Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

Well I thought it would be a good idea to start keeping a weightlifting journal, and I figured it'd be a good idea to start making entries here for your viewing pleasure, and just in case I lose my journal. I'd like to get opinions on my body weight to strength ratio as I go along.

My goal really doesn't fit into any category. I just want to get strong, big, and stay ripped up to the point where I max my genetics.

I am 141 as of today, I weigh myself every Sunday. I'm consuming between 3,250kcal and 4,000 kcal, depending on if my sister has any vegan food I can steal. Despite eating 4,000 kcal for 2 or 3 days out of the week, I don't get fat, which is weird. I drink about 1 or 1 1/2 gallons of water a day, and I've been lifting for 4 years.

So anyway before every day I do 15-20 minutes of cardio, usually walking, flat or on incline, but 3x a week I run, including one on my off day which is 30 min long instead of 20. I weightlift 5x a week, chest, arms, off, shoulders, legs, back, off. I will rotate days around occasionally and switch between 3x8, 4x8, 3x5, 4x5, and 3x10s.

8-31-11 - Shoulders
Was an ok day today. I failed to move hardly any on my upright row which kinda bums me out. And I'm still 10lbs behind my body weight. Trying very hard to catch up to it. Other than the EZ upright row and failing on smith presses I felt I made good progress today. There's always next week.

Smith Shoulder Press: 130lbs x7x6x5 <-Sucks
EZ Upright Row: 125lbs x7x6x6
EZ Posterior Row: 130lbs xx8x8x8 Nailed it so hard, felt awesome.
DB Shoulder Press: 90lbs x8x8x7
DB Lateral Raise: 80lbs x8x8x8
DB Reverse Flies: 70lbs x8x8x8
DB Shrugs:170lbs 8x7x8 My hands were freaking killing me at this point, had trouble holding the two 85s.
EZ Front Raises: 60lbs x8x8x8 These were fun, I like to do something fun at the end of my routines sometimes.

Tomorrow is legs. ^_^

Today was legs. It was absolute shit. I worked my way up to 250lb hack squats but felt some weird uncomfortable pain behind my ostomy and had to quit early. Not going to bother with the numbers, they suck.

Here is my log from yesterday, even though it was a bad day.

9-1-Legs
Hack Squats 225lbs x8x0x0
Seated Calf Raise 180lbs x8x8x8
Lunges 140lbs x8x4x0
DB Good Mornings x0x0x0

I shaved the back of my leg with the gnurling on the bar after losing my grip on hacks. Luckily, I did not damage anything when I felt that tugging behind my ostomy.

9-2-Back

Wide Grip Chinups +40lbs x8x8x8
Chest Supported Rows 135lbs x8x7x7
One Arm DB Rows 2x75lbs x8x8x8 These felt really good
Hammer Chinups +30lbs x8x7x6
Cable Lat Pulldown Burnouts 162.5lbs x7x6x6

Today was an excellent day. It definitively made up for yesterday. I also walked 1 mile to the grocery store and 1 mile back, uphill, with about 30lbs of groceries.

I ran today, it felt good. I like running, it relaxes me. I keep my pace to a light jog. 30 minutes, stretches before and after, 300 kcal burn, 2.75 miles, 5.5mph pace.

I do 3 days of jogging , and 4 days of other cardio, usually long 45 minute walks on my off days, and uphill walks on my lifting days.

I was always so afraid of cardio but honestly eating 3,250 kcal all it does is keep my body fat down. I limit myself to 300 kcals of cardio on off days, and 200 on the on days. Honestly when you factor in my occasional extra treats and snacks throughout the week, it's 3,500 kcal a day. But I also do extra cardio, like walks around the trail, and weighted walks to get my groceries since my van got wrecked.

Also, weighed myself for fun, 141.8. My weight is very consistent, so .8lbs in half a week is spot on.I'm confident I'm gaining almost pure muscle though!

Today was a kick ass day on chest. I started off with 20 minutes of super light low impact jogging at 4.5mph.

9-4-Chest
Bench Press 180lbs x8x7x7
DB Bench Press 140lbs x7x6x6
Flat Flies 120lbs x5x6x6 <--No bueno
Incline Bench Press 150lbs x8x8x6
Incline Flies 110lbs x6x5x4 <---was pooped

Today was an excellent day today though!

Strong benching!!

Thanks man! 20 minutes of steep uphill walking, then it was arms day.

9-5-11 Arms
Weighted Dips: +55lbs x8x8x8
EZ Bicep Curls: 100lbs x6x1 95lbs x8x8 going to split the difference next week and do 98lbs.
DB Hammer Curls: 2x40lbs x8x8x8
EZ Reverse Curls: 80lbs x8x8x8 85lbs next week.
Cable Tricep Kickbacks: 2x40lbs x8x8x8
Cable Tricep Overhead Raises 50lbs x8x8x8
Wide Grip Hammer Chin Burnouts: 35lbs x8x7x6 Every time I burnout I aim to raise the burnout weight 5 more lbs, it's killer.

Was an excellent day.

beast

Thanks guys. I'm hell bent on 200lbs by the time I'm 25, or sometime around there, with lifts to match, no matter what it takes. Going to order a lever belt from the UK so I can start cracking down on squats and deads, and get my good mornings up, and to protect my guts while doing no back support shoulder presses.

I NEED to start smashing my legs just as hard as my upper body, my deadlifts and squats are falling behind my x2 and x2.5 goals. I see too many jack asses with chicken legs and it just makes me laugh, but at the same time it's terrifying. Gross.

I have squatted 1.9x BW and deadlifted 2.5x bodyweight and I still have chicken legs! Some of it's down to genetics haha.

How much is that lever belt costing you with shipping?

I've seen your legs brother, you do not have chicken legs.

I'm looking at about $111.00 USD for the 13mm lever belt in size med shipped here.

Oh, I'm doing 20 min of cardio 5x a week, and 30 min 2x a week. I only do a light 4.5-5.5 mph jog on 3-4 of those days, but I might knock that back to 3, and cut 10 min off each of my 30 min days to preserve calories. I might be stalling a tad. Right now I am eating enough to get me to 175lbs, so it should level out once I get closer. I don't mind be a bit pudgy for a few months, so I don't need to play with kcal.

So I was doing some reading and I've decided I'm going to start rocking the boat where cardio is concerned. I kind of feel like it might be having a bit more of a negative impact on my weight gain than I want. Maybe not significant, but I feel like I can improve it. I feel like I am getting plenty of calories, but by doing so much high impact cardio I am sending mixed signals to my body.

What I am doing for starters is replacing my two 30 min off day 5.5+ mph jogging cardio sessions with HIIT/Interval training. I'm going to replace them with spinner cycle sprints, 1 min fast, 1 min medium, for 20 minutes. I would like to maybe do rowing, but I don't know if I can hijack the cable machine for 20 minutes to do so without getting people pissed at me, so for now, Tuesdays and Saturdays will be spinner cycle sprints.

My goal is to remove all high impact cardio that might tell my body it's time to get smaller. My genetics have me built to be small, and lean, I don't want to tell my body to get any leaner. Sprinters have more muscle mass, so I figure this might help me build more muscle.

I'll be knocking my 20 minute cardio sessions on my 5 lifting days down to 15 minutes a piece, doing 3.5-4mph hill climbs at 5-10 degrees of incline, nice and low impact.

If I start to get fat, I can always bump the cardio back up, I suspect this will only help me.

Today was my first spinner cycle sprint session, 2.5min warmup, 20 1:1 sprints, 2.5 min cool down. Feels good.

After some soul searching and contemplating I've decided to cut out daily cardio and replace it with more weight lifting, and do HIIT 2x a week. I'm aiming for 60min a day of lifting to keep me lean, I think this will work nicely not sending mixed signals to my body. I'll be doing 2 min rest periods to give me a cardio-like effect.

Today I jumped into my new rep scheme, 4x8. I am going to do this for 4-6 weeks and monitor myself, I really don't see myself getting burnt out. I'll probably deload with a 3x10 for week, then do a 4x5 for a few weeks and start the 4x8 again. The 8 rep range seems to be my butter zone for strength and size.

9-7-11 Shoulders 4x8
DB Shoulder Press: 2x50lbs x8x8x8x8 ->110lbs
Smith Shoulder Press: 125lbs x8x8x8x8 ->130lbs
Smith Upright Row: 120lbs x8x8x8x8 -> 125lbs
DB Lateral Raise: 80lbs x8x8x8x8 -> 90lbs
EZ Posterior Row: 130lbs x8x8x8x8 -> 135lbs
Posterior Deltoid Flys: 60lbs x8x8x8x8 -> 70lbs

I ran into my 60min deadline so I'll have to do traps on my back day. All in all I feel really good. I am confident in this new setup.

Today was a good day. I think I've identified an instability in my knees caused by weak hamstrings because I never used to train them. I will be correcting this with some good hamstring work and seeing if it fixes my issue. I spent a lot of time working up to my working weights because a bunch of these exercises are new to me, so I quickly ran into my 60min deadline. Next week I should have enough time for a second hamstring exercise and second calf exercise. I am avoiding squats, deadlifts, and hack squats over 225lbs until I see my doctor about my ostomy and weightlifting and/or get a belt.

9-8-11 Legs 4x8
Hammer Strength Leg Press: 360lbs x8x8x8x8 ->375lbs
DB Lunges: 140lbs x8x8x8x8 -> 150lbs
DB Stiff Leg Deadlifts: 110lbs x8x8x8x8x ->120lbs
Smith 1 Leg Standing Calf Raises: 115lbs x8x8x8x8 -> 125lbs