Vegan Weight Training Blog

I was able to bench press the 95 pound dumbbells for the first time today, for a total of 1.5 reps. After I can complete 5 reps at that weight I’ll make my first attempt to meet my goal of bench pressing the 100 pound dumbbells 5 times. I remember when I first started lifting weights those 100 pound dumbbells were very intimidating. Back then I had to use both hands to get just one of them off the rack. The only exercise I could do with them was shrugs, and I had to use straps to keep them in my hands. Just standing up with those things lashed to my wrists was a feat in and of itself. But now I can actually pick up each dumbbell fairly comfortably with one hand, and I don’t need straps to maintain control. I’m very proud of myself for the progress I’ve made. Once I can bench press the 100 pound dumbbells 5 times, I’ll record video and post it on my BodySpace page. I’ll also put up some videos of my other lifts.

Another milestone I reached (on Wednesday) was pulling down the whole 250 pound stack on the lat pulldown machine.  I used a close underhand grip, and I completed 4 reps in a row, so I could probably actually do more weight than that. Now I need to get serious about buying a dip belt.

My squats went very well today. I have been staying at 245 pounds for the past few weeks because I didn’t feel like I was in full control of the weight. But today I really focused, and I felt like I had much better control. Previously, it was like there was a "hole" in my mental execution of the lift. At the bottom of the motion just after going below parallel, I would lose a good deal of conscious awareness of just which muscles were doing the work. I think it was fear of all that weight, and uncertainty in my own ability to handle it. After entering that zone with the weight, I’d "wish" it back up more than lift it back up. Each successful rep was either a miracle or an accident. But that’s not the way I want to lift, so I’m working on consciously maintaining tension and control through every aspect of the exercise.

My back is 100% pain-free (except for the good pain of muscle soreness) after Wednesday’s deadlifts. Without me even noticing, my deadlift form had slowly drifted from excellent to poor over the months. So I’ve lowered the weight, I’ve corrected my form, and I’ve added some exercises to keep that from happening again.

I was scheduled to try for 360 pounds today, but in light of my recent back pain I didn’t go for it. Instead, I did an extra light set, then the increasingly heavy sets I was scheduled to do, without the final set. So I did sets of 5 at 130, 220, 265, then 300 pounds. I was extra careful about my form. It seems that I have very little leeway with regard to how straight my lower back can be during deadlifts. I must keep it 100 percent straight (even a little arched), because if I let it become even the slightest bit rounded the pain kicks in. It is easy to lose concentration for a split second and let it round, but today I did all my reps perfectly. It has been a few hours, and I am in no more pain than I was before I deadlifted, so I’m sure the problem was my form.

I believe I need to do two things in order to continue progressing with the deadlift: get better conscious control over the muscles in my lower back, and increase the flexibility of my hamstrings. To strengthen the neuromuscular pathways from my brain to my lower back, I’m going to add some Supermans and some Hyperextension Bench exercises into my regimen. To increase the flexibility of my hamstrings I’m going to continue doing the stretches I recently added to my stretching regimen. Tight hamstrings cause your back to round when you squat down to pick up the bar.

I’ve always stretched after my workouts, and I’ve always included hamstring stretches, but I’m going to be more aggressive with those stretches from now on. The ones I’ve recently added involve laying on your back, looping a towel around one calf, then sticking your leg straight up and pulling on the towel. I use the belt from a terrycloth robe, and it works even better than a towel. I do one version with the belt wrapped around my calf, and one with the belt under my foot like a stirrup. That one is really intense.

I’ve been using that same belt to do the rotator cuff stretches I wrote about a while ago. I’ve been doing those stretches every night before bed since 3/20, missing only 2 nights since then. I’ve gained measurable flexibility from the stretches, and they’ve been amazingly helpful in reducing rotator cuff pain. I used to be wary of making quick or uncontrolled movements with my arms, because of the pain in my rotator cuffs. It was especially bad at night when I was laying in bed. But now that pain has been nearly eliminated.

Luckily I was wearing stretchy UnderArmor pants, so it wasn’t like my ass was hanging out. But I think some people might have heard them rip. I’m surprised this never happened to me before. I think it’s time to get some Speedo-type underwear.

Also, my body weight is up to 174 pounds! That means I’ve gained 30 pounds since I started–and it’s nearly all muscle.

Back before I reset my squat form, the most weight I was able to do was 240 pounds. Today I did 245×3, and my form was very good (at least on the first two reps). I’m going as deep as possible–deep enough to finally get that "bounce" out of the lower part of the motion that is mentioned in Starting Strength. I feel really good about that, because now I’m doing squats with a complete range of motion. As far as weight goes, my squat has always lagged behind my other lifts, but hopefully this upward trend is going to continue uninterrupted. Squats are my number one priority at the gym right now.

I’ve been straining my lower spine with my deadlifts, so I need to be more careful with the form. It may be that I’m trying to deadlift too much weight, as well. I’m going to skip my last (heaviest) set of deadlifts next week, and drop down to 350 for the final set the week after next. I’d like to see a strength coach at some point, in order to get some feedback on my deadlifting form. I really thought it was solid, because I deadlifted for over a year with absolutely zero pain. Then all of the sudden a few weeks ago I tweaked my back on a light set of deadlifts. (A warmup set!) I took it easy the week after that, then I went heavy again and it felt fine. So I added 5 pounds the next week (which was this Wednesday) and despite focusing on my form, I managed to strain my lower back again.

My back and my knee are at about 95% now. They were hurting for days and days with no improvement, then they both got better practically overnight–right after my previous BodyBlog entry. I think it was due to the amount of rest I got during this break. I took long naps, ate a lot of good food, and tried not to worry too much about being out of the gym and losing ground on my lifts.

I believe the reason I injured my back during the overhead press was twofold: I wasn’t tightening my abs sufficiently during the lift, and I didn’t have enough flexibility in my shoulders. By failing to really flex my abs, I was not stabilizing my back. I was pushing my lower spine to the limit of its flexibility and relying on that limit to keep me upright, which is obviously very dangerous. The reason I was doing it that way was because my shoulders weren’t flexible enough. This caused my arms to tilt forward when fully extended over my head. I had to lean back to compensate. But you’re only supposed to lean back at the beginning of the motion, not the end. It was near the end–the lockout portion of the lift–that I was leaning back and stressing my spine. You’re actually supposed to be leaning forward a bit during that part of the lift. In order to lean forward and hold the weight directly over my ears where it should be, I’m going to have to get some flexibility in my shoulders. And I think this stretch posted by Doggcrapp is the way to do it:

"With a large towel or broomstick I want you to hold it with straight arms for the entire time of what i describe in the following movement–a large "rolled up like a rope" beach towel works good but honestly a longer broomstick (without the bristles) works best in my opinion. Start out with it with a really wide grip (with straight arms) in front of you (on your quads) and with straight arms bring it up and overhead and then down and back to the middle of your back–STRAIGHT ARMS ALL THE WAY–this is going to be very difficult and hard the first couple times out and then will be "old hat" with time—-and its going to be painful in a stretching pump kind of way—i want 50 reps each time you do this–one repetition is from in front of your face (all with straight arms) to up overhead and back, and then down all the way to the middle of your back and then back up overhead to in front of your face again (again all with straight arms)–the important part of the movement is the area overhead that is really tight–do all of this carefully/slowly—dont just whip it over and back—if your hand is slipping off the broomstick even with the widest grip, or you cant bring your arms over straight and the start bending on you, you have some serious shoulder inflexibility and need to work this hard and get up to speed (or you could just need a longer broomstick too)–again do all of these revolutions controlled and carefully–push into the stretch as you go along toward the 50 revolutions, your chest will be pushing outward and your shoulders rolling back–your shoulders are going to blow up with so much blood its going to be incredibly painfull pumpwise–Do this once a day at nite as many times a week as you can—sometimes I have people do it every single day—but every time you do it try to move your grip inward (thats the key)—-its going to be very hard to do but try your best to move your grip inward for the next 2-4 weeks and your range of motion with shoulders will increase dramatically and any impingement and the majority of other problems should be gone in 2 weeks–also try to move your grip in as you are doing the 50 revolutions–start off with a stretching but relatively easy 10 to warm up some, then try to move your grip in even by a centimeter if you can for the next 20 revolutions and then at 30 try to move the grip in another centimeter–really try to push what you can do stretchwise once your warmed up here–trust me this sounds easy but your going to be muttering "**** you dante" after you get to your 25th revolution–Ive cured too many shoulder problems with this simple movement now its pretty ridiculous, and this and a menthol rub applied liberally daily and before sleep has cured alot of shoulder/bicepital tendonitis in trainees"

I’m going to stretch like that every night for a month or so. I’m also going to switch to the seated overhead dumbbell press until I’ve increased my shoulder flexibility to the point that I can do the Olympic style overhead barbell press safely and correctly.

The other thing that compounded the pain in my back was simple impatience and arrogance on the deadlift. I tweaked my back on my first set a couple weeks ago even though it was a relatively light weight. This happened because I didn’t settle in, get my body aligned, and get my mind centered before I lifted. I just walked up, grabbed the bar, and did the lift. The part of my back that I hurt felt like it was still "cold" when I did that. It just wasn’t ready to be used yet, but I used it anyway. I almost never lift like that. I certainly won’t be lifting like in the future. From now on I’m going to respect the weight no matter how light it seems in relation to my max.

A few weeks ago I overextended my back doing the standing press. Last Wednesday I felt a tweak in the same area while deadlifting. Thursday I went out for a run, and somehow ended up with a lingering pain in my knee. Now I can’t squat or deadlift until I’m healed. It’s extremely aggravating. My back is getting better, but my knee still hurts just about the same. The last thing I need is a bum knee.

I take coconut oil every day to get saturated fat in my diet, and I’ve been on MSM/Glucosamine for a while although my bottle just ran out. Both of those are good for joints. I know L-Proline is supposed to be good, too. I’ll have to get some more MSM/Glucosamine and L-Proline, and whatever else I possibly can to fix these problems. I’ve added some new stretches to my regimen to target my back, but I don’t know what I can do for my knee. This exercise looks good, although it hurts.

Someone asked me if I thought being on a vegan diet made things more difficult, and I said I didn’t know because I’d never lifted as a non-vegan. But I recently discovered a set of weightlifting performance charts on ExRx.net, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that I am ahead of the curve on most lifts. So I think this shows that a vegan diet isn’t necessarily a hindrance to weight training, at least not at the level I’m at. According to ExRx, an intermediate lifter is one who has been engaged in regular training for up to two years, and an advanced lifter is one with multi-year training experience. I’ve only been lifting for a year and eight months, and according to these charts I’m at the advanced level on all my lifts except for the squat:

The fact that I’ve reset my squat twice after making major adjustments to my form probably explains why it’s relatively lower. I’ve deepened my form to the point that my butt nearly touches my heels, (Olympic style) which makes it much more difficult to lift large amounts of weight.

I was able to do 3 reps with the 90-pound dumbbells today on the bench press. Previously the most I’d ever done was 85. On my first attempt I completed two reps, then I failed to get the weight up on my second and third attempts, then on my fourth attempt I got it up the final time. I was really intimidated, but I gave it my best shot and did better than I thought I would. My goal is to bench press the 100-pound dumbbells 5 times.

My new squat form is working out well. I really have to squeeze my shoulder blades together to keep my back straight, which wasn’t necessary before when I wasn’t going as deep. My knees feel great, as does my left hip joint. (I discovered/created an excellent dynamic stretch that has just about eliminated the problem with that joint, which had been plaguing me ever since I started working out.) My max with the old form was 240×3, and today I did 220×3 without much trouble. That’s a small milestone for me, because it’s two 45-pound plates on each side of the bar. (The bars at my gym are 40 pounds instead of the usual 45.)

I’ve ordered some vegan Omega 3 capsules which I’ll be adding to my supplement regimen as soon as they arrive. Vegan DHA is easy to come by, but this product is the only vegan Omega 3 supplement to contain EPA as well. I’ve been meaning to order it forever, but it’s so expensive. Once I begin taking it I’ll really I have my supplementation nailed down pretty well–especially the stuff vegans can sometimes be low on. I take B-12, Calcium, Vitamin D, Iodine (from kelp), and Vitamin E,  and I have my Iron and Vitamin D covered with my daily multi.

My injuries are 99% healed now, and I’m setting personal records again. On Saturday I was able to complete the Olympic style overhead press with a 45-pound plate on each side of the bar, which was a goal of mine. Today I did a set of five at the same weight, although I had to rack the weight for a few seconds after my third and fourth reps.

My new, deeper squat form is also working out well. After slightly injuring my right knee a few weeks ago doing too much weight with the new form, I knocked the weight way down and increased the reps. I wanted to rehabilitate the knee, and develop good muscle memory to really lock in the form, so I did sets of 20 with light weights for a week, then medium weights for a week. Today was the first day I went relatively heavy with low reps on the squat, and afterwards my knee felt great–better than ever, in fact. The MSM/Glucosamine I’ve been taking has also played a role in rehabilitating the knee.

I was also able to complete five reps on the dumbbell bench press using the 85 pound dumbbells, which is where I was at before my max started plummeting due to a badly planned schedule. Next I’m looking forward to benching the 90 pound dumbbells.

Over the coming weeks I should be able to get my squat back up to where it was before. I should never have to make a major adjustment to my squat form again, because I am literally going as low as possible. When I first starting lifting weights, I squatted to parallel. A few months later I read that it was better for your knees to squat below parallel, so I started doing that. About a year later I read Starting Strength and realized I wasn’t going low enough, because in that book the author talks about getting a slight "bounce" out of the lowest part of the motion, and I wasn’t experiencing that. Shortly thereafter I came across a video of Francis Tournefier squatting 650 pounds with a form that illustrated for me the way to achieve that bounce. I saw that I could go lower, and that it must be safe to do so if he could work his way to 650 pounds using such a form.

December was the worst month I’ve had so far in my training. I took a scheduled break at the end of November, and afterwards the problems started. First I lightly strained both rotator cuffs while struggling to lift 20 pounds less than I’d lifted just a few weeks prior on the dumbbell bench press. Then I hurt a knuckle on my right hand. Then I had issues with both my knees hurting, which stopped me from going heavy with my squats. Then I started feeling sick, so in order to prevent a full-fledged illness from coming on I had to take another break. Then when my knees felt better and I tried to squat medium-heavy again, my left hip joint started hurting badly. Then both my elbow joints started hurting after I did some internal cable rotations to work on my rotator cuffs. Then I broke my little toe on an ottoman at my girlfriend’s place. Then I tried squatting medium-heavy again because my hip joint was feeling better, and I injured my right knee.

Right now my rotator cuffs are (pretty much) fine, my left knee is fine, and my elbows are fine, but my right knee hurts during the first part of the upwards motion when I squat. It doesn’t feel like it’s badly damaged, but I don’t feel comfortable putting much weight on that knee right now. My left hip flexor still hurts a little, too. I hate having to do lightweight squats, but that’s what I’m forced to do at the moment. I’ve repaired worse injuries through physical rehab, so I’m not worried about permanent damage, but it’s still very frustrating.

I think the lower body injuries are due to a change in form without a sufficient decrease in weight. I had been going below parallel with my squats, but then I started doing them ass-to-the-grass style. I reduced the weight before using the new form, but apparently not enough. I need to start at a lower weight (which I’m forced to do now, due to my knee) and add weight more slowly. I also think I need to have a strength coach critique my form. I learned all the lifts I do from internet forums, videos, and books.