joelk

I think there is a psychological explanation too. I find training at home has a very different feel compared to training at the gym, where there is more of an atmosphere. It's weird though ey?

That's great Heather!

This is my current meal plan, bearing in mind it changes regularly.

Meal 1- 150g pan fried Tempeh with 30g pumpkin seeds, greens(mostly spinach) and 100g sweet potato

Meal 2- smoothy with 30g gemma protein, 50g almonds, blueberries, raspberries, 10g spirulina

Meal 3- Same as meal 1

Pre workout- 15g essential amino acids, 3g creatine mono, espresso coffee

Post workout- 20g essential amino acids, 500mg Alpha lipoic acid, 3g creatine mono

Meal 4- 150g sweet potato, 50g pumpkin seeds, 50g sunflower seeds and greens

Meal 5- Same as meal 2

I don't really count calories or macronutrient ratios, I just go by how I look. Protein sources vary from various legumes, tofu, various sorts of nuts and seeds. They change from day to day.

I have that book and also the other one he wrote with Robert Kennedy, which I cannot remember the name of right now. He was ahead of his time in many ways and had a few great bodybuilders training with him (Makkawy was awesome back in the day). I don't agree with some of his ideas, like barbell squats building 'turnip thighs' and his heavy emphasis on meats and cream and so forth but his recommendations of cycling diet and training was very advanced.

When I said I prefer the 5x5 it was only in comparison to the 8x8, my predominant training style is a hybrid of DC training and Mike mentzers theories (low volume, rest/pauses, negative reps, back off sets etc) but I do change it up now and then.

Great to have you on board!

I have tried the 8x8 system, and still use it now and then. It is one of the more difficult routines I have tried, as I don't think I have the greatest muscular endurance. I personally prefer the 5x5 system as I like the lower rep range and have built more size and strength with it.

I took it in two divided doses, one in the morning and one early afternoon. Funny, I don't get the same problems when I take the white tea with it but caffeine makes my very jittery.

I have tried it at 100mg per day and found it worked quite well, it does increase thermogenesis noticably. I found it worked even better when I used it with a green and white tea extract. I will use it again as my show gets a bit closer.

I do something similar to that, I just add a back off set of about 15 reps after my main rest pause set. It is in a way similar to the DC training which David Henry, Mark Dugdale and a couple of other pro bodybuilders use. Very effective and exhausting!

I eventually hit a 525 parallel squat, and shortly before, I did a paused rock-bottom full squat with 445 if I remember correctly. That was with a complete dead stop at bottom as I was testing paused squats that day, so I had my butt only about 6" off the ground. So, there was a big difference for me, but again, I had pretty well put my work into parallel squats since that time with just doing full squats as warm-ups and for stretching out.

A quick question for the veterans on here - how does your typical full squat weight compare to the weight you would use for parallel squats (with an equal number of reps)?

 

At one time, my weights in a full squat and a parallel squat were the same, but eventually the parallel squat numbers took off for me when I changed over to doing them as the basis for all my leg work.

 

I eventually hit a 525 parallel squat, and shortly before, I did a paused rock-bottom full squat with 445 if I remember correctly. That was with a complete dead stop at bottom as I was testing paused squats that day, so I had my butt only about 6" off the ground. So, there was a big difference for me, but again, I had pretty well put my work into parallel squats since that time with just doing full squats as warm-ups and for stretching out.

Those are some great numbers. I thought I had some strong legs but that is on a completely different level!

After training has given me the best results and I don't think there is any need to load creatine either. The Creapure creatine is what I would recommend too.

I agree that there is no evidence linking aluminium ingestion to Alzheimers, I still personally steer clear of aluminium cookware though. After doing the test of boiling water in an aluminium pot and seeing how the water turns grey, I stopped straight away.

That would work very well, you will give yourself enough time to recover and hit each workout hard.

That is a very good call DV.

Type 1 diabetes is not something to take lightly by any means.

Helmet, Machine Head, Tool, Pantera, Kreator

The split looks fine to me.

My only concern is training 6 days a week.

I would suggest training 4 or 5 days max. and continue the split into the following week.

That way you will be training some bodyparts twice a week and others once, without risking overtraining.

I used a split similar to that, training 4 days per week, for a while and got some great gains from it.

Good luck and post your results!

5. No lat pulldowns? (I did this to help build my lats more, b/c they suck)

I think if you can replace or alternate between pullups and pulldowns it will give your rotator cuffs a bit of a break.

By the looks of it you are doing three movements (pullups, chinups and pulldowns) for your lats, which is a lot of work.

I think two would be enough and make sure you concentrate on feeling the muscle work through the full range of motion.

I would think the lat pulldowns would be redundant as you are already doing pullups and chin ups, I think it is going to tax your shoulders too much, especially as your are rock climbing too.

It looks as if you have reached a point where you have become overtrained and pushing yourself through it would be counter productive if anything.

I also agree with what has been said above about your diet and I would also suggest taking some L-Glutamine, 20-30g per day in 3-4 separate doses on an empty stomach for a week or so before lowering the dose. It will help keep your immune system in check

Have a few days off and you should be feeling a lot better.

Sprouted grains and breads, such as spelt, kamut, amaranth and quinoa are often better tolerated by people with a gluten intolerance, than the more processed types. Rice is gluten free too. I don't think small amounts of unprocessed soy products like tempeh should be a problem but generally it is best in small amounts just to assess tolerence. Nuts, seeds, legumes and vegetables should be the bulk of the diet, along with some varied sources of fats, like flax sprouts and avocado. I guess the key is to make the food taste good, tasty vegan food can win over just about anyone.

Flax sprouts. I mix them up with my spirulina and berries and drink them up. 20-30g per day.

Agreed. I am personally more worried about xenoestrogens in plastics and other environmental pollutants rather than in soy or lignans in flax and so on.

It could be the increased binding of testosterone is causing an increase in production to compensate. The studies I could find showed vegans had higher levels of serum testosterone but also higher levels of SHBG, which can be elevated by lignans and phytoestrogens.

I generally get to about 15 if I try but I prefer keeping the reps lower and sets higher and waiting for the fatigue to find me.

18 on a tree branch is a good effort!!

Exactly, the pay is not all that great and people ask for advice all the time when I'm training or working and I should really charge for it!! Hence the reason I am only doing it for myself! There is not much money to be made in the whole sports nutrition/general nutrition industry for people who are working as nutritionists. Compared to what I used to do (disability support worker) the pay difference is huge but I guess the stress levels are a lot lower too!

Vegans generally have less exposure to dioxins in foods than vegetarians and those on an omnivorous diet.

DV, the course I am doing is a nutrition degree but there are different subtypes, like a science based or a medicine based degree. I'm doing the medicine course and then when I finish that will go on to complete my medical degree, as I have many of the pre requisites already.