Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

Thank you! And here I thought I was getting fluffier by the day.



I'm going to take that as a compliment as it's you should ask that. I was always pretty chubby when I was younger and didn't really lean out until I got into high school. Then, college hit, and I became much less active but much more inclined to stress eat and got chubby again. During my junior year I lost a lot of weight when I got back into cycling/running but I didn't look that great until I started lifting weights (little tangent about all of that: http://vegansludge.tumblr.com/post/8722 ... ars-can-do).

So, I wouldn't say that I'm naturally "thin" or that I don't gain easy since I haven't been very aggressive with trying to - my maintenance, currently, appears to be about 2,000 calories a day which I've been eating since January 5th and I'm still clocking in, consistently, between 121-122 every day.

What race are you if you don't mind me asking?

You look like a blend of Spanish/Asian ?! My wife is Chinese but I can't quite pick you lol.

Pretty good guess since I'm half-Filipino!

Haha, so what's the other half?..

01.31.12 Outwork Day/QvC: Day II
Upper-body power

I woke up feeling pretty awesome because I slept for over eight hours last night. The last time this happened, I believe, was Christmas Day after having worked for nearly two weeks straight. Pumped full of energy, I decided to plan out my day and hit the ground running at 11:00 a.m. I managed to go to plan out, and eventually execute, a pretty labor intensive dinner, go to the bank, hit the gym, grab some groceries, soak up some of the (disturbingly) warm weather, and catch up on some reading I’d been meaning to do. All in all, pretty swell day, I think.
Taking Mini Forklift’s mention that I could end up feeling like shit during my work-out, I stuck to my “gas station/convenience store only products” in search of a vegan-friendly peri-OW boost in case it was needed. I walked out with one of those “zero” energy drinks – you know, zero sugar, zero calorie, zero carb, so who knows what the hell is in it. Well, I do because I read the ingredients but I don’t want to talk about it.
Needless to say, I didn’t crack it open until after my work-out and I only did so because I was thirsty and, like an idiot, forgot to fill my water bottle up before leaving the gym even though I knew I’d be running errands for quite some time.

The only thing to be noted about the work-out that isn’t included below is my choice to not do bent over barbell rows for a while. This wasn’t an easy decision to make but I believe it’s the right one. Rather than sacrifice/affect my squats or deads any further, I'm backing off of rows for a couple of weeks and will come back to them with much lower weight and see how they feel. If they’re still an issue, I will find other lifts to take their place even though I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that I don't have to - I love this lift. Which explains my “motivation” for the day.

Motivation: Apprehensive.
Energy: High.
Mentality: Let’s just do it.
Weight: 121.75

Outwork
Running on Cap’n Crunch and pure grit.

Barbell bench press
5x60
5x70
5x75
5x70
7x65
5x65
4x60
Notes: I did a video form check on the set f 75s and realized it wasn’t pretty – too much backward motion. Decided to drop weight and video each set to check my form. The 70s were shaky but both sets of 65 were good. Therefore, weight will remain decreased until form is perfect on 70s and 75s before I attempt 80 again. Bummer but nothing counts unless form is perfect.

Standing barbell overhead press
5x45
5x50
5x55
3x60
2x62.5
1x62.5
Notes: 50 flew up, 55 went up without a hitch so, I figured, why not at least go for the 60. Well, I did. And when that went up, I got brave. Fortune, it seems, favors that. .5xBW OHP? Boom. Totally made up for my bench performance.

Rack chins
2x8
1x10
Notes: Bar at my waist, love in my heart. I could have wailed on these all day.

Tricep pushdowns with rope attachment
6x90
6x100
8x110
Notes: Triceps on fire. Fucking hnng.

EZ-bar strict curls
6x40
6x50
6x60
Notes: My back did not want to stay with the wall on the last set but I’ll get them.

EZ-bar cable curls
6x70
Notes: Just to see how different they felt. Surprise. These felt easier. What a cop-out.

Dips
6x2 @80lbs assisted
10 @90lbs assisted

Pull-ups
6x2@90lbs assisted
10 @100lbs assisted
Notes: Forever weak.

Seated shoulder press
6x20
6x25
Notes: I wanted more sets and more reps but couldn’t do it. Switched to the cable machine and got 6x30 but I don’t want to count it.

Post-WO Assessment
Still no “heaviness” or “crash” during the session – the “drag” that I’ve been feeling hasn’t appeared just yet either but, again, two days in is still too early to call it, especially when I got such good sleep. Thursday’s session will be the real test, though: I close at work tomorrow then open the next day and plan on lifting right after. We'll see how good the Cap'n is at commandeering that ship.

Nutrition
Well, I was going to drink tonight despite it being a lift day. Then I totally fandangled my protein intake (I ran out of powder and have been buying single serving packets to supplement until my TrueProtein order arrives but, somehow, forgot to grab enough for today) only to realize … I haven’t had a recovery day since the 26th. Low on protein and not giving my muscles enough to recuperate does not make my body prime for alcohol. I’ll be saving my Maker’s and IPA for tomorrow, I think.
Another bummer: the one time I didn’t take a picture of my food was probably the best food I’ve made in a while: super-spicy home-made cilantro raspberry marinade, used to blacken some tofu, mixed with “taco” tvp, wrapped into collard greens, and served on top of a Flatout Lite Wrap. It. Was. Glorious.
Full details here

Macros
45/118/187 so far. Will probably come out around 50/125/210 which still isn’t ideal. Need to step up my protein in a big way.

My dad's full-Filipino and then my mom's split between Irish and English. Most people assume that I'm Mexican, actually, or Korean which I find pretty entertaining.

Cool post, your writing never fails to get a smile out of me. In fact, I am sure I sit at this computer for the minute or so with a smile that comes or goes while I read... if anyone were to be stood at out window watching me they would wonder what the hell I am reading ?!

What was your issue with the barbell rows? Must have missed that one a while back. Can I make a suggestion in that you write down how long your session takes? That one above looks like a meaty one, I would guess at 75-80mins but I could be off. I like to note the duration as often you can get an idea of how hard, fast (and clever) people are working.

Keep it up, you are inspiring !!

I can see where someone would get the Mexican thing from.

Our kids are Chinese/kiwi/British. A real mush!

Thank you so much for the kind words - and I'm glad that I can bring a smile to your face! I would hate it if you frowned the whole time reading one of my write-ups.

Including warm-up, stretching, the actual session, water refills (I drink a lot at the gym, and the cool-down, today's took about ~75 minutes. For whatever reason, upper-body power day usually goes faster, but since I was trying to get video of each bench session, that also added some time.

The issue with rows was that, even with good form, the day after, my lower-back is always extremely sore and bending down was, while not excruciating, definitely touchy and borderline painful. Back in December when this first started happening, I did a form check and saw I was putting too much motion into the lift so I focused on form. Things were good for a couple of weeks and I was steadily increasing weight and then, boom, out of nowhere, the pain I first mentioned came back. I'm thinkong of just switching to Pendlay's once I take a couple of weeks off and see if that makes a difference - though, the one armed dumbbell rows would suffice, I suppose, if that fails as well.

Also, the Mexican thing is just funny because my dad and I have an inside joke about when this happens; we always say, "Oh, yeah, we're Spanish. Spanish conquests." Most people don't get/like that, though.

I can't do Pendlay's as they kill my hammys. I usually end up cramping, grrrrrrr !!

Cool video, I had the volume up high and the start of it nearly blew my speakers out lol.

lol, +1

I'm just going from the 2 second clip in the video but that squat was WAY high, maybe about 4" short of parallel.

With the deadlift I noticed you have the bar elevated (sitting on plates)?

When I started doing barbell rows (pendlay rows I guess - i pull every rep from the floor), it took my back a few weeks to adapt (a lot of stabilising). Make sure you've got the basics down (keep the bar close to your body, back's flat). If it's not down to poor hamstring flexibility (if so stretch every day) then it could be lack of staying tight and arched.

Hope this helps!

ps. looking beasting in the leg press pic, especially forearms!

Chewy - Definitely right about the squat. It was the last rep of my second set with 170 from my last leg day; I didn't count it in my log so I probably shouldn't have used it in the clip. No excuses, though, so I'm not adding weight until I can break parallel with 170.
And the bar's on one plate for deads because of the back issues I mentioned - the last time I pulled 170 I didn't have the plate but no video = no legitimacy. Appreciate you critiquing, though, because other than myself, nobody else but the people who follow this log can keep me in check and it's extremely helpful.
In terms of rows, I switched from Pendlays to bent over when I started going to the gym and that's when all of the back issues started up. Maybe I'll switch back because pulling from the floor never was an issue beforehand. If I decide to do that, I'm definitely going to video it and I'll probably ask you to check it out, if that's cool.

Also, sorry about the volume on the last video - when I finished it on my computer, it definitely wasn't that loud but when I checked it out on YouTube, it was pretty, uh, startling to say the least. Hah.

02.01.12
Rest Day

Nine and a half hours of sleep? Who am I? Apparently I’m somebody who needed some big rest to get big. After those nine and a half hours, I woke up feeling tighter than usual and, after one small cup of coffee, immediately began putting together the third episode of Quake v. Crunch before I had to go to work at 2:30 p.m.
After doing so I’ve realized two things I need to step up my v-logging game and I need to lead a more interesting life. Both of the aforementioned led me to, finally, admit, that I need to readjust my life to actually pursue the things I’m most passionate about. There will, undoubtedly be a longer post about that once I have some time to really work that out.
Until then … today wasn’t too bad. Nutrition was on point, work wasn’t too terrible, and l indulged in some Maker’s Marker and IPAs, so no complaints whatsoever. Mostly just pumped about seeing how the Cap’n holds up against some hypertrophy tomorrow. So, until then …

Macros
10/134/210 (drinks included)