Kira

thanks for the advice

I'm guessing your knee problem may have been caused by knee hyper-extension when walking? I suffer from ligamentous laxity so I used to have a poor walking posture too until my doc advised me to fix it. You should try see a physiotherapist for your knee if you can, because when your ligaments get damaged, even after they heal they will never be the same(more injury prone), so the best you can do then is strengthen the surrounding muscle to take some of the stress off it; knees are probably the most pissing(happened to me before) cause it's really hard to strengthen the surrounding muscle, in this case your quads, without aggravating your injury. If you can see a specialist maybe he can help you with that. Yeah, so muscles aren't just for functional value and for show, they help support your joints, ligaments etc. That's partly why I'm trying to build muscle; because of my condition.

Hope you can get your knee sorted out soon =)

Hi guys, I'm in a little bit of a dilemma deciding how OFTEN to drop by the gym. When I do drop by it, I usually spend about an hour on all my main muscle groups; and I do feel kinda stiff/aching the next day, but in a good way.

Currently, I'm thinking of going down on mondays, wednesdays, and fridays, with days in between for recovery and the weekend off. But sometimes I still find myself aching on the 2nd day after a workout; so for instance, if I worked-out on monday and I'm still a little sore on wednesday, should I still go down or rearrange my entire schedule. (that means not sticking to the rigid monday, wednesday and friday schedule, but rather, going down only when I feel like it.) Because when I don't actually have a rigid schedule, I find myself slacking off or wasting too much time, only to realize later that I can't find the time to head down to the gym!

And also, I've been hearing a lot of things about muscle mass vs muscle strength(size vs functional ability), so what's all this about and what would be the difference in workout regimes for a person trying to build 'strength' compared to a person trying to bulk up?

At the moment, my workouts currently consist of 5 sets of 10 reps on each muscle group, at 70% of the maximum weight I can do on that specific machine (maximum as in; I can only do it once before I drop)

PS: I do light cardio during rest days.

Thanks a lot =D

I'm from a small island in south east asia. Welcome! And yes, if you believe in the bible the old testament states how man originally lived off vegetables, fruits and grain, and even when they ate meat it was in small amounts or in moderation, unlike our current large-quantity-meat-consuming-society.

No prob And yeah, I think plyometrics would be too much for your knee, its basically a form of exercise that mainly athletes like basketball players do help them strengthen their quads and hip muscles so that they can jump higher.

Regarding your knee; so you can't do plyometrics, or even sprints? An elliptical trainer does strengthen your quads with minimal stress on your knees but that's usually only for cardio. If you're really trying to build muscle mass for your quads you'll be needing to put a lot of weight and stress on them, and that will naturally affect your knee too. You could try the leg press at the gym with a lighter weight but that's also more or less the same movement as a squat. Just try what quad exercises you can do without pain. Hope your knee gets better

As for creatine, it's an amino acid so technically you can get it from vegetables too. Mainly nuts and seeds(the usual high amino acid stuff), so eat more of those and your levels should improve. Good luck!

Hello,

I'm 14, living in Singapore. I'm actually not vegan, mainly cause asian parents have this thing about meat = healthy. I've read a lot and if it was up to me, I would have gone raw vegan a long time ago. But I still try my best to consume mainly vegetable protein, as raw as possible. I hope to go vegan in the near future, and at the same time, prove to my ignorant friends that eating non-meat doesn't make one protein deficient.

My beliefs are that animals should not be exploited for meat, and that vegetables should be consumed raw in their most 'natural' form (preferably organic but in present day circumstances that's always hard).

I'm still kinda scrawny(genetically ectomorphic) cause I only started dropping by the gym this month, thrice a week. I trying to gain muscle mass over the next couple of months, mainly for health reasons as I suffer ligamentous laxity, and need that muscle to support my joints and stuff, but at the same time, for the fun of it

Please give me tips and advice cause I'm just starting - encouragement helps too Since I'm new I'll try to post some stuff but I'm still a noob. =P

~Jason