Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

That's the plan right now

This morning when i weighed myself I was right at 164 pounds. That's just under 4 pounds in a week. At this rate I'll be a fat slob just in time for summer

Anyway, today I started with barbell squats with my trainer. It was supposed to be more of a "learn to do squats" day than a real workout, but my legs still ended up pretty rubbery at the end. I did better than I expected, so I'm pretty happy about today.

I keep telling myself that I should be keeping better track of my workouts and my progress, but I still haven't got around to that. I'm not really so sure how serious I am taking this just yet actually. It's not so bad right now I suppose, while I have someone to push me when I'm in the gym, but I'm going to have to make a better plan before too long.

Workout on friday was complete shit. I started getting sore after my warm-up set on the bench and everything went downhill from there. Either I wasn't fully recovered or these anti-soy people are right and I'm turning into a little girl . I thought I was sort of taking it easy on my arms on wednesday, but apparently not easy enough.

On a related note, I started taking bcaa's friday and I really didn't expect them to taste that bad. If they would actually mix with water it wouldn't be a problem, but they don't, so I'm just dumping them in my mouth then drinking enough water to make them go down and thats just nasty. Hopefully they work, because if all this is for nothing I'm going to be pissed .

Also, I went to the gym this morning to practice barbell squats. I think I have it down pretty well but I'm not really sure about depth. How far do I really need to go? Lots of people say to go as deep as possible but, I can literally put my ass on the ground with no problem. I think i could actually go an inch or two lower than that if the floor wasn't in the way. Should I bottom out on every rep or stop just before that or no need to even go that far? Thanks for the help.

It depends on what you want to work on. Squats to parallel are typically used for powerlifting, and ass to grass are olympic style squats. Both are acceptable. Personally, I work on both because I like both!

Thanks for the input. I've decided I'm just going to go all the way down on squats. I've tried less deep and to the floor, but the next day I'm sore in a lot more places when I squat ass to ankles, so it seems more effective to do that.

I'm just trying to get strong, not look strong because I have more plates on the bar

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Eating is going well, lifting is going well also, but updating this log is shit

This morning i weighed 167.4 pounds, so still gaining weight pretty quickly. I sort of thought it would be harder to gain weight than it has been. That ~15 pounds in 3 months.

I've been meaning to take some pictures but I never got around to that, so my "before" pictures will probably be sometime this week if I get around to taking them.

I haven't been on this forum for a while, but I'm bored and it seems I'm not going to be approved for the other forum i signed up for a couple months ago, so I might as well post here.

I've stopped with the personal trainer a few months ago and started with a 5x5 routine on my own, but shortly gave up on that because it was taking too much time and now am doing 3x5 after warm ups and sometimes doing some heavy singles, doubles or triples afterwards just for fun

It's basically the starting strength program with rows instead of power cleans because I can't do them properly at the gym i go to.

Numbers are like this now

height - 6' 3" (~190 cm)
weight - 181 lbs (~82.1 kg)
bodyfat - 19.88% (navy method)

Squat - 1x 165 lbs (~74.8 kg) with belt
Deadlift - 1x 205 lbs (~93 kg) with belt
Bench - 1x 130 lbs (~59 kg)
Press - 4x 80 lbs (~36.3 kg)
Pullups - 3x 3

Not sure if any of those numbers are even ok for someone my size with 5 months training really, but I am sort of embarrassed by them. I know my deadlift is probably a lot higher, because 205 was not that hard and have drastically improved form and gained ~15 pounds since i did that. More in there on the squat too i think, but the rest is all out or close to it.

3 weeks ago I weighed 183 lbs but I'm just sick of eating so weight is down a little. I think I've decided to cut fat some then try to maintain my weight till it isn't so hot, mostly to give myself a break from eating so much, and partly because being fat and weak is just not acceptable to me. If that bodyfat % is close to accurate I'm assuming ~170 lbs is the goal.

I am also adding in some cardio a few times a week for 30 - 40 minutes on non lifting days. Will maybe put together some sort of strongman medley type thing in the back yard for one of those days, but not sure yet.

If this interferes with strength gains too much I'll scrap the whole plan and just keep forcing myself to eat this summer and do some interval training a few times a week to bring fitness levels up.

Also, I did take some pictures in february but they didn't turn out so I deleted them. It kind of sucks, I know I am much bigger than I was in december, but I don't really have anything to compare to really see the difference all this work has made.

It doesn't really matter if your numbers are "acceptable" to anyone else, what matters is that you're continuing to progress. You're only competing against yourself. I know you can keep lifting heavier! Yeah!

I know what you mean about eating, it's kind of a pain sometimes for me, too.

I don't care so much what is acceptable to other people, it's just not acceptable to me.

Todays workout ----- about an hour and 15 minutes

5 minutes warm up on bike then some stretching

Squat

2x5 w/ bar
1x5 95 lbs
1x3 125 lbs
3x5 150 lbs

I should have just put 155 but I got it into my head somehow that 150 was today so went with it. Felt lightish on my back, but some reps started to go forward a bit. Not sure if I should keep using 5 pound increments or not. Probably maybe will.

Bench

8x2 with bar
1x5 75
1x3 95
3x5 110

Still wobbly on bench. Sometimes I hit the right spot and its pretty easy, but mostly not so good. The last set was the easiest though, so not sure what to think about that.

Deadlift

1x5 135
1x5 205

Don't know if I should be warming up more than that, probably will do a triple at something in the middle next time.

tried doing some dips, but pretty tired by then and wasn't happening so did a couple sets on this "dip machine" thingy at not sure the weight, but 8 reps was tough then did some abs and went home.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the session except for the dips, last week I could do 8, 7 then 7 and today just wasn't going anywhere. Deadlift did take a lot out of me though and will definitely feel it tomorrow.

Oh, ok. Competing against yourself, I see. Way to go!

Hamstrings and calves sort of tight today. Not sure what the calf tightness is about, never happened before.

5 mins on bike + some stretching

it turns out i suck at squatting

Squat

2x5 bar
1x5 95
1x3 135 felt heavy
2x1 165 fail on 2 just couldn't get my hips to do their job
1xf 165 stuck in the hole :/
1x3 155 fail on 4
1x7 135 punishment for being weak

Press

2x8 bar
3x5 55

I been failing on these for like 3 weeks so dropped weight way down this time and starting over. A lot of the problem is with getting a straight bar path, so trying to get that sorted.

Rows

1xsome bar
3x5 100

Much heavier than this I can't keep my hips from doing most of the work, so this is a deload also. I sort of yank the bar up with my hips, my chest comes up then i pull the bar to my chest after its well off the ground, not sure how to keep from doing that beside get stronger. Friday I used 95 pounds after having been up to 125 cheating and had DOMS all across my upper back the next day, so the cheating way is definitely not optimal.

Pullups

3 2 2 1 1

Tried some incline/decline??? ( head going down) situps with a 10lb plate on my chest, but quit because it didn't seem safe on the back. So did 2x10+8 leg raises and left.

Going to stick to adding 5lbs a session on all the lifts, except deadlift because that is the only one I haven't really failed on yet. Maybe I will stop sucking so much that way. Also maybe going to suck it up and eat more, but not feeling it just now.

Horrible workout today. I'm guessing the lazy eating the past 3 weeks has gotten to me. Also, I've been going at close to max intensity for almost 5 months now and constantly being sore is probably interfering with my progress.

The plan now is to stay away from the gym for a week, then hit the eating hard and back at it fresh on the 23rd. Hopefully this helps out, because it sucks feeling so weak after putting in so much work.

I did mange to get 3x5 at 115 on the bench press, but other than that everything was garbage.

I didn't take a week off when I said I would and went in to the gym a couple times to mess around doing whatever the people there were doing. So one day I did bench press, close grip bench press, incline bench press, decline bench press machine, dumbbell bench press, incline dumbbell bench press, cable flys, tricep pushdowns, and hanging leg raises in the power rack, because on fridays "we do everything" . My chest and triceps were sore for like 3 days after that ridiculousness so did a very similar routine for back and biceps the next time .

I mostly stayed out of the gym last week because I was sick. Nothing really bad, but I didn't feel like eating so I didn't and figured I might as well skip the gym till I was better since I didn't follow my plan to take a week off.

Anyway, I'm wasting away to nothing now, weighed in at 173.4 this morning . Went to the gym today because it closed early yesterday and I was too busy goofing off to get in before that and turned out to be an okay session really. I didn't stick so much with the plan because I have a new plan I will start on thursday or monday i think.

Squat
2x5xbar
1x5x95
1x5x115
3x5x135

Bench
1x10xbar
1x5x75
3x5x95

Dumbbell rows
1x10x30
3x10x45

I'll be switching to some sort of 4 day thing probably.

I am thinking something like...

Monday - Squat
Tuesday - Bench
Thursday - Deadlift
Friday - Overhead

The thinking behind this is that it seems to take me 2 days to recover from heavy squat/deadlifts, so the extra days should help me to progress instead of stalling so much like I was on the squat 3 days a week routine. The most important lift to me is the squat so I might make thursday a squat day too and deadlift once every couple weeks. I do like deadlifting though, so maybe just add in some higher rep squats on that day as assistance.

I may switch it to 3 days a week if if it's too much, because I am still planning on losing another 5 pounds or so. Then I'll try to keep that weight the rest of the summer. There are just too many things keeping me from bulking for now, mainly being broke, but it is ridiculously hot now and I can't be bothered with cooking and eating lots of food most days.

Still not 100% on how this plan will go, but I am trying to make it slightly confusing on purpose to force myself to bring a notebook to the gym. I may just take some similar routine off the internet also, because I am lazy .