Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

Pleasure mate, I love ta talk training:)

Couple of things about static holds, there is a higher blood pressure increase with this type of exercise, so holds should ideally be held for short periods. what i will be doing is static rest pause training, 10 second holds followed by a 10 second rest pause's, repeated 2-3 times or until you reach a set were you cant hold the weight for 10 seconds. There's two benefits to rest pausing the holds, firstly it will stop your blood pressure from rising too high, as your releasing the contraction for short rest pauses, secondly it will help physiologically, rather the "waiting out" for a muscle to fail, the rest pause's physiologically break it up into smaller chunks.
Have your training partner/ or gym member on hand to help you into the fully contracted (which should be roughly 30% more than you would lift through a full range of motion).

Best
Rob

awesome mate, thanks very much, going to do some experimenting!

HIT upper body yesterday, mega sore today did some super slow stuff, i did a high volume "traditional" leg workout today cuz i was bored and had some time to kill! legs are fine compared how they are after my usual HIT workout.

right time for some diet related stuff, normally i just eat and tweak as i go along but i would really like to maintain muscle and rip up a bit, the best results i seem to get are when i dont eat any fat......so my diet normaly looks like this :-

7.30am 3 bananas cup of oats scoop soy protein smoothie
10.00am soy protein shake
12.30pm soy protein shake
6.00pm 2 cups rice, tin of beans, some veg (2 cups before cooking)

weekends are the same except i eat some bread for breakfast with jam (along with the smoothie)

i weigh 88 fairly lean kilos but would like to get a little more ripped without losing muscle....... any suggestions/criticisms?

thanks ppl

Hi Mike,

Don't do anything too drastic man, as Ross would say...slow and steady win's the race. I'd suggest getting some more good fats in your diet, vary your diet, and always combined carbs with protein to minimize insulin production. Have your ever considered doing a bit of intermittent fasting? I've found it works great for dropping BF (and then some:)

Hope this helps
Rob

Rob to the rescue again would i have to drop some calories from somewhere else if i started to eat some more fat? i have thought about IF after reading your posts in another topic but i seriously love eating and doubt it could do it i have to restrain my self all day every day from stuffing my face, i can eat like 9 baked potatos a tin of beans in one sitting then eat again no problem so i dont know if i could not eat for so long. what kinda good fats do you incorporate into your diet Rob?


thanks

mike

Hey mrbear, I`m doing almost the same diet as you are doing, but it is getting harder everyday to drink my soy protein shake.
What`s your shake like? I'm using a pure soy powder, which tastes awful!

maybenot my friend, hows things?, the shake i get isnt too bad its unflavoured and unsweetened and i just have it in either smoothies or with a little fruit juice and a load of water and drink it in one. hows the diet working for you?

LOL, sorry just love talking training, diet and what have ya:)

I know what ya mean about IF, for the first few times you really need to be in the zone, but when your body begins to adapt its actually not that bad. perhaps the leangains approach would be better for you, daily 16hr fasts with an 8 hour feeding window. Just a thought:))
For fats I use coconut oil, hemp-seed oil, flaxseed oil, nuts, avocado's etc, they play a big role in getting leaner and hormone production.

lol i meant it in a good way dont worry, its great having a online coach! right im going to try this fat thing even though i dont like eating it, ill get some of the products you mention and add them in really slowly and see what happens..........the 16 hour/8 hour waydoesnt sound too bad atleast i could eat when i was in work then as i hate having a break and everyone is eating after working hard and im just sat there lol.......why is getting ripped so hard

Things are fine, lots of hours studying and working a full-time job.

The diet is working great for me, I'm eating my maintenance calories (or slightly below) everyday except tuesdays and thursdays.

Tuesdays and Thursdays I only drink protein shakes until 8pm and I don't train. Unflavoured, unsweetened mixing just with water soy shakes. Like I said, the taste is awfull! I consume way below my maintenance calories during these two days and lots of vitamin C to prevent catabolism.

It's like a simplified version of the carb cycling diet.

Managed to lose 2.5kg (5.5lbs) during these first two months doing it.
I measured my arms, legs, chest and waist and it showed that I didn't lose arms and legs measures, lost 3cm waist and 2cm chest.
I'm quite happy with the results and I'm continuing the diet, but now I'm doing a 20 minute fast paced walk after my workouts to keep the same speed of fat loss.

nice, sounds like things are going well for you down in brazil then! if you keep all your new muscle and get lean youll have an impressive physique! whats the weather like with you at the moment?!

does viitamin c help with preserving muscle does it? lol vegan protein shakes are never good on their own, my fave one to do with soy is a few bananas, some oats and some peanut butter and i feel like a treat i throw in some really dark brown sticky sugar!

is peanut butter a "good" fat?

i have no idea the calories im eating lol i HATE counting macros with numbers etc i must just be lazy in that department, i just add or take away little things if dont feel tight enough etc...........going do what big HITrob says tho i think and add some more good fats in and decrease sugars i think, plus heavy weights and a little cardio who knows maybe ill lean up with out getting skinny like i usually do lol good luck with the diet maybenot

Peanut butter (if is made of pure peanuts - no oils/sugars/other stuff added) is a great source of fat. Besides peanut butter some fats containing omega 3 6 and 9 should be consumed, like olive oil and linseed oil(or flaxseed)
Try to use cronometer.com to count calories, it should ease up the process a little. Aim for 1g of fat per kilo of bodyweight.

Vitamin C decreases cortisol excess caused by the training and dieting, so it helps to prevent catabolism.

Sugar is banned from my cutt diet =) It is easily stored as fat.

Weather in brazil... summer is coming, temperatures ranging from 15 to 25 degrees Celsius ( 59 to 77 farenheit).
Nice sunshine during the day, the sun rises here close to 7am and sets close to 7pm
I really can`t complain. Best time of the year, winter is too cold/rainy and summer is too hot.

About the impressive physique remember, it`s been only 10 months of training so far ( started in january ). The impressive part is coming only by the end of next year I guess =)
At least I had an impressive change on my body =)

It's nice read about your diet!
Mine it's a little bit confusing.... I like banana and avocado for breakfast, with a shaker of protein (hemp in this period) melted with soy milk.
I have another one shaker of protein and maltodextrin before the gym, vegetables with legumes immediately after.

At the moment my weight it's about 61 kg. I'm an hard gainer (maybe because I do a lot of fitness on the bike)...but when a try to eat a lot to gain weight, usually increase only my belly!!

thanks for stopping by grangi71, when i used to cycle alot i found it really hard to put weight on also, but i was very lean. diet is the most confusing part of fitness, what works seems to vary so much with each person. just got to keep experimenting i suppose