cs123

First six months yeah. Did extreme cardio (10k a day in well under an hour) from November till January, cut down alot of excess fat, since then I've done about 1 hour free weights a day and inconsistent cardio twice a week at most. I don't have an athletic body type generally and I think lack of cardio over the last few months has limited any visible progression or 'ripping' on my torso also due to regression (don't get a particularly balanced diet and without any cutting things are getting lazier and I'm not feeling as good as I was running for an hour a day), but I do pretty tiresome sessions and think I isolate areas quite well, leave the gym for example on back and tricep day feeling ruined but a week later when it comes round again there's nothing there to rip apart. I do a weeks plan from Monday (Chest and Biceps), Tuesday (Back and Triceps), Wednesday (Shoulders and Abs), Thursday (Legs and Abs), Friday + Saturday (some Cardio). Try to mix it up every 3 or 4 weeks to keep things different and try to add in new excercises when I come across them. The minimum I'll do for each excercise is usually 6 sets including 2 drop sets and a burn set.

As you can imagine my heart and general fitness and body shape was pretty good after a few months of solid cardio and I was feeling really good about myself, now, short of going back to the gym in the evenings (go at 7 a.m. now) and doing an hour or so on a treadmill as well as my morning workouts I'm just feeling defeated by this lack of progress and almost total regression in terms of cardio by now.

Have always considered protein powder, but never thought it would make much of a difference on its own without solid protein in my diet anyway and it just being a supplement.

Bump up your protein! If you're only eating "tiny amounts" of protein, you won't see major gains. Eat more beans (drink some Vega or other vegan protein drink), eat nuts (as long as you don't mind the fat content), etc. There are plenty of ways to get protein on a veg*an diet, but if you're barely getting any, expect small gains.

Thanks.

Hello

I've been weight training at the gym every day for the past 6 months, and have been noticing extremely little progress (the only real mass gain I've noticed is some on my chest) and I think this is down to my vegetarian diet which consists of tiny amounts of protein.

My workout partner has a meat-based diet and has made substantially more progress to me.

My sessions certainly feel like they should be helping me gain muscle, I have reasonable form with all my excercises and have a good understanding of reps and sets and general gym know-how. When I leave the gym after most sessions I can tell my muscles have been ripped apart, I just think the lack of protein in my diet may be seriously hindering the rebuilding of that.

I live in a house with two other vegetarians but as they're women substantial meals with protein in them are rare.

Do you think this is the problem?

What simple changes to my diet can I make to help me to bulk?

I try to eat Quorn as often as possible with meals and beans and pulses are sometimes in my meals.

I am only 17 so I'm not getting to worried as I know progress will be much more noticeable once I've fully developed but it's quite downheartening putting in so much work and getting no results.

Thanks, Charlie.