposes so bear with me)

At first I consumed roughly 5000 kcal a day (measured on scale) but this proved to be to stressfull to the body when trying to sleep etc and as a result I woke up extremely dehydrated.

(evening meal was 1000 kcal of oat mixed down so....)

I do credit the diet for the gains and i feel that I proved that the socialy conditioned bullshit that you have to consume x-amount of meat in order to make any gains at all is wrong and highly missleading.
I did consume beans and lentils, but I did not do so for the majority of my meals. (homemade pizza, pancakes etc)


Im planing on starting a blog sort of for posting results and examining other parts of training like

*max strength
*speed
*endurance
*stretching/moveability (can't find the right word lol )

if that would be of interest please let me know

To be honest, I see a significant increase in the gut, and limited muscle development.

For four weeks though, I guess you can't expect much gains, but I would rethink your diet.

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Lifts:
250 Bench
445 Deadlift
335 Squat

Oh sorry for not sucking in while posing.. lol
The diet is perfect imho... fat percentage went from 19 to 20 on my scale (but it only takes account of the legs, and all it really measures is water (can differ 2-3 percentage from morning to evening so...))

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioelectri ... e_analysis <--- it sucks

Imho i would say that an avarage 40-50 % increase in excercises performed is a very good gain, and I would be surprised if anyone could reproduce the results (with the same form) without the use of regulated substances, if following another diet..

It depends. Are you a beginner? Novice lifters can see that kind of gain on any diet without significant muscle growth just due to improvements in form, muscular recruitment, and neuromuscular adaptation.

_________________
--
Bruce

as I wrote in the first post

"Now I did follow a simmilar program/routine prior to this experiment BUT I did not consume no way near the amount of food I did during these 4 weeks.. THUS non of the acctual gains in strength is due to nervous system addaption like a beginer might experince (or a trainee changing excercises) etc..
I credit the increase in strength to acctual muscle gained."

I am not a novice lifter, and Im very aware of novice lifters increasing weight in the range 20-30 or even 40 percent due to increased muscular recruitment as you said
Also these additional muscular recruitments is when you explode the weight up wich is'nt the case in my experiment (5/5 candence).

For instance i would without a question get severe "DOMS" if I attempt to lift the weight at a quicker pace right know.. Muscle mass is not equal to strength and this program is extremly useless for a powelifter/olympic lifter wich rely on maximum muscular recruitment in the shortest amount of time.

Also I belive that trying to lift heavy without proper addaptation to faster pace ( = bigger weights) would be to beg for an injury for me right now due to lack of "tensile strength" in muscles.

thanks for pointing this out, so I could clarify

Next i plan to continue soon but I'll change exercises so that upper body is first.

Oops! Sorry, my bad. I somehow skipped over that paragraph.


That's the best way to rapidly improve recruitment, but your body will always learn to some degree (at least to some asymptotic point of improvement) as long as you're using good form and intensity. But if you've been lifting for a while, yeah, that shouldn't matter.


Man, if you know what the root cause of DOMS is, let us know. There are a lot of conflicting theories.

_________________
--
Bruce

ofcourse no one can ever "know"... everything is a theory.. even science/god is theories...

but i do know that I did get severe DOMS two days after this experiment when i attempted some explosive excercises (just to se for my self if my theories where right)


imho I THINK that DOMS is when your body is lacking the tensile strength to handle that specific load

the body is different than a mecanical part since we are made out of decaying material .. lol
but I stil belive that DOMS occur when tissue breaks under stress and the pain is your bodys way of telling you to stop hurting it!!

However this is my beliefs and I fully realize that most people would rather listen to arnold saying "DOMS is great" because he simply is a more accomplished bodybuilder..

During the experiment I did gain strength without forcing the weight (5/5 candence), thus without doms, thus without breaking down muscle tissue.. I know there is a de facto standard oppinion in the training community that you must break something in order to make it stronger.. This I find ridiculous and severely retarded with no logic whatsoever..

if you eat more than you consume, your body will put on weight.. I find it ridiculous that millions of years of evolution would produce a lifeform with the highest intelegence but with a body unable to grow anything but fat even if given the right nutrition..

I think your results are good, but remember the fact that without steroids, the maximum amount of gains with perfect diet and exercises is 0.5-1 pound of lean muscle mass per week (depending on person)... and that's for someone who trains like hell and uses supplements.

You said you are not a beginner but if you were doing leg presses 11 reps @ 86lbs it doesn't really sound like much. You were hardly pushing yourself to the limit OR your nervous system was far away from using your full body strength, since 11 reps @ 86 would mean 1 rep @ 120 lbs and I think you can do a squat without using weihts without problem -> you're lifting a lot more just by doing that. In any case, you have developed your nervous system too.

But anyway, great results so far. If you can keep similar increases in % you will be in top shape in no time.

Don't worry about your bulking belly. Just try to keep it in control. It's easy to get rid of fat.

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Y.E.A.H. B.U.D.D.Y.
(citation of Lean & Green) Click here for more yeah buddies!

I run a vegan food webstore and retail store chain in Finland. Please check http://www.vegetukku.fi for more information (sry, only in Finnish)!

I took this to be 86 kg.

_________________
--
Bruce

NO there is NO "fact".. just because you have heard it doesn't mean it's written in stone.....



You didn't read the first post... 11 reps at a 5 second up, 5 second down tempo (measured with stopwatch..).. I could without a problem squat 120 KGS (260 lbs) but when performing the excercises in 5/5 tempo the acctual weight pushed seems to be for children lol!..

This experiment was NOT about lifting the most amount of weights.. it was to take the body to failure in the most safe manner..


In the original post I have the measurements around the waist.. from 80 to 81 cms.. so..

I appreciate your comments !

I'm going to have to experiment with this today. Was it really just 86 lbs? I normally do reps at a 3/3/3 tempo unless I'm lifting for power, but I can't imagine 86 lbs on the leg press to be any sort of a strain whatsoever, even at that slow a tempo.

Doesn't sound like fun on the dips, though.


Was there a reason you chose leg press over compound exercises? Or didn't go with a slightly faster tempo?

_________________
--
Bruce

Yes it was 86 lbs maybe im weak,
I wouldnt suggest doing it in a unsafe manner.. dips is a great compound excersise



No the reason is an old knee injury (warmup soccer during wrestling training... yeah lol)

However the knee feels better know and I'll do front squats this next experiment session because i belive that is a great compound excersise.

The slower tempo was to ensure constant load and because you can lift more when "forcing" the weight

you can try this if you want.. do the 5/5 tempo until you reach complete failure.. even though you reach failure you can still push the weight in a fast tempo..
But i belive this 5/5 is a good way to give load to the muscles (and producing hormonal response in the body) without frying the nervous system

Care to share what you eat in one day? This:

"10-20 % Protein, and 80-90 percent Carbohydrates (complex) no kind of sugars or simple carbohydrates..
Fat was keept to a minimum (thus no avocado etc)"

...just seems something

a) unbelievable unless you're eating only certain fruits which don't contain fat along with protein powder
b) really really unhealthy since you need the essential fatty acids to stay alive

Also, the nervous system also affects when you change your workout cycle. If your body isn't accustomed to a certain training habit (for example slow 5/5 reps), then you'll have a lot of gains just because your nervous system adjusts to your new workout cycle.

And btw, that 0.5-1 lbs of lean mass per week is the absolute maximum and if you get more, you're genetically really special. Sure you can increase weight without gaining fat but a lot of it is fluids in your muscles, not lean muscle mass. 5 kg of lean muscle mass in one month is simply impossible without steroids, and even with them it would be something really extraordinary.

_________________
Y.E.A.H. B.U.D.D.Y.
(citation of Lean & Green) Click here for more yeah buddies!

I run a vegan food webstore and retail store chain in Finland. Please check http://www.vegetukku.fi for more information (sry, only in Finnish)!

breakfast and evening meal was each 1000 kcal of oat and some fun light mixed with water..... 1000kcal = 8 dl oat so it's a lot of food

I also cooke paella with lentils in place of meat
Some curry dishes with chickpeas,
pancakes (the american type)
pizzas etc etc..

essiential fatty acids is complete utter bullshit imho.. it's like saying you need x ammount of milk as the diary industry wants you to believe.. (they may be essential but not in that volume that you need to supplement them)
Ofcourse beans rice etc has some degree of fat but i didn't ad anything on top.

No protein powder, no creatin, no "supplements" legal or illegal..

Some vitamin c and such i do take though




If you would have read the original post througly you'd see that I did follow a simmilar routine before this ( 5/5 tempo, same excercises + some more additional excersices)
i discarded a lot of the excerscises and kept these four.
The gains came when I started to overfeed myself (yes to the point of puking =) )
Thus one can come to a conclusion that the gains was not due to nervous system beaucause i didn't change my workout cycle.

KIITOS!

Milk doesn't have omega fatty acids which are essential, so dairy companies can't claim that you need milk to get efa's.

OK, you had oats. Let's see what oats have:

18 % of energy comes from fat, 17 % protein and 65 % carbs. Or do you have some special oats we don't have in Europe?

Pancakes have fat, that's for sure. I'd say something like 20 % of energy at least even if they're low fat.

OK, sorry, I skipped over a few words that said you had been doing a similar program already. Did you have any gains with your previous diet and how long have you been doing that? What were the weights you started with? Anyway, I'm glad your diet is kicking in.

_________________
Y.E.A.H. B.U.D.D.Y.
(citation of Lean & Green) Click here for more yeah buddies!

I run a vegan food webstore and retail store chain in Finland. Please check http://www.vegetukku.fi for more information (sry, only in Finnish)!