In part 1 of this blog, I discussed the changes in my eating habits that had to take place to gain muscle on a vegan diet. Part 2 will focus on the training program I used. Before we go any further, I feel the need to explain something to the novices who might read this.
There are definitely people out there who trained differently than I do, and saw good progress. I'm not saying this is the only way to go, but I am saying that this is effective for anyone. There are other training methods that work for certain people who are either genetic outliers or using performance-enhancing drugs, but those methods won't work nearly as well for natural lifters who aren't freaks. Just like my previous post, if you are on steroids none of what I say here really applies to you. Also, this is written with novices in mind. Programming for a novice is completely different from programming for an intermediate or advanced lifter; the programs will not look even remotely similar. DO NOT try to jump straight into some ridiculously high-volume 6-days-per-week split you found on some bodybuilding forum. The only people that notably benefit from programs like that are guys who have either been lifting for years, or are on steroids. You'll make some progress, but not nearly as much as you would following a novice program. It's simply not appropriate for a novice. I'll explain why when we get into the details of the programs I've used.
I want to make sure whoever is reading this understands something:
If you follow a good weight training program and eat at a calorie surplus, you
can expect to gain about a pound of muscle per week. Any weight you gain in
addition to that is going to be pretty much all fat. Yes, it is slow.
But there are no healthy shortcuts.
So first, we need to understand what we're trying to achieve, and the most efficient way to achieve it. If your goal is to get bigger and stronger, pretty much all of the good novice programs you find will have some important similarities:
1. A focus, almost exclusively, on compound movements. A compound movement is one that involves movement of multiple joints at the same time. If a program doesn't include squats, deadlifts, bench presses, overhead presses, chin-ups, etc., it's probably not worthwhile. A bit of isolation (direct arm work, ab work, etc.) is fine, but shouldn't be the focus. Nobody gets really big just doing isolation. If you do some curls and tricep extensions in addition to compounds, you are going to grow. If all you do is curls and tricep extensions, you probably won't, and if you do the progress will be way slower than it should and you'll look pretty weird with big arms and not much else.
2. 3 or 4 workouts per week, with each muscle group being worked around twice per week. Novices can recover from workouts quickly, and novice programs take advantage of that. Whatever compound movements are included in a program will probably be done every other workout, which means every 3 or 4 days. The easiest way to accomplish this is to have an "A" workout and a "B" workout that you alternate between over and over. No, you can't stick to this forever, because you'll eventually need to give each muscle group more rest between workouts. That's why advanced lifters work out more often with more isolation; they're only working each muscle once per week with more volume rather than every 3 or 4 days in order to allow it to recover.
3. Moderate volume. Programs that call for a bajillion sets of 12 on each movement are inappropriate for novices, especially if strength training is the goal. This ties into the previous point. Novices benefit from training muscle groups frequently with moderate volume because it's the easiest way to make progress, especially when it comes to strength. Advanced lifters only do higher volume and lower frequency workouts because they HAVE to, not because they want to. Their progress is slow. Yours doesn't have to be in the early going, so milk your noob gains as much as possible while you can.
4. Linear Progression. Novices can increase the weight they're using or the amount of repetition they're doing in each movement very quickly. You should be able to add weight or a repetition to an exercise every day you do it in the early stages of your training. If you're not progressing one way or the other, you will not grow. Advanced lifters need to progress on either periodization or linearly on a weekly, sometimes even monthly, basis, because their progress is going to be slower. Again, milk your noob gains. Try your best to make daily progress. If you have microplates available to you (1 or 1.25 pounds), those are great for upper body lifts like the bench press and overhead press. They'll allow you to make small progress every single day you train without having to add 5 pounds at a time, which will become very difficult very quickly. For squats and deadlifts, you should be able to add 5 pounds at a time pretty easily for a while.
If a program fulfills those 4 requirements, it's probably fine. I did Starting Strength for the first 3 months, then switched to Greyskull, which I'm still doing for now. After a few more months, I'll probably need to switch to an intermediate program, and it's going to be one of Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 variants called Boring But Big.
Another important thing to keep in mind when trying to gain weight is cardio. No, doing a moderate amount of cardio is not going to instantly kill your progress and make you look like you have an eating disorder. But you do need to keep it within reason. If you're running several miles at a time, several times per week, it will affect your progress. But doing cardio in the right amount on your days off from lifting will actually help you; the better your cardio is, the better your blood flow is. Better blood flow and good food = more nutrient-rich blood getting to your muscles to help them recover. You just need to make sure that you're taking in enough calories to still be at a surplus considering how many you burn doing cardio. Just like I said in my previous post about diet, don't guess; count everything. Try to use a calorie calculator that tells you how much you're burning in your cardio sessions, and a bulking calculator that tells you how many calories you need at your weight to be at a surplus.
The last, but not any less important, thing I want to stress is this: once you pick a program, stick to it as written. Seriously, don't mess with it. If you change anything, you are no longer doing the program and only have yourself to blame when your progress is not nearly as good as it should have been. Guys like Mark Rippetoe and Jim Wendler have decades of experience in weight training. You do not know better than them, so stop fucking with their programs.
I hope this has been helpful to whoever took the time to read both posts. Good luck.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Bulking as a Vegan, part 1
About 6 months ago, I finally got back to weight training on a regular basis after being away from it for some time. This time, my goal wasn't just to get stronger for sport performance, but to get bigger as well. I've been really skinny my entire life, and I just felt like getting bigger and wanted to see if I could effectively build a noticeable amount of muscle as a vegan who's naturally so lean. As of today, I've gained 30 pounds while eating 4000 calories per day. A small of amount of that is definitely fat, but most of it is muscle. No drugs, no supplements (with the exception of b12, which I strongly suggest all vegans take), no bullshit. A lot of people, especially fellow vegans, have asked a lot of questions about how my eating habits had to change and what kind of weight training program I follow. This first post will focus on the diet aspect of bulking, and the second will focus on the training.
Note: I'm writing this with natural lifters like myself in mind. If you're taking steroids, none of this really applies to you. You can get away with eating like crap and training sub-optimally while still gaining muscle. If you feel like getting on the gear, go ahead. But there WILL be long-term effects on your health as a result. Also, enjoy your uncontrollable acne and testicular atrophy.
First off, in order to gain weight (muscle and/or fat. It's impossible to gain significant muscle without putting on a little bit of fat unless you're using), you need to eat at a caloric surplus. If the calories you take in are more than the calories you burn, you WILL gain either muscle or fat depending on how active you are and what kind of exercise you're engaging in. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about, and probably has a PhD in bro science. Different people will have different caloric needs because of their size, body type etc. But it all comes down to calories in versus calories out. Of course, some people may have conditions that make it much harder to either gain or lose weight (thyroid conditions, etc.). But they are the exception to the rule. The average healthy person can manipulate their weight as they desire. Notice that I said you must eat at a calorie surplus, not a protein surplus. I can't begin to estimate how many times I've spoken to guys trying to bulk who basically function solely on protein shakes/bars and expect to gain weight. It doesn't work that way. You can have an IV pumping whey protein into your bloodstream all day, but if you are not eating actual food that contains significant amounts of calories and other nutrients, you will not get bigger. Macronutrients are important for sure, but you can't just take in isolated protein, carbs or fats and expect to gain weight or be healthy. Taking protein powders all day is like eating table sugar straight-up by itself all day; it just doesn't make sense. This is the part where people come out of the woodwork with anecdotal bullshit about their friend who was at a caloric deficit, just drank protein shakes all day, and got totally fuckin jacked brah, etc. I don't doubt that their friend looked good, but I also don't doubt that they started out fat rather than skinny. Odds are that they built very little muscle; they simply lost the fat because they were eating at a caloric deficit and their muscularity became more visible. They also probably took a ton of supplements including a pre-workout that allowed them to exercise without taking in lots of carbs and fats to fuel them. In the long run, they will lose the muscle if they're not eating frequent large meals of actual food. I'm not saying a protein powder mixed into your morning smoothie won't help at all, but supplements cannot be focused on nearly as much as real, solid food. It's right there in the name; those products are meant to SUPPLEMENT your diet. You don't need a protein powder, but if you feel like it as a convenience, just keep it within reason. One more thing about eating enought calories: estimating is not good enough. You need to measure and count everything you eat, and actually know how many calories you are taking in, rather than roughly estimating. Skinny guys will eat less than they think they are unless they strictly count their calories, guaranteed.
The next thing that must be considered is spacing out your calories throughout the day. You can't eat the typical 3 meals per day while bulking. It would require you to eat incredibly massive meals, and you would gain more fat than you should. 5 or 6 meals per day will probably be necessary to meet your calorie needs while eating reasonably sized meals. I know it's probably inconvenient, but it's what has to be done. So what to eat for those 6 meals every day?
My staple calorie-heavy foods: rice, quinoa, pasta, oatmeal, potatoes, ramen (organic ramen without the MSG, preservatives, and whatever other shit is usually in the common brands), bread, nuts/nut butters.
Other foods that aren't as calorie-heavy, but good for you: fruit, vegetables (especially leafy greens)
Notice something about my staples? With the exception of nuts and vegetables, everything I eat is high in carbohydrates. I get maybe 400 calories per day from nuts and vegetables combined, and the other 3600 or so mainly from various sources of carbs. But aren't carbs are the enemy, and you'll get fat!? WRONG. Fact: every muscle fiber in the human body is fueled by sugar. If there is no sugar to be used, the body then turns to other substances that it has available, and that process is wasteful and inefficient. If you have celiac disease, you can still eat several of the foods I mentioned; they're gluten-free. If carbs made you fat, the majority of vegans would be fat. Why aren't they?
My macro ratios are something like this:
70% carbs
15% fats
15% protein
My rant about low-carb diets:
I 100% guarantee that anyone who eats low-carb either doesn't work out, works out lightly while eating few calories and is nowhere near any decent level of fitness (there is a difference between being thin and being fit), or is fit and operates on stimulants, usually caffeine. Why are carbs better than stimulants? Because you can use them as a regular fuel source without eventually getting adrenal exhaustion. You need carbs, and plenty of them. The idea that sugar should be considered a drug that's just as bad for you as cocaine is some of the most euphoric fedora-tipping bullshit I've ever heard in my life.
All of the low-carb gurus:
1. do not have a PhD in nutritional science, so why the fuck would you listen to a word they say about diet when there are more qualified individuals to listen to?
2. have no significant data to support their claims
3. are the vocal minority in the scientific community. Everyone truly qualified to give their opinion on diet unanimously disagrees with them.
4. are not fit. There are a couple of exceptions, but the vast majority of them are out of shape. The ones who are fit are not actually eating the diet they claim. Atkins, the original king of low-carb, had a history of hypertension and heart disease, and was fat as fuck when he died.
5. ARE FUCKING HYPOCRITES. They go on and on about how low-carb is natural. "Cavemen ate low-carb! Grains are poison! Processed foods of any kind are bad for you! .....but buy our whey protein and other assorted supplements, which are obviously processed but they're different because we said so." Follow the money.
By the way, the best available evidence shows that ancient humans ate tiger nuts (which contain lots of STARCH) as a main calorie source. http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/01/10/real-caveman-diet-research-shows-ancient-man-feasted-mainly-on-tiger-nuts/ (fuck Fox news, but it was the first result of a google search)
Now that I got that rant out of the way.....that's pretty much it for diet. Next, I'll go into some detail about the how's and why's of the weight training program I use.
Note: I'm writing this with natural lifters like myself in mind. If you're taking steroids, none of this really applies to you. You can get away with eating like crap and training sub-optimally while still gaining muscle. If you feel like getting on the gear, go ahead. But there WILL be long-term effects on your health as a result. Also, enjoy your uncontrollable acne and testicular atrophy.
First off, in order to gain weight (muscle and/or fat. It's impossible to gain significant muscle without putting on a little bit of fat unless you're using), you need to eat at a caloric surplus. If the calories you take in are more than the calories you burn, you WILL gain either muscle or fat depending on how active you are and what kind of exercise you're engaging in. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about, and probably has a PhD in bro science. Different people will have different caloric needs because of their size, body type etc. But it all comes down to calories in versus calories out. Of course, some people may have conditions that make it much harder to either gain or lose weight (thyroid conditions, etc.). But they are the exception to the rule. The average healthy person can manipulate their weight as they desire. Notice that I said you must eat at a calorie surplus, not a protein surplus. I can't begin to estimate how many times I've spoken to guys trying to bulk who basically function solely on protein shakes/bars and expect to gain weight. It doesn't work that way. You can have an IV pumping whey protein into your bloodstream all day, but if you are not eating actual food that contains significant amounts of calories and other nutrients, you will not get bigger. Macronutrients are important for sure, but you can't just take in isolated protein, carbs or fats and expect to gain weight or be healthy. Taking protein powders all day is like eating table sugar straight-up by itself all day; it just doesn't make sense. This is the part where people come out of the woodwork with anecdotal bullshit about their friend who was at a caloric deficit, just drank protein shakes all day, and got totally fuckin jacked brah, etc. I don't doubt that their friend looked good, but I also don't doubt that they started out fat rather than skinny. Odds are that they built very little muscle; they simply lost the fat because they were eating at a caloric deficit and their muscularity became more visible. They also probably took a ton of supplements including a pre-workout that allowed them to exercise without taking in lots of carbs and fats to fuel them. In the long run, they will lose the muscle if they're not eating frequent large meals of actual food. I'm not saying a protein powder mixed into your morning smoothie won't help at all, but supplements cannot be focused on nearly as much as real, solid food. It's right there in the name; those products are meant to SUPPLEMENT your diet. You don't need a protein powder, but if you feel like it as a convenience, just keep it within reason. One more thing about eating enought calories: estimating is not good enough. You need to measure and count everything you eat, and actually know how many calories you are taking in, rather than roughly estimating. Skinny guys will eat less than they think they are unless they strictly count their calories, guaranteed.
The next thing that must be considered is spacing out your calories throughout the day. You can't eat the typical 3 meals per day while bulking. It would require you to eat incredibly massive meals, and you would gain more fat than you should. 5 or 6 meals per day will probably be necessary to meet your calorie needs while eating reasonably sized meals. I know it's probably inconvenient, but it's what has to be done. So what to eat for those 6 meals every day?
My staple calorie-heavy foods: rice, quinoa, pasta, oatmeal, potatoes, ramen (organic ramen without the MSG, preservatives, and whatever other shit is usually in the common brands), bread, nuts/nut butters.
Other foods that aren't as calorie-heavy, but good for you: fruit, vegetables (especially leafy greens)
Notice something about my staples? With the exception of nuts and vegetables, everything I eat is high in carbohydrates. I get maybe 400 calories per day from nuts and vegetables combined, and the other 3600 or so mainly from various sources of carbs. But aren't carbs are the enemy, and you'll get fat!? WRONG. Fact: every muscle fiber in the human body is fueled by sugar. If there is no sugar to be used, the body then turns to other substances that it has available, and that process is wasteful and inefficient. If you have celiac disease, you can still eat several of the foods I mentioned; they're gluten-free. If carbs made you fat, the majority of vegans would be fat. Why aren't they?
My macro ratios are something like this:
70% carbs
15% fats
15% protein
My rant about low-carb diets:
I 100% guarantee that anyone who eats low-carb either doesn't work out, works out lightly while eating few calories and is nowhere near any decent level of fitness (there is a difference between being thin and being fit), or is fit and operates on stimulants, usually caffeine. Why are carbs better than stimulants? Because you can use them as a regular fuel source without eventually getting adrenal exhaustion. You need carbs, and plenty of them. The idea that sugar should be considered a drug that's just as bad for you as cocaine is some of the most euphoric fedora-tipping bullshit I've ever heard in my life.
All of the low-carb gurus:
1. do not have a PhD in nutritional science, so why the fuck would you listen to a word they say about diet when there are more qualified individuals to listen to?
2. have no significant data to support their claims
3. are the vocal minority in the scientific community. Everyone truly qualified to give their opinion on diet unanimously disagrees with them.
4. are not fit. There are a couple of exceptions, but the vast majority of them are out of shape. The ones who are fit are not actually eating the diet they claim. Atkins, the original king of low-carb, had a history of hypertension and heart disease, and was fat as fuck when he died.
5. ARE FUCKING HYPOCRITES. They go on and on about how low-carb is natural. "Cavemen ate low-carb! Grains are poison! Processed foods of any kind are bad for you! .....but buy our whey protein and other assorted supplements, which are obviously processed but they're different because we said so." Follow the money.
By the way, the best available evidence shows that ancient humans ate tiger nuts (which contain lots of STARCH) as a main calorie source. http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/01/10/real-caveman-diet-research-shows-ancient-man-feasted-mainly-on-tiger-nuts/ (fuck Fox news, but it was the first result of a google search)
Now that I got that rant out of the way.....that's pretty much it for diet. Next, I'll go into some detail about the how's and why's of the weight training program I use.
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