Vegan Health & Strength: How to Build a Strong, Healthy, Muscular Body on a Plant-Based Diet

By Jim Gurtner and Raymond Aaron

For amateurs and professionals alike, you will discover how a properly designed vegan diet can be superior to all others for building a strong, healthy, and muscular body. Learn how to plan and easily prepare savory, delicious, mouth-watering meals, and enjoy productive, muscle-building workouts with energy and stamina you never thought possible!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781772773156

Book preview

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Chapter 1

Building Your Body

Muscle-Building Systems

The number of training systems for increasing muscle mass and general physical fitness has increased exponentially since the 1990s. Before that, there was really only calisthenics (push-ups, chin ups, situps, etc.) and bodybuilding. Since that time, a number of aerobic videotape exercise programs evolved at first, followed by P90X®, the spectacularly popular Crossfit®, Insanity®, and many others.

Many of these alternative training programs came about, in my opinion, due to people being turned off to the increase in the size of bodybuilders in the 1990s. The difference in muscle mass between a 70s bodybuilder and a 90s bodybuilder is striking. Three-time Mr. Olympia winner, Frank Zane, who won the show from 1977–1979, competed at 185 pounds, at a height of 5′9’’hardly a mass monster. Through the 1990s, to the present, bodybuilders have become incredibly huge. The first notable one was Dorian Yates, a 6X Mr. Olympia winner, from 1992–1997, at 5’10’’, who competed at an incredible 269 pounds.

This increase in mass, I am sad to say, was not the result of any new training program or dietary breakthroughs. It was largely due to the use and availability of other bodybuilding drugs besides steroids, which had been in use since the 1950s. This included synthetic human growth hormone, and insulin therapies, among others.

This increase in size has generally turned off the public to any thought of taking up a traditional bodybuilding program. I often hear, I don’t want to get big and bulky, when any training program even mentions the word, bodybuilding. However, without drugs, even the most rigorous bodybuilding and dietary program will never approach the mass of today’s professional or even amateur bodybuilders. Bodybuilding, using a natural approach, without the use of drugs, will result in a chiseled, pleasing looking physique: broad shoulders, small waist, and strong-looking arms and legs.

It is sad that bodybuilding has gotten such a bad rap, when it is in fact the fastest, most efficient way the build a physique that all Crossfit, Insanity, and P90X trainers desire. Of course, not everyone wants to get up on a stage and pose like bodybuilders do, but why not adopt the most efficient and effective system to add muscle mass like they do?

There are a number of reasons a bodybuilding program is the most effective method, above all others, for adding muscle mass. Being a highly measured activity, it is easy to gauge the effectiveness of your training program. When performing the same workout over the period of several weeks or months, the impact of diet and rest can be readily seen, primarily in strength increases or decreases. For example, your bench press may be increasing week after week, but one day you are not able to get a weight for even 4 reps that you usually get for 8. What changed? How was my diet today? Did I get less sleep than usual? What was my mental state of mind, and what happened today to affect it? If doing a completely different workout every training session, as many other training systems advocate, it is difficult to gauge what has positively or negatively impacted your strength increases or decreases, and therefore, muscle gains.

A Word on Crossfit

Working in the field of industrial automation, I used to travel the country, commissioning automated fuel management systems and load banks (up to 3 million-watt electric heaters for loading generators) for companies like Google and Rolls Royce. During one of my trips home, I had the distinct pleasure to sit next an orthopedic surgeon who was chief of sports medicine and a professor of orthopedic surgery at a prestigious university hospital. We had lively conversation for the entire trip, where we discussed a whole range of topics on the human body, including muscles, joints, recovery, and injuries. It was fascinating!

Then he said something that I will never forget. In a word, he said what had made him such a prosperous surgeon: Crossfit! He went on to say that what shocked him even more than the long line of patients having to have their bodies repaired from Crossfit injuries, was that after the operation and rehab, they would ask when they could return to the very exercise system that had injured them in the first place!

All one has to do is a search on YouTube for Crossfit Fails, to witness some of the most horrific accidents resulting from max effort days, with exercises that are so inherently dangerous that they have no business being in most people’s exercise programs.

A couple of the most predominate lifts that have become so popular due to Crossfit are the Olympic lifts, the clean and jerk, and snatch. The benefit-to-risk ratio for these exercises is so low, I cannot see anyone having, or even wanting to perform these, except if they were specializing in these lifts, with an experienced coach, to compete in the sport of Olympic lifting.

There is a strong case to be made for the elimination of exercises from your training program that has a high risk to benefit ratio. When I trained on a professional powerlifting team, which included Steve Goggins, who was ranked the number one powerlifter of all time, by Powerlifting USA magazine, at the North Georgia Barbell club, none of them ever did overhead barbell presses. These men, some bench pressing in the 500–700 pound range, with enormous cannon-ball shoulders (which are the very muscles that overhead pressing is supposed to develop), said the risk of injury from this exercise was too high to warrant performing it, and selected others far safer in its place, like lateral raises.

Other dangerous CrossFit exercises include yanking style pull-ups, high-box jumping, and gymnastic ring work, all of which have a very high probability of seriously hurting someone. But even in the absence of these potentially debilitating exercises, Crossfit daily workouts are so random, so haphazard in its daily exercise selection, and so physically exhausting, that not only is recovery for your next workout very difficult, but no one muscle is consistently and progressively exercised to failure for any serious development to occur. Couple this with some practically useless exercises for muscle building, like waving ropes up and down and throwing medicine balls up against a wall, and you have a recipe for disaster, including overtraining, a chance of a catastrophic injury, and to top it off, mediocre muscle gains!

Bodybuilding is so much more effective than Crossfit and its many variants, because each muscle or muscle group is completely worked to failure before moving on to the next body part. This is what stimulates maximum muscle growth. Crossfit and other training programs like it are geared more for general conditioning, and rarely is a single muscle pushed to complete failure, which is a necessity for maximum muscle growth, and also the most fantastic part of training—the muscle pump.

The Pump

In the movie, Pumping Iron, Arnold Schwarzenegger said that the greatest feeling you can get in a gym, or the most satisfying feeling you can get in a gym, is the pump. He was absolutely right! But exactly what is it, and how can you achieve it?

The pump is the visible enlargement of your muscles as they become engorged with blood during training. Within minutes, you will see your body blossoming right before your very eyes! There is nothing like it, to be able to undergo a metamorphosis so quickly! It is a glimpse of how your body is going to look like in the future without a pump. But the benefits are more than just visual.

A fully pumped muscle is being delivered fully oxygenated, nutrient rich blood, resulting in faster muscle recuperation and growth. Not only do existing blood vessels dilate, but new capillaries are formed within the muscle. It is estimated that a fully trained body can have as much as 40% more capillaries than the average person. This is why and how a fully and consistently trained body can achieve a much fuller muscle pump than a beginner. But don’t worry if you are just starting out. It may take several months, or even years, but it is well worth the effort!

The pump can be used as a gauge for the effectiveness of your training program or exercise selection. Usually, the exercises that give you the best muscle pump will be the very best ones for maximum muscle growth. Some get a great chest pump from bench presses alone. For others, it may be dumbbell flyes. Everyone has their personal favorites, depending upon their muscle attachments, length of limbs, and joint mobility. In my online coaching program, I demonstrate some of my personal favorites, which I am sure you will enjoy!

Getting a muscle pump does not have to be limited to one muscle at a time. For example, biceps and triceps can be both pumped simultaneously using supersetting (more on this in the Advanced Training section). This makes the arms look even that much bigger than they would be if you had just worked biceps and triceps alone. For this reason, I have always enjoyed training biceps and triceps in the same training session, instead of using the push-pull workout split, where they are trained on separate days.

Chest and back can also be supersetted for a maximum torso pump that is certain to make you look more impressive. Be warned, however, that supersetting chest and back is far more difficult than supersetting biceps and triceps, due to the amount of energy expended. Biceps and triceps are a much smaller muscle group and can be both pumped simultaneously with relative ease.

It is also important to note that some muscle groups are just more difficult to pump than others. Forearms and calves are the major ones that come to mind. For that reason, higher reps, and even more sets, can be employed to maximize the pump in these muscle groups. However, this does not mean using lighter, pumping weights. I have always achieved a much better pump with heavier weights, even at higher rep ranges like 12–15 reps.

Another factor that can contribute to a maximum pump is stretching between sets. I am not sure of the mechanism behind this, but this seems to allow more blood flow to the muscles, and therefore a better pump. For this reason, it is always important to stretch each muscle for about 15–20 seconds between sets.

Keeping rest periods short between sets is essential for maximizing the muscle pump. If you are resting for 3 to 5 minutes between sets, which is typical for powerlifters, the pump will diminish, and you will not get that full, congested feeling that you are striving for. Rest periods of one to two minutes max are the most productive for maximizing the muscle pump. Any more than that, your pump will start to decrease from resting too long between sets.

Not only is achieving a pump important, but so is maintaining it for an extended period of time. A well-designed bodybuilding program is well-suited for this, since multiple exercises are focused on working one muscle at a time, and thereby keeps the blood in the muscle for 15, 20, or even as long as 45 minutes. Having blood concentrated in the muscle for this period of time allows nutrients and freshly oxygenated blood to fully nourish the muscle, thereby helping to increase muscle growth.

How Muscles Grow

So, how do muscles grow? We know that increasing the amount of weight lifted for a certain number of repetitions makes them grow, as well as maximizing the muscle pump. Certainly diet and rest are contributing factors. The search results on Google, for how do muscles grow, basically say that muscle is broken down, or even damaged during training, and is rebuilt stronger than before. This idea of rebuilding muscle that has been broken down has given rise to a multi-billion dollar protein supplement industry that promises to rebuild all that muscle that is being broken down out there. But is muscle really being broken down by exercise?

As far back as 1981, Joe Weider, who is considered by many to be the father of modern bodybuilding, in his book, Bodybuilding: A Weider Approach, stated the following:

For decades it was thought that muscle cells were broken down by exercise, and then during periods of rest, built up larger and stronger than they were before being trained. Recent scientific research has tended to disprove this theory, however. Physiologists now support a theory that involves inhibition of catabolism [muscle breakdown]… Your body is in a constant state of building up cells (anabolism) and tearing down cells (catabolism). In most individuals, the rates of anabolism and catabolism are balanced, so the body is in an equilibrium. In other words, it is maintaining its size and bodyweight at a constant level… Research now suggests that this [adding muscle mass] is not done by increasing anabolism, but actually by decreasing the catabolism, which makes the net anabolic rate essentially higher.

In other words, working out does not break down muscle tissue to be built up later by eating large quantities of protein. Working out simply inhibits the naturally occurring breakdown of muscle tissue. Recent research supports this theory and explains the mechanism behind this.

On September 27, 2012, John Hopkins Medicine released a news article entitled Hopkins Researchers Solve Key Part of Old Mystery in Generating Muscle Mass, which stated the following: "Muscle maintenance and growth, under healthy, non-injury conditions, have been more of a mystery, including the role of myostatin, a protein secreted from muscle cells to stop muscle growth. Blocking myostatin function in