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asparagus

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About asparagus

  • Birthday 11/30/1974

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  1. OK, rant incoming. I don't really post anymore because I just don't have the time. Every now and then I poke my head in to see what's up. I am one of those "made gains and then doesn't post anymore" people. I've just posted an update on my log if you want to check it to see where I am at. First off, don't get swept up in the bullshit of other people's idealism. Find out what vegan means to you and be true to yourself. No matter how someone else defines it. Most bodybuilding/strength/etc. forums will bash vegan/vegetarian diets as ineffective for building muscle mass/strength. And it's mostly true. It takes a lot more work and effort to get big and strong on a vegan diet compared to a meat/dairy diet. It is also much slower. You need to commit. Again, be true to yourself. If it's what you really want, you'll figure out how to make it work. I eat the same damn thing 5 days a week because I found what works for me. My diet goes to shit on the weekends, but that's because I can't regiment my time as well with two small children to entertain compared to weekdays when I'm at work. Don't compare your gains to anyone else. Compare yourself to where you were last month/last year/last decade. If you feel you've improved then you are on the right track and keep at it. I started as a Vegan at 175-180# and had only been in the gym for a few months just putzing around. I have put on 40-ish # of muscle while on a vegan diet and lifting heavy. Check my log. Regarding strength programs - they all work, at least the really well know/popular ones such as SS, 5/3/1, stronglifts, westside, cube, etc. They work regardless of where you get your protein, you just need to be consistent. Take it easy and slow as you start out. Make sure you learn the lifts at lower weights and if you get hurt you stop and figure out what went wrong. Take videos, post them to forums and ask for tips. If you post to meathead forums simply don't mention veganism at all. It's not important in the context of how to get better at lifting. If you preface everything with "I'm a vegan" then many people are going to give you shit for it, not take you seriously due to their preconceptions, or insist that it's a hindrance. Don't use it as a crutch - I am having trouble getting protein due to my vegan diet, blah blah. You really only need 1 g per # of bodyweight and you can make gains with much less. Only for the past year have I been hitting the 1:1 ratio, for the first almost 4 years of lifting I was getting 100-150 g protein per weekday with only 1 or 2 20g protein shakes a day. I have also seen some great gains over the past year (~20# of muscle mass added and lots of PRs). The only soy I consume is fake meats I have sometimes on weekends because I like it and my family likes it too. Slow progress is still progress. Peanut butter is your friend but balance it out with some flax oil for omega 3s. Do what you feel is right - always be honest with yourself and learn to be OK with it. Commit to the long haul. OK, I need to get back to work. Rant over.
  2. Poking my head back in. Still at it. BW still around 220-222#. Still doing the Cube for Strongman program. Not a lot of strongman event training lately as my weekends tend to be busy and don't allow for it as much as I'd like. Did a push-jerk in the rack for 265# back in December 2015, could probably hit 275# now. A couple months back I Oly-cleaned 265#. I've done a full clean and jerk for 255#. The rest of my gym lifts are probably around the same, haven't really tested much although I feel I could squat 405# now. My strongman work has gotten better. I'm faster and stronger on the medleys. I've done a 275# [each hand] farmers walk for 120' into an 800# tire flip for 6 flips in slightly over 2 minutes. I've pressed a 240# log and a 240# axle back to back, both cleaned from the floor. I've gotten faster on the atlas stones, I'm sure I can do about 10 reps on a 240# stone in 60 seconds. I finally feel that my body image is where I want it to be. I am strong and I look strong to myself. What I see in the mirror is what I've always felt I should look like. My current daily diet is usually: first meal: 1/2 cup mixed nuts, coffee with cashew milk second meal: 1/2 cup muesli + 1/2 cup oats + 1 TBSP flax oil + 1-2 TBSP coconut oil + 1/2 cup frozen blueberries + cashew milk three identical meals over the rest of the day: 20g protein powder shake in water, 1-2 TBSP peanut butter, ~2 cups mixed beans and white rice (sometimes mixed with millet or other types of rice), ~1.5-2 cups mixed chopped vegetables before bed: 20g protein powder shake in water, 2 TBSP peanut butter on workout days I add in another 20g protein shake with 8 oz of green/fruit juice. This gets me somewhere around 4000 calories a day and roughly 200-220g protein. I'd like to put on another 5 lbs or so BW so I probably need to up my peanut butter intake a bit. Supplements I take daily: Creatine monohydrate Magnesium citrate iodine DHA vitamin-D pill twice a week b-complex once a week Hope you all are well. Keep lifting!
  3. Hey MF - Glad to see you are still at it! That pic with your kids and dog in the cave - it doesn't look like a dog at all! I didn't think it was one until I read the bit under the photo! Those are some nice runs you've been doing.
  4. Hey Beans - Glad to see you're still at it. Get Strong!
  5. Hey Ross - good to see you back. Sorry about your diet issues, but glad you are still at it. I mostly do front squats these days, as I suck at them, but regularly work high bar back squats. No more low-bar powerlifting for me! For me a cut would be easy, I hate eating! I won't be making a 2015 strength table. I don't have the desire to keep it up.
  6. Howdy veggies - Been about a year now since I've been on. To be honest as the site activity slowed down so did my interest in checking in all the time. I just poked around and have seen a few familiar faces also returned from the void - nice to hear from you again. I don't think I'll be posting my training log anymore, maybe just general updates if I feel like it. So what have I been up to? I've been training with the Strongman crew from my previous post once a month since last August through this past February. Couldn't train with them since then because my wife got a job on the weekends and I was home with my kids. I've still been at the gym solidly, although a bit less consistently this past summer. I am currently sitting at 220 lbs BW (100 kg), up from about 208 at the beginning of this year. Last month I started supplementing Creatine, so at least 5 lbs of my current BW is extra water. I haven't done a heavy bench press in a year. Some of my recent maxes: 235# Power clean and push press (I almost had 245#) (February 2015) 500# Deadlift, belt and chalk (November 2014) 320# Atlas stone over 52" bar (February, 2015) 240# each hand Farmers walk for 80' (really slow and dropped it twice; the tanks being carried were really awkward) (February 2015) 275# each hand Farmers handle deadlift (August 2014) medley, 60' each: 300# sandbag carry, 850# tire flip, 400# chain and anchor drag - 2 minutes 9 seconds (February 2015) Since I haven't been able to train with the Strongman crew, I built myself a set of Farmer's walk handles out of wood with threaded rods and pipes for handles. For weights I use 2 60# bags of cement on each handle and then add weight with sandbags. Built the handles for $50 and $10 worth of cement (4 bags). The sandbags I already had in my garage from some flooding years ago. Last weekend I worked up to 2 sets of 60' at 230# per hand. The pickup was slow, but I was able to move pretty quickly. Much faster than when I did the 240# Farmers back in February. Today I picked up the lumber and pipes I'll need to build myself a 12" log (about $100). There's a used sporting goods store in the area that sells used plates, so I'll probably have to spend another $100 on plates to get the log heavy enough. This month I started doing the Cube Method for Strongman. Before that I was doing a 3-day split (heavy upper, heavy lower, light work and upper isolation) which many weeks ended up being just a 2-day split skipping the light work day. I pretty much wrote my own programming for it, with alternating lifts so I wasn't hitting the same thing heavy week after week. I don't think it worked very well for me, so I wanted to go to something tried and true. I'll try a competition one of these days, hopefully early next year. This was supposed to be a brief message...
  7. So I'm going to do strongman now. I worked out with a local strongman team on Sunday (yesterday) and got my first test on some of the events. I can honestly say I want to do this. Started out with axle clean and press. Much different than how I am used to pressing. Between the thickness of the axle and the wobbly bumper plates it was tough. Worked my way up to a max single. I was only able to lock out 205#, whereas I have push-jerked 225# from pins. As the axle got to about 75% of max I was doing continental cleans, which was also new. I definitely need to work on my cleans and presses! After that, there was a bit of setup going on and a bit of a break, then they had me do their rookie test medley - 8 tire flips and then a 30ft (might have been 40ft? I'm not sure) chain drag in a 90 second limit. Since I'm not that strong they gave me the medium tire - ~650#, and the chain was 300#. I finished it in 96 seconds. My time sucked, but damn that was awesome. Then the team was setting up for some medley event testing and while they were doing that I did some 40ft farmers walks. I started light and then did a set that was either 205# or 225#, I don't know for sure. It wasn't timed, but I was able to move pretty well with it. That was also pretty cool since that is close to my deadlift max and I wasn't sure that my grip would last on the smooth handles but it was solid the whole way! The team did a bunch of medley tests and then we set up for atlas stones. They were low on tacky so I went without. The stone was 18"/240# and the bar was set at 54". I tried out the basic movement on a couple test singles, then a few of the others guys had their timed test runs. Then I went again and did three reps. There was a bit of tacky on the stone at this point so I had a better grip. I probably could have done one more. I didn't put on enough sunscreen and burned my arms up pretty well. But totally worth it. I felt great afterwards, probably riding an endorphin high, although today I am feeling a little worked over. I need to buy some decent shoes before my next session.
  8. Still at it. I've been in the gym steadily all summer and my lifts are looking good. I'm just about back to where I was last December, although my deadlifts are better and my bench is slightly lower. My bodyweight is up again, fluctuating between 206 and 209#. My heavy sets at the end of this last 5/3/1 cycle are: OHP 4@160# strict Deadlift 5@415# Bench 5@215# Squat 5@330# I'm still doing the boring but big template, however I have switched the days so that I am doing bench 5x10 on OHP day, squat 5x10 on deadlift day, and OHP 5x10 on bench day. I am not doing deadlift 5x10 on squat day - instead I am doing front squat 5x3 and increasing the weight each week to get my front squat up. I have also been doing hang cleans as a warmup before each workout and heavy hang/power cleans on deadlift days, increasing the weight each week. I think the hang cleans have helped my deadlift along by strengthening my upper/mid back. I am going to pull 500# this year. I'll probably wait until December to test my maxes again, but I will do it. For the past month I have been experimenting with a peri-workout nutrition protocol. I am mixing up a sweet fruit juice and protein powder shake, drinking 1 third of it 15 minutes before the workout, 1 third of it during the workout, and the last third of it after the workout. (Source: http://www.t-nation.com/training/8-reasons-youre-still-weak-or-fat, number 3). I'm not going to use their chemical cocktail, but the basis of this is sugar and protein, which I can easily do. My observations: 1. I don't know if it has helped me increase muscle mass more so than my standard procedure (lifting/eating). I have maintained the same average weight all month. I weighed 204 when I first got back to lifting at the end of May, so 2-5 lbs increase since then - not much. 2. I haven't noticed any "extra" energy in the gym. I feel just the same when I'm lifting as I did before. 3. My recovery has improved. I can still feel the muscle soreness, as I still beat the shit out of myself in the gym. However, previously I would get home from work and have no energy and be practically falling asleep by 20:30. Now I have plenty of energy and can play with my son until late at night or do chores or whatever. Even if this is the only benefit, it is worth it to me. Sunday I have my first workout at a (somewhat) local strongman training facility. I'm going to look into integrating strongman training once per month or so, probably at the start of my 5/3/1 deload week.
  9. Updated. Ladies, that's some nice lifting! Great strength here!
  10. Hey everyone - I've been busy with personal things and haven't really had the time or motivation to check in here lately. Lots of good stuff lately but I've been out of the gym the majority of the past 3 months. I've lost a little bit of weight and some strength, just started back on my program last week. Looking forward to getting back up to big lifts and breaking some PRs.
  11. Hey everyone - sorry I haven't been keeping up with this stuff lately. I've just updated the table for the last few months of activity (which hasn't been much). There's been some movement in the placing, great lifting Mellon and BnB! im.a.little.vegan - welcome to the table and to the forums, and good starting numbers. BuenoNov - welcome to the table and forums, however, before I put you on the table I need to know whether you are male or female!
  12. 5/3/1 Cycle 9 Week 2 recap Monday: OHP - 4@150#, 3x10@95 Chins - 3x5 (these are getting easy) Lateral raise - 5/4/3x20#, 5/4/3x15#, static hold for 5 seconds between rep groups Hang cleans - 5@125 1-hand DB clean and press - 2x5@60# Thumbless grip is working great! No shoulder pain. I guess this means that I am having a form issue that causes the pain, probably due to flaring elbows on pressing movements. Need to start adding more sets/reps on chins. Tried the lateral raises as something different to do for shoulder accessory work. Only bar available for hang cleans had a broken collar so it wouldn't spin. Made the cleans really awkward so left it at 1 set. Wanted to do something else so tried 1-hand DB clean and press - could have definitely gone much heavier on these, they were easy. Tuesday: Deadlift - 4@405#, done as singles Power cleans, from just below the knee - 5@95, 3@135, 3@155, 3@175 Form went to shit on the last deadlift rep. I didn't check my previous cleans before setting these numbers - I should have gone a little heavier this week. Friday: Squat - 4@320# Bench - 4@215# Today was a jack shit day. Needed to get in and out of the gym as quickly as possible. Also missed Thursday, so did bench today. Weights felt heavy, but I had other things on my mind so my focus was shit.
  13. It's been a while. On Friday Jan 31st I came down with a what I believe to be the flu, or a very nasty cold at least. I ended up staying home from work sick the entire following week, so needless to say I missed the gym as well. Last week I wasn't feeling up to lifting until Wednesday and hit the gym for a light OHP/DL session. My bodyweight was down 7# since the 31st, and I felt weak on all my lifts. I had planned to hit Bench and Squats on Friday 2/14, but I thought I was having an allergic reaction to something so I skipped the gym. After eating my first lunch I became extremely flushed, turning red all over. It dissipated about an hour later, but I was feeling off for the rest of the afternoon. After some research, I think it was a niacin flush, as I took a b-complex vitamin with that meal. So then comes this week. I weighed in at 203.5# on Monday, down 9.5# since 1/31. 5/3/1 Cycle 9 Week 1 recap Monday: OHP - 6@145#, 5x10@90 Chins - [email protected]# Tuesday: Deadlift - 6@380#, done as singles Hang cleans - 5@95, 5@115, 5@135, 5@155, 5@175 Thursday: Didn't go in to work, so no workout today. Friday: Squat - 6@305#, 3x10@190 Bench - 6@200#, 3x10@135 Monday went well, even though I'm feeling a little weaker. Was fully expecting to get 5 reps at best on OHP, but got an easy 6 and could have hit at least one more. I switched to the thumbless grip to see if it would protect my shoulders a bit from the strain I've been having. It worked, no strain! The problem probably has a bit to do with my form, flaring my elbows a bit when I press. Although my right shoulder still hurts a bit if I sleep on my right side, so it's not entirely a form issue. I was getting a bit jerky while doing the chins though, and started to feel it in my shoulder, so I stopped at 3 sets. Felt weak on deadlifts. All reps on all sets were done as singles. That might be why my deadlift weights have seemed lower as of late, as I used to do all touch-n-go sets which probably inflated my rep counts. Felt weak on both squats and bench. Considered doing a "jack shit" workout but decided to throw in a few volume sets to get me back into the groove. I was done after 3 sets on both. I was barely able to get the 6th rep in on the heavy sets as well.
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