medman

My only advice would be to put it somewhere after, rather than before, the day you do your deadlifts. I'd want to make sure my grip wasn't tired before deadlift day started! Maybe others might have more recommendations.

Yes, that water contains a lot of salt (probably why it tastes so good to many). Yes, cooking dry beans is an awesome and delicious and economical alternative to canned beans, and is well worth a shot. You may fall in love

Flax seed oil is...an oil. It's pure fat. So it has neither protein, nor low calories or fat. It's got a ton of omegas, with a ratio highly biased toward omega-3 compared to most sources.It won't give you any of the things it sounds like you're looking for. If you want a high-protein, low-calorie additive for your shake, you don't have many vegan options beyond the various sorts of protein powders (hemp/pea/soy/brown rice being the 4 most common picks).

VE is right. Don't do ANYTHING that strains your core muscles. The "no lifting over 20 lbs for 4 weeks" advice is also generally meant for people who might carry grocery bags, or a laundry basket. It does NOT mean that you're ready to start heavy weight training after a month. When you start back up, you'll have to start up very gently and still avoid exercises that really strain your core (like deadlifts or squats). You've had a hole in your abdominal wall sutured shut, and if you open it by straining your abdominal muscles before it's fully healed, it will pop right back open. Did they put in a mesh when they repaired it?

I just did my urology rotation. Not once did I ever hear a urologist tell a man with BPH or prostate cancer to avoid flax. There just isn't evidence to support that.

In the strictest sense, bees are animals, so no - honey is not vegan. In reality, plenty of people who call themselves vegan are comfortable eating honey. Some people think this means they're not "real" vegans. One has to decide for themselves whether or not they feel honey is morally justifiable, just as they did with meat/dairy/eggs. I'd say being morally comfortable with what you eat is more important than labels like "does this make me an official vegan?"

The worst triggers are foods that relax the GES (the sphincter that prevents reflux from the stomach). Those include peppermint, chocolate and alcohol. Next worst are things that promote acidity. #1 on this list is caffeine, which stimulates production of acid in the stomach. Cut out all coffee, pop and tea that contains caffeine. Next up are acidic and spicy foods. Tomato, citrus, hot peppers. Making sure you don't eat within 2 hours of lying down is also a big factor. Put blocks under the legs of your bed at the head so that it's elevated by 30 degrees. I have GERD myself and these are the lifestyle modifications I tell my patients to take. However, don't try to be a hero and avoid medication "just because". You'll be setting yourself up for possible esophageal cancer later in life, which is a truly horrific disease. If lifestyle modifications don't make you asymptomatic, you need medication - not just for comfort, but to reduce the risk of cancer.

Just a quick update to show you all that I'm still alive. 80-hour work weeks + studying for exams + trying to have a life = going to the gym a bit less than I'd like (twice a week usually). I basically had 6 months from September-March where I made no progress due to an injury and subsequent rehab/reconditioning, but I'm back to full health and hitting PRs again. Working on upping the cardio - want to drop some body fat. In any case, here is some progress combined with ridiculous faces. My back has definitely widened a bit and I've gained some mass pretty evenly throughout... http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v24/strat_man9/progress/Photoon2011-06-01at0026.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v24/strat_man9/progress/Photoon2011-06-01at0028.jpg For comparison's sake, here I am about 18 months ago: http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p437/mbene085/StrongLifts/Photoon2009-12-02at0245.jpg http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p437/mbene085/StrongLifts/Photoon2009-12-02at0247.jpg

Wow, I didn't realize there was anyone on this board in the Ottawa region. I'm pretty sure Lobsteriffic lives in the US now though, so this is a fair bit of a necropost...

Glad to see you're keeping up with your lifting despite things getting so busy. Also glad to hear the business is going well. As always, I'm impressed by your numbers!

I think a lot of people on this forum would disagree with you. We have many a bodybuilder, powerlifter, strongman and figure competitor on this forum who have built their muscle on a legume-based diet. My deadlift had gone from 135 to 300 in just over a year, and the vast majority of my protein comes from legumes.

Working your legs will tone them, but the only things that reduce fat are cardio, dieting, and surgery. I assume nobody here is a fan of lipo, so that leaves cardio and diet. There is no such thing as spot reduction...everyone is genetically programmed to lose "last" from a specific area, in your case it's the lower body. Uppig cardio and working on your diet are the only things you can do about losing fat.

You are definitely right - my shoulders and lats are extremely tight. I'm working on improving that. Perhaps it isn't the wrist at al - it's just felt in the wrist!

MaryStella, Thanks for the tip. I feel that my wrist flexibility is limiting my form on the front squat - I can't actually grip the bar if my upper arm is parallel to the floor while the bar rests on my anterior deltoids and upper chest. As a result, my arms end up coming down a bit, but it's the only way I cando it right now. I'm doing daily wrist stretching so that I should hopefully be able to get my fingers under the bar with it in proper position.

I don't like to debate anything based on our anatomy. Evolutionary arguments are ridiculous...yes, we evolved as hunter-gatherers, but keep in mind that back in the day, we barely lived to adulthood. There was no heart disease, no diabetes...because nobody lived long enough to develop those conditions! So arguing that we evolved to survive on meat for 80+ years is completely untrue. All you can say is that we evolved to survive until puberty on an omnivorous diet. Hell, women died left right and centre from childbirth up until the past century. They didn't have to worry much about colon cancer.

Just make it part of your squat warmups. I have a ritual of squat stretching, doing 20 reps as deep as humanly possible with only the bar, then doing my leg swings, and finally starting my warm up sets. It really gets me loose and I totally feel the difference it makes every day. Plus it's a nice little ritual to get me into my workout frame of mind, because I always start with squats.

You're a machine! Congrats on the race.

Thanks for the advice regarding front squats, guys. I'll give it a shot this week on my recovery day. Only two major things. Firstly, the squats themselves. By squatting as deep as I could with heavy weight, I found myself slowly being able to go deeper and deeper. I would add weight and add weight week after week, going as deep as I could....and once I got to a point that I felt the weight was too heavy to go deep enough with, I would deload significantly and re-start the process, only I would find that I could go deeper than the previous time I had been at that weight. The second thing I did was religiously "squat stretch" before each session. With a wide stance, sit back into as deep a bodyweight squat as you can (it's ok to hold onto the rack for support). Hold that position. Then try sitting back as deep as you can (you'll need to hold on for support, this isn't a balanced position I'm talking about), then sit back up and try bouncing slightly, or rocking side to side - anything to add a bit of gentle movement while you're in that deep squat. I'm probably sucking at the description, but a local powerlifter showed it to me and said it would fix all my problems. It did! I would do that for minimum 1 minute before each session, and find it really loosens me up. The key is to just move around in a way that feel natural, while holding a really deep squat. Kind of a combination of static and dynamic stretching. It really helps though. As for hamstrings...that's something that I'm still struggling with! I blame all the running I did, but I'm just a stiff person in general.

Alright, let's get this party started again! Sorry for falling off the face of the earth...September marked the beginning of my clinical rotations, and with them came many 24-hour days on-call, and 80-hour work weeks + exams + trying to keep the rest of my life from imploding. I did get to the gym a fair bit, but was derailed by a shoulder injury from October-December. From January-March, I began going to the gym 2-3 times a week, slowly easing into full-intensity workouts again, and regaining the ground I had lost. I am happy to say that I am currently injury-free and plan to stay that way. I learned my lesson about warmup sets and working on my flexibility (which has been the main issue all along). Shoulder inflexibility is what caused my injury, and hip inflexibility is what was holding me back before that. I'm finally at the point that I can do proper IPF depth on my squats at work weight, and I finally learned how to bench properly while protecting my shoulder from injury. As of this past week, I have started the Texas Method, because Stronglifts worked so well for me initially (for those who don't know me, SL brought my squat from 95 lbs to over 200 in about 6 months). I'm not counting any of my previous PRs (such as 235lbs on the squat) because I feel my form wasn't strict enough, so this is a new chapter in my training. Reading Chewy's log has inspired me to train for an open IPF comp - I'm currently looking for a local club in Ottawa to train with, so we'll see if and/or when that ever happens. Week of March 28th - Bodyweight 137 lbs Day1 (volume) Squat: 5x5 @ 185lbs OH Press: 5x5 @ 80lbs Pendlay Rows: 5x5 @ 135lbs Dips: 3x5 weighted +25lbs Neutral-grip pullups: 3x5 weighted +20lbs Day 2 (recovery) Front Squat (Clean Grip): 3x3 @ 115lbs - weight limited by wrist flexibility Bench Press: 3x3 @ 135 lbs Pendlay Rows: 3x3 @ 135 lbs Day 3 (Intensity) Squat: 1x1 @ 225lbs - PR OH Press: 1x1 @ 105lbs - PR Deadlift: 1x1 @ 300lbs - PR!!! So this is my starting point. I didn't do it this week, but for the record my PR on bench recently was 155lbs, putting me at 680lbs total for the "big three". I would like to reach 300lbs squat, 400lbs deadlift, and 200lbs bench as my short-term (6 month?) goal - an improvement of roughly 30% across the board. As a beginner, I feel that it should be possible to make that kind of improvement in that timeframe as long as I keep lifting big and eating big. If it takes me longer than that, I'm happy, so long as I'm continually improving. On a side note, this week was the first time I ever tried front squats. I'm using the clean grip, and man oh man do I have to work on my wrist flexibility - ouch!

Mine is also my profession...pretty self-explanatory! I, too, will never look at chewy the same again.

Haha. Glad to see you aren't dead or something. Sometimes I would see your log on my list of "followed topics" or whatever, and wonder what happened to you. Not quite dead...but I started my clinical rotations and dropped off the face of the earth as I learned to balance life with an 80 hour work week! Everything's under control now...I think. Hehe.

It does sound likely to be behavioural/related to your schedule. On the subject of B12, a healthy person (without crohn's in the terminal ileum and without an Intrinsic Factor deficiency) has a roughly 5-year store of B12 in their liver. Being vegan for 2 years, even if you had had 0 B12 intake at all, could not lead to deficiency, and B12 deficiency tends to take years to cause symptoms. Just a small public service announcement to try to reduce some stress and avoid getting shots of B12.

Jack Norris is the man. Also, "prolonged spike" in blood sugar is a bit of an oxymoron. High-fiber, whole-grain complex carbs cause a much smoother, milder increase in blood sugar than low-fiber, refined and/or simple carbs (which cause a shorter-duration, higher "spike").

I like Mac Danzig, but John Fitch is not my #1 choice of ambassador for vegetarianism...the guy is the most boring master of lay & pray I have ever seen. He gets on top then doesn't work for any better positions and has ineffective ground & pound...he just ends up winning for being in a good position for the bulk of the fight.

Saulo! Long time no speak. I remember you and your fixie well. Are you still focusing on low weight/high rep lifts?