LongTimeVegan

My one day off turned into two as a result of my hectic schedule this week.

Wouldn't have been such a bad thing to rest my body, but I was eating poorly, which kinda makes recovery difficult.

Thursday December 13, 2007:

Wide Stance BB Squat (to parallel): 135 x 8 reps (warm-up set)

Wide Stance BB Squat (to parallel): 4x8 with 215,215,205,205lbs

DB Lunges: 4x8 with 45,55,55,55lb DBs

(These excercises were Superset with no rest between excercise 1 & 2, then 3-4 minutes rest before beginning again)

Seated Leg Extension Machine: 4x8 with 110,120,120,120lbs

Seated Ham Curl Machine: 4x8 with 240lbs

(These excercises were Superset with no rest between excercise 1 & 2, then 1 minute rest before beginning again)

DB Squats (to parallel): 4x8 with 180lbs (2x90lb DBs) <<<

Lying Ham Curl Machine: 4x8 with 120,110,110,110lbs

(These excercises were Superset with no rest between excercise 1 & 2, then 2-3 minutes rest before beginning again)

Standing Calf Raise Machine: 4x8 with: 120,120,110,110,100,100,100,100lbs

(held contraction for 1 second at top of each rep, 60 seconds between sets)

Only minor improvement in my Wide-Stance BB squat tonite. I was struggling to keep my knees from "going in" on the last couple reps at 215lbs. Racking the bar in the squat rack and immediately picking up those DBs for some lunges is always fun. I actually started with 45lb DBs for my lunges, knowing I would be rocked by these supersets, but once I saw my squat weight wasn't going up tonite, I upped the weight on the lunges... yeah buddy.

My weights for Leg Extensions and Curls are both up, which is good. By the time I finished these, my legs were DONE.

I was a little bummed about minimal BB Squat gains, I decided to try for a new personal best, Dumbell Squatting 180lbs, for 4 sets of 8 reps. This was nice, but the lying ham curl was not. My hamstrings were fried by this point, so no real improvement there.

Finished up with 8 sets of 15 on the Standing Calf Machine. Got some nice stimulation by holding the top position for 1 second on each rep.

Tomorrow is chest, back, and a little calf work...

-Chris

Welcome to the forums, Christoph!!!

Troy - I have been too lazy to open my 20lb bag of hemp protein, so I've been substituting by using more Gemma in my smoothies, and my gas is way worse...

I used to do hemp protein "shots" throughout the day whenever I had a meal that was low in protein, and this didn't increase my gas at all...

Tried this yesterday with Gemma and the results were not good...

I don't know whether my body hasn't yet adapted to digesting the Gemma, or whether it is inherently more gassy/stinky than the other proteins I consume (soy, rice, hemp). I know you've mentioned that you have this same result with rice protein, but for me, the pea protein is WAY worse....

I will keep taking it, to see if my body will adapt to digesting it, simply because the amino profile is so attractive. I guess time will tell...

-Chris

Jeremy,

I recently watched the "vegan fitness" dvd that robert put out, and it shows him doing what I think you are describing with the leg-extension (rotating your toe inward or outward to target inner or outer quads). It looks like a great idea, but I was worried about the stress it might put on my knees so I haven't tried it yet.

Okay, so here's my question. Do you think one can work up to doing heavy sets in this fashion without destroying your knees? Or would it be better to do "toe forward" extensions, then use this afterwards to exhaust the remaining fibers???

My quads are way stubborn, and I want to destroy them on a regular basis, but I don't want to risk knee injury...

-Chris

Zack said:

Exactly, I found it better for getting my bench numbers up to stick with barbell bench, rather than db.

I can't resist putting my .02 in on this one, because I never made serious progress until I switched from BB to DBs... For several years, I made little to no progress doing incline, flat, and decline presses. Dumbell Flys as well. Turns out I was using my triceps and shoulders to move the weight, not my chest. I think some people intuitively know how to stimulate their chest while pressing, and others don't (this would be ME. for SEVERAL years...). I think Troy and Zack are good examples of people who either intuitively get this, or had someone explain it along the way.

xveganjoshx said:

I was f*&kin with 50 lb db's yesterday for inclines, sigh. I just don't feel it in my chest, I feel it all in my tri's. Any tips for chest?

This was totally my situation about about a year ago. I had been working out off/on for close to ten years, and even though I had nice back, shoulders, triceps and biceps, I couldn't make substantial gains in my chest. The problem for me was that I never learned to use my chest contraction to move the weight. The way I remedied this, was by reverting to lighter weights, switching to DB pressing excercises almost exclusively, and by using the following techniques:

1) I would say the first step is to learn to isometrically contract your chest muscles. For instance, press your palms against each other with your elbows slightly bent, and concentrate on using your chest muscles to press the palms together. Move your elbows up and down slightly, and your palms closer/further from your body, until you can feel a really intense chest contraction. When you're doing this right, you should be able to get a VERY INTENSE contraction in your chest. Get familiar with this contraction.

2) Okay, next I would say try incline pressing some light weight... You said you're doing 50lb DBs now, so try maybe 30 or 35 for this. Once you are in position for your first rep, RETRACT YOUR SHOULDERBLADES behind your back, against the bench. Did you get the part about retracting your shoulderblades? Just making sure because I read this about a thousand times from a hundred different places, and I never really explored it.

3) So you're set up at the bottom of your press. I would recommend upper arms parallel to floor at this stage in the learning process. Pause, retract your shoulderblades together, and think about contracting your chest, like in the isometric contraction that you performed earlier...

4) DON'T CONCENTRATE ON MOVING THE WEIGHT! Concentrate on contracting your chest muscles!!! As you contract them... Figure out how to use the CHEST CONTRACTION to move the weight. This may mean moving your elbows up or down slightly. This may also require you to to keep the weights FURTHER APART at the top of the press. I find it helpful to always keep my forearms perpindicular to the floor.

When you find the right combination of "elbow angle" and "width at top of press", you will be able to stop just short of lockout and contract your chest LIKE YOU'VE NEVER FELT BEFORE!!! If you are not experiencing this, please go back to part #1 and begin again...

Once you learn to use your chest contraction to move the weight, you will probably have to go lighter on all your chest excercises. This is hard to deal with from a ego standpoint, but if you really learned the points outlined above, you will be rewarded very shortly.

I spent several years working out with VERY LITTLE improvement in my pressing excercises. I was stuck flat pressing 55lb DBs and Incline Pressing 45lb DBs for A LONG TIME. I never could get past 175lbs doing BB flat press. I tried different routines and set structures, but until I learned how to move the weight using chest contraction, no substantial progress was made.

FYI, I am now Incline Pressing 90lb DBs and Flat Pressing 85lb DBs. Obviously I am not saying to this to brag, since these are not particularly impressive weights. I am just saying that in about a year of practicing the above techniques, I have made a whole lot of improvement.

Hope this helps,

-Chris

I'm currently using Creatine Ethyl-Ester Powder and experiencing good results with. I am getting results that are at least as good as Creatine Monohydrate, without the bloat! It looks like CEE Malate is one of the active ingredients in NO Explode. So is caffeine... It looks like a lot of the active ingredients in this product are available bulk from trueprotein.

I haven't tried NO Explode, I'm a little wary of products containing artificial flavors and colors; FD&C Red#40 is derived from coal tar or petroleum!

When it comes to taking synthetic powders made in a lab, I like to buy them bulk so I can cut down on all the additional synthetic ingredients that they are usually mixed with.

-Chris

There is about 5 grams of creatine in 2.5 lbs of steak -Troy

its said that it takes from 25-35 servings of beef to get the creatine you'd get from one serving from a bottle -veganpotter

I think the discrepancy here lies in the fact that cooking meat converts most of the creatine present into a useless form (creatinine I think).

I'm sure most would be really happy if creatine would give results like steroids -Vegandude

Personally, I'm really glad that Creatine doesn't cause my natural testosterone production to shut down. It also makes me happy to know that my testicles aren't going to shrink to the size of grapes. And then there's the whole acne thing. I'm pretty glad I don't have to deal with that.

To me a banana in winter and white flour are natural, they are not synthetic. -Vegandude

Unfortunately getting that banana to you in the winter requires refrigeration, consumption of fossil fuels, production of vehicles, boats, planes, whatever... There are a ton of "un-natural", synthetic things that are produced and consumed in the production and delivery of food, especially out of season. Even the white flour is probably going to require mining and refining of metals to make the mills, construction and maintenance of the production facilities, etc...

In my humble opinion, the term "natural" is more or less without substantive meaning;

If one considers the human race to be part of nature, it naturally follows that anything a human might do is inherently "natural". In order for a human action to be "un-natural", there would have to be some kind of intervention from a source "outside of nature". I don't care if we're talking about labs making Creatine, B-12 vitamins, or nuclear bombs. This is all a natural evolution of the human race, without intervention from any "outside source".

Conversely, if your definition of "natural" is that which exists without human intervention, then even the simple act of farming vegetables is "un-natural". By collecting seeds and growing particular plants, humans are interfering with, and forever altering the natural evolution of plant life that existed before they intervened.

I think discussions about whether something is ethical, healthy, or environmentally sustainable are great. Unfortunately, debating whether or not something is "natural" is not likely to get us anywhere.

-Chris

Monday December 10, 2007

Incline Bench DB Curls: 4x8 with 40lb DBs

Cable Tricep Pushdown: 4x8 with 70,80,80,80lbs

(These excercises were Superset with no rest between excercise 1 & 2, then 1 minute rest before beginning again)

Hammer Curls: 4x8 with 35lb DBs

Overhead DB Tricep Extension: 4x8 with 65lb DB

(These excercises were Superset with no rest between excercise 1 & 2, then 1 minute rest before beginning again)

One Arm DB Preacher Curl: 4x8 with 25lbs

Flat Bench DB Press Close Grip, Palms In: 4x8 with 60lb DBs

(These excercises were Superset with no rest between excercise 1 & 2, then 1 minute rest before beginning again)

Standing BB Military Press: 4x8 with 95,105,105,95lbs

Upright Rows: 4x8 with 75lb EZ Curl Bar(These excercises were Superset with no rest between excercise 1 & 2, then 2-3 minutes rest before beginning again)

My left elbow was hurting a bit today. I think it was from pressing yesterday, but I also dinged the bone on the inside of my elbow the other day, and it's still bruised, so maybe it's a combination of both.

Anyways, I took it relatively easy today with the various curls, and concentrated on getting a really intense muscle contraction. The incline curls with 40lb DBs was a PB for me last week, but this week they actually felt kinda light for the first two sets. I would have tried 45lbs if it weren't for my elbow. Moved up a bit on the cable tricep pushdown, but was cautious here as well. Palms in close grip DB press is a new weight for me, and it felt good - nice tricep and inner chest contractions. I am trying to improve my form on the standing overhead BB press, and the weights reflect that. I was rewarded with some burning delts (still burn now, 3 hours later!).

I have a pretty hectic day tomorrow, and it's supposed to be my day off from the gym. That would make Wednesday legs again...

-Chris

Welcome to the forums, ProudCanadian!

That is so cool I can't believe it!

Having a successful vegan fighter like this in the media is a really good thing.

-Chris

Zack, you are correct, it is in the outbox. I don't do a lot of PM'ing so I guess I'm a little behind the curve on that...

Tried several times to PM someone, and kept getting this message:

Could not connect to smtp host : 110 : Connection timed out

 

DEBUG MODE

 

Line : 112

File : smtp.php

Usually when I get this error posting on the discussion boards, the message will still show up, but the pm doesn't show up in my sent box...

-Chris

Welcome to the forum Julio!

I saw a documentary once where they attempted to "test" energy healing by putting someone in a MRI machine, then monitoring them as various types of "energy-healers" in another room would "do their thing" (send healing energy, pray, etc...). If I recall, they had several types of "alternative-medicine" type healers, as well as one or two folks from "organized" religious groups.

Anyways, they would have the "healer" being tested start/stop at various intervals, without notifiying the person in the MRI. It was pretty crazy, because the view on the MRI (If I recall correctly, they were monitoring the brain) would totally change when the researchers told the healers to start sending "healing" energy, praying, or whatever...

Now the really weird part is that this only worked if the healer and patient had met each other before. The healers couldn't cause a change in the MRI readings for people they haven't met yet...

-Chris

Welcome to the forum Stuart!

Eating is tough at times, as I start to almost get sick from eating so much, but it's all part of the program I guess.

I totally feel you there man... It's really not that much fun to eat when you're not hungry.

It's good to hear that you're back to training!!!

-Chris

Sunday December 9, 2007

Bent Over BB Row: 4x8 with 185,175,155,155lbs

DB Incline Press (Palms In): 4x8 with 75lb DBs

(These excercises were Superset with no rest between excercise 1 & 2, then 2-3 minutes rest before beginning again)

Seated Close Grip Cable Row: 4x8 with 140,150,160,160lbs

DB Flat Press: 4x8 with 80,85,85,85lb DBs <<<

(These excercises were Superset with no rest between excercise 1 & 2, then 1 minute rest before beginning again)

Wide Grip Pulldowns (cable machine): 4x8 with 160,170,180,180lbs

Decline Cable Crossovers: 4x8 with 60,50,50,50lbs

(These excercises were Superset with no rest between excercise 1 & 2, then 1 minute rest before beginning again)

Seated Rear Delt Machine: 4x8 with 120lbs

Donkey Calf Raise Machine: 4x8 with 225,225,210,210lbs

(These excercises were Superset with no rest between excercise 1 & 2, then 1 minute rest before beginning again)

The bent over barbell rows were the only thing I felt weak on tonite. I think my back is still tired from squatting yesterday.

Haven't done "palms-in" incline DB press for a while so threw that in for a change. New personal best on Flat DB Press tonight pushing 85lb dumbells for 3 sets! My technique for getting from sitting with DBs on legs to laying for the first rep is getting sick!!! I think I could have managed 90lb DBs, but I wouldn't have made 8 reps. Once I "bump" the DB in my right hand into position using my right leg, I bump the left one up, but continue to support it with the left leg for the beginning of my descent into laying position. Maybe this is old news for everyone else, but it took me a long time to really get it dialed...

My weight has been hovering in the 208-212lb range for the past couple weeks. I guess that means I'm still losing some fat, since I continue to get stronger. This is not "dry weight", because I don't have a scale at home and I work out in the evenings, but I do weigh myself at the same time every day, so I believe it gives me a rough idea of my progress.

-Chris

CollegeB - It's the same stuff Vegan Essentials sells... "Optimum Nutrition BCAA powder".

Troy - I can't wait to play with your spreadsheet, thanks in advance.

I'm off to the gym... I'll be back later to update my training log.

-Chris

I just wish we knew what they were and I don't think we will honestly know for a very long time. However more than anything I'd like to know which amino acids we need to make sure we don't eat too much of since eating tons of the percieved good ratios can mean eating way too much of a few aminos that may be very harmful.

This is really annoying because I don't think we'll even have this information in our lifetime. I totally agree that it's plausable that there may be aminos that are harmful to human longevity. Even if someone does do a study on this, it's likely to be done with animals, so who knows how it would translate to humans (in addition to all the thousands of animals they would have to "over-nourish" and "under-nourish" using endless variations of aminos ).

Even if they did study this in humans, I think it would have to be on a purely "supplemental" basis (studying supplementation is okay, but depriving humans of particular aminos for an experiment is shaky from an "ethical" and "legal" standpoint).

I imagine someone could try and extrapolate data about aminos consumed by various indigenous cultures where everyone eats basically the same thing, and lives a very similar lifestyle, but as far as people living in modern society (bodybuilders, athletes, etc.), there are so many variables to try and control when studying something like this...

That book sound REALLY interesting!

Troy, I see your point about the amino totals being the same, combining the same ratio of proteins every day. Really the hemp protein is the only one that has any additional nutritional value (omega 3,6,9). I guess another major reason I really like having hemp and rice protein in the mix is because it causes me way less digestive "excitement" than Soy alone. I have not used Gemma extensively yet, since I just opened my first bag last night, but my guess is that it induces gas just like soy? I am actually inclined to pay a little more and even consume slightly larger quantities of total protein if it will save me (and those around me ) from being gassy all the time.

But back to the subject of tweaking ratios...

This could be a very tedius task as we have 18 different aminos, making up 18 different percentages to take into account.

Will you forward me a copy of the spreadsheet so I can play with it? I think I could probably make it so you could at least manually enter in your ratios and the spreadsheet would calculate the amino totals for the mix you entered. I'm not talking a fancy "slider-interface-thingy" like truprotein has, or something that will figure out the ratio for you, but if you entered in "80%Gemma, 10%Soy, 10%Hemp" or "75%Gemma, 20% Rice, 5% Hemp, etc... I have a pretty good idea of how to make it give you individual totals for each amino acid in the aggregate mix.

I'd start from scratch, but I'm just way too lazy to type in all that data you've already entered.

-Chris

I actually think the ratio is the most important. The problem is I don't think anyone really knows the perfect ratio and the ratios are probably a bit different for everyone.

I definitely agree with Potter here about the ratios being more important than the total amino sum. His point about what's healthiest vs. what makes you grow fastest is another good point.

It's pretty common knowledge around here that it's healthiest to eat a wide variety of foods, so in the past I have applied this to my protein supplementation. Using a bunch of different types of protein (soy,rice,hemp,pea,etc.) may not yield an amino profile similar to whey isolate, but I always reasoned that getting protein from a bunch of different sources is probably more healthy that getting it from just one or two.

But getting back to the whole amino acid ratio thing; I actually did a small comparison of just the "BCAAs" in various protein sources the other day in another post here (some of this is copied from there):

30g Manitoba Hemp Protein:

L-Leucine: 828mg

L-Isoleucine: 492mg

L-Valine: 609mg

30g TP Soy Isolate:

L-Leucine: 2130mg

L-Isoleucine: 1230mg

L-Valine: 1320mg

30g Nutribiotic Rice Protein:

L-Leucine: 1996mg

L-Isoleucine: 1056mg

L-Valine: 1420mg

30g Gemma:

L-Leucine: 2610mg

L-Isoleucine: 1410mg

L-Valine: 1560mg

30g TP Ion Exchange Whey Isolate:

L-Leucine: 3450mg

L-Isoleucine: 2460mg

L-Valine: 2070mg

5g ON BCAA powder:

L-Leucine: 2500mg

L-Isoleucine: 1250mg

L-Valine: 1250mg

Please note that the 'ON BCAA powder" totals are for a 5g serving, not the 30g "serving size" included for the other proteins. Sorry I didn't make a chart like Troy did, but it's late and I'm using a calculator so you might even want to check these calculations...

In terms of finding the ideal ratios of aminos, I am inclined to begin the experiment by concentrating on these three (L-Isoleucine, L-Leucine, L-Valine). I have been toying with this concept for a few weeks, and when I looked at Troy's excel spreadsheed, I noticed that Whey Isolate is pretty high in these three amino acids, relative to the usual "vegan" protein supplements I take.

What I am thinking is that a mix of various protein (gemma,hemp,rice,soy), supplemented with a small amount of BCAA to bring the three "BCAAs" into the range of Whey Isolate... would still allow me to consume "varied sources of protein", but would yield an amino profile (for these three particular aminos) similar to the Whey Isolate.

Am I just crazy, or does this seem like a good place to start???

-Chris

Welcome to the forums Nino!!!

Saturday December 8, 2007

BB Squat (to parallel): 4x8 with 205,205,205,215lbs

Machine Lying Hamstring Curls: 4x8 with 120lbs

(These excercises were Superset with no rest between excercise 1 & 2, then 2-3 minutes rest before beginning again)

Stiff-Legged Deadlift: 4x8 with 155,185,185,185lbs

DB Lunges: 4x8 with 50lb DBs

(These excercises were Superset with no rest between excercise 1 & 2, then 2-3 minutes rest before beginning again)

Plate Loaded Incline Leg Press: 4x8 with 360,360,380,400lbs

One Leg Standing Hamstring Curl: 4x8 with 40,45,45,45lbs

(These excercises were Superset with no rest between excercise 1 & 2, then 1 minute rest before beginning again)

Seated Plate Loaded Calf Press: 4x12 with 135,135,125,115lbs

Standing One Leg Calf Raises: 4x12 with bodyweight

(These excercises were Superset with no rest between excercise 1 & 2, then 1 minute rest before beginning again)

My knees still felt a little dodgy, so I almost put this workout off until tomorrow. I'm glad I did it today because I had great results. New personal best for squatting with 215lbs for 8 reps... Yeah buddy!

Supersetting Stiff-Legged Deadlifts and Lunges is always so much fun!

-Chris

Trouble is, I don't know what the ideal amino acid profile is for building muscle and can't find it anywhere on the net. -Troy

Whey protein is wildly popular amongst bodybuilders, so we use it as a yardstick to judge our sources of vegan protein. Sure it works great, but is it "THE ABSOLUTE BEST POSSIBLE" combination of amino acids for building muscle???

Hmmmm....

My guess is that there probably doesn't even exist a study of this that wasn't backed by someone with some kind of financial interest in a obtaining a particular outcome.

-Chris

That is interesting! It must have taken some time to put it together... Thanks for posting it.

-Chris