Vegan Bodybuilding: strength

Saturday, 2 February 2019

The urgency of strength

By Pete Ryan

There are many attributes a human needs to thrive, one of the most time consuming to develop is strength, although strength is not the first physical attribute to fade with age (that honour goes to power – strength with speed), strength can begin to decline not too long after we reach our physical peak (mid-20’s) if we do not work to maintain or build it. There are good points, we can add to our strength at any age, but there are also bad points, strength only develops slowly, with humans often taking decades of training to reach their full potential. This can be bypassed somewhat using drugs, but for virtually all drug-free trainees 10-20 years will be needed to reach their maximum strength output. So technically an untrained person could start in their 50’s and reach their peak strength in their 60-70’s!

However there is a darker side for those who do not strength train. The body is not static, it has 2 states, anabolic (building) or catabolic (breaking down). Everyone goes through these 2 states many times each day, but generally the body is either growing, or shrinking overall. I am simplifying here as you can be losing fat and holding as much muscle as possible, but here I am talking about someone who stays about the same on a daily basis. If the muscles are worked then they tend to breakdown during the intense activity and regrow a little larger and stronger, or they are slowly removed as unnecessary if they are not used. As well as the aesthetic of looking less muscular you have countless hormonal changes[i], changes to bone density[ii] and even gut biome[iii] that all negatively affect your robustness, your feelings of wellbeing[iv], your overall health outcomes and even your likelihood of death[v].

Let’s get down to the basics, the older you are, the more important the need to begin some form of resistance training. The older you are, the longer it will take to reach your peak strength and the lower that peak will be (assuming you started after your hormonal peak around the mid-20’s). However, it is possible you will obtain more benefits by continuing exercise into old age, than you would achieve by just getting really strong in your 20’s then stopping and relying on your previous strength levels to maintain you as you age[vi].

So, now we can agree you need to increase your strength, the question is how? I cannot answer that for you. For me I enjoy using weights and so weights are the way I add to my physical and mental wellbeing. There are people who prefer using their bodyweight, using machines or similar. It does not really matter what you choose as long as you enjoy it. Sure, one way may be better, but pick the one you enjoy and will continue with.

Ideals of strength and power differ between sexes, between sizes of humans and how old that person is. A 100 year old deadlifting 50Kg is probably a good lift (I do not know off-hand the records for the 100 year old deadlift, or if there is one?), however for a healthy 80Kg 25 year old male, 50Kg is not very impressive (assuming there are no issues that limit the lift, for some people it could be exceptional). So, although I cannot, nor would I, offer the definitive exercise programme, what I can do is offer you a general programme and allow you to change or even discard it in favour of one you prefer.

Before starting do a proper warm-up, the older or less active you are, then the more important a warm-up is ( https://veganbodybuilding.blogspot.com/2017/01/older-trainees-and-exercise-frequency.html ). My personal method is:

Foam rolling (you can check out the myofascial release book here https://payhip.com/veganbodybuilding )

Warm-up - I follow the idea of a more intense warm-up than many. For some people my warm-up could be their first workout if they are not conditioned. I will put together something about a correct warm-up soon. I try to move in most planes of motion and go from the floor to standing in a variety of ways.

Basic starter routine:

Mon

Squat 3x10
Overhead press 3x10
Bent over dumbbell row 3x10 (each arm)
Stir the pot on a stability ball 3x5 (each way)

Wed

Split squat 3x8 (each leg)
Press-up (push-up) 3x10
Chin-up 3x10 (if you are not able to do many reps use ‘ladders’ to increase your volume https://veganbodybuilding.blogspot.com/2012/03/ladders-easy-way-to-increase-volume.html
Standing calf raise 3x10

Fri

Deadlift 3x10
Shrug or high pull 3x10
Bicep curl 3x10
Tricep extensions 3x10

This is a beginner routine, if some are too easy or too hard it is fine to progress or regress them to suit your current fitness levels and of course if anything hurts drop it and replace with something else. If you need any advice on changes, videos of the exercises etc, let me know in the comments and of course always consult with your health care specialist before starting any new fitness programme.

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[i] https://www.acefitness.org/education-and-resources/professional/expert-articles/5593/exercise-and-hormones-8-hormones-involved-in-exercise

[ii] https://www.bones.nih.gov/health-info/bone/bone-health/exercise/exercise-your-bone-health

[iii] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171204144757.htm

[iv] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2680311

[v] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2453303/

[vi] https://europepmc.org/abstract/med/9927004/reload=0

Sunday, 20 May 2018

Ever forward

By Pete Ryan

You often hear the quote “I want to maintain”, or “I just don’t want to lose any strength/size”. This might be a reasonable sounding goal and it can often be the outcome in the older trainee, but I do not believe it should be a goal. I will give my reasoning below.

The human body is a dynamic organism. It is not like a car or a bike. If you store it carefully, it will not maintain its abilities. What happens is a body is in two states. The body is either anabolic or catabolic, so it is either growing and rebuilding, or it is consuming itself and destroying unnecessary parts of itself. This is an on-going process that occurs all the time. Being catabolic can be health promoting by removing old or damaged cells, but it can also have a negative impact by removing hard fought for muscle, bone density, tendon durability or fascia strength. Meanwhile we have anabolic effects which involves adding tissue, this can be muscle and lean tissue, but adding fat is also an anabolic event. So, our goal is to create methods that heighten the positive effects of both the catabolic and anabolic processes in the body. We want to remove old and damaged cells, while also promoting the creation of new lean tissue with minimal increases in fat storage.

The best way to achieve these goals is through progressive resistance exercise. This can be bodyweight, or using equipment. Note the name of this type of exercise. PROGRESSIVE resistance exercise. That is the goal, but why is it important to progress, and what do we mean by progression?

Let us look at progression, or to be more precise, let’s look at non-progression. Let’s say you reach a point where you believe 10 reps of 100 pounds in an exercise is ‘strong enough’. So, you always do 10 reps or 100 pounds. If you never go over that your body will adapt to it, you will become more efficient at the movement and you will end up with the very minimum you need to do that 10 reps of 100 pounds. Any issue, ANY problem that increases stress or stops you training will drop you below that level. As you age, it will become progressively harder to get those 10 reps. If you reached 10 reps of 100 pounds with ease at 30 years old, by 50 you will be struggling to get it, by 65 years old you probably won’t have it any more…and you will blame old age. It will not be aging that took that lift away from you, it will be the lack of progression.

Now let us look at what we mean by progression. When we talk about progression most people think of ‘intensity’ the actually weight lifted, but that is an oversimplification of progression. Yes if you lifted 90 pounds and later lifted 100 pounds then you have progressed, but there are other options. The amount of reps done during an exercise, a harder variation of an exercise, taking less time between sets, even trying new forms of exercise that stimulate the body in novel ways and develop new skills, all of these are forms of progression.

Most people realise that you cannot keep adding weight to an exercise (or repetitions). There is a limit, most people will never lift 1,000 pounds or do 1,000 pull-ups in day, but you can progress by cycling exercises so throughout your life you continue to progress and move forward.

Let’s return to the person who believes 10 reps of 100 pounds is ‘strong enough’. My argument is they should be aiming at higher numbers (let’s say 125-150 pounds for 12-15 reps), but not do it every week. They should do a mesa cycle working up to that peak and then move on to other exercises, then return again regularly and aim at equalling or ideally bettering that goal. So suppose you have four mesa cycles in a year (3 months each). Mesa cycle 1 would be get to 12-15 reps of 125-150 pounds doing the exercise, mesa cycle 2 could be doing a variation of the same exercise or working the same muscle groups using other exercises, mesa cycle 3 could be working up to 3-5 reps with 175-200 pounds of that exercise, mesa cycle 4 could be another variation that works the same muscle groups. You can also do variations other than increasing weight or reps, think about the rest time between sets, what you do before this exercise. So, you could cut your rest time between sets from 1 minute to 30 seconds, or if you are doing a curl, do a chin up before you do the curl. All these things will change the results and create new demands on your body. You have more than a lifetime of tweaks to play with. No one will ever have time to try every variable or even every type of exercise available. So, progression is possible throughout life and expect to set goals and repeatedly conquer them throughout your life, go forward, ever forward.

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