Vegan strength fail

[Mark Davenport]

Does anybody know if it’s possible for a vegan to get strong while being a vegan? (If so how?) I started to use the Starting strength model with my clients a year ago. The Starting strength method seems to work every time it’s applied correctly except for when someone is on a vegan diet. The most resent example:

27 year old male vegan 6 feet tall.

START week 1
Bodyweight 82kg (180 pounds)
Press 20kg
Bench 20kg
Squat 20kg
Deadlift 30kg

FINISH week 8 (Phase 3)
Bodyweight 86kg (189 pounds)
Press 37.5
Bench 45kg
Squat 75kg
Deadlift 77.5kg

His lifts stalled at the finish numbers listed above and he has left my gym to go to an Olympic lifting gym. (I guess because there are big and strong people there) And he thinks he will get big and strong without getting big and strong.

I’ve had females (non vegans) go from 20-60kg squat in 4 weeks. At a body weight 20kg lighter and 7 inches shorter than this vegan man!

Obviously the fail here is for him to to not put on sufficient Bodyweight despite constant pressure from me for him to increase bodyweight by any means necessary.

He would send me a link to a vegan lifter who is jacked and strong and say “They’re doing ok” each time I researched the lifter it’s a person who has gotten big and strong as a meat eater and then turned vegan later on.

Which brings me to my questions:

Is it actually possible to get big and strong as a vegan? Has anybody seen it occur? and how the hell did they do it?

Because when you listen to what vegans are saying and watch pro vegan documentaries, then look at their performance in the gym, things don’t add up.

Thanks in advance

Mark Davenport
Aspiring Starting Strength Coach

[Michael Wolf]

Not exactly my expertise - Santana or Dr. Feigenbraun might have more to say here, or disagree. But I'd say yes, it's possible to get bigger and stronger as a vegan, but it's almost certainly not giving you optimal conditions for growth and strength gains. So the gains will be harder to come by, less, and slower than they could be under other dietary conditions.

As far as your lifter, were those starting numbers his actual working weights or did you start artificially light? Bench and press are almost never the same, and I've coached hundreds of men at the far left side of the genetic bell curve, and only one of them in their 20s could only start with the empty bar (excepting obese people). So he would have to be a real outlier. His finishing numbers are weird too - it's odd for press to stay so close to bench, and I'm surprised neither his squat nor DL got any heavier. Even a very genetically untalented lifter, in his late 20s, should be able to get more than that. Though that may be a function of his veganism, so it's all mushed in together.

[KangaJoo]

This article might be a good start for figuring out how to eat while staying on a vegan diet This Is the Definitive Guide to Vegan Bodybuilding Every Plant Eater Needs | Muscle For Life, although I'm not sure what you can do if your client refuses to eat enough of any food let alone food that's high in protein.

[Marenghi]

+1 what Michael said.

Vegans have to take care to get enough macros and micros - just as everybody else. There is no magic detriment to it (well, personally for me i would be tha lack of a lot of tasty food options).

But, veganism can - Im speculating with a good hunch here - very well be correlated with certain personality and behavioral traits not necessarily stemming from the diet itself but dragging the person to behavior like that kind of diet and mindset: anxiety, neuroticism, introvertism, low testo - all inter-correlated to a degree. So tell me if I may be right, Mark, if your trainee wasnt forceful, self-confident about his physical abilities, risk-taking, neither was he a former football/baseball/basketball player or worked at a farm or any profession with manual labor? Yeah, there u have it. No vegan diet explanation needed.

That being said - and Michael as an SSC very probably disagrees with me here - a 4kg increase in bodyweight over 8 weeks, meaning 2kg/month in a not-underweight not teenage, not testosterone-packed adult is no reason to not get stronger than that. With his physical features, maximum hypertrophy wont surpass 2kg/month - and guessing (did u measure it?) that at least one kg was fat means there was at least 7000kcal of surplus energy, more than 100 additional unused kcal every day (4 out of 7 days are not training days anyway) to ride along.

You can see for yourself that his strength increases are great relatively - they are just very low absolutely because of abysmal starting weights (and weird profiles, as Michael noted).

Although you simply cant force people to their luck, you maybe could learn something to optimize your handling of such underachievers. And if there isnt - well, then at least he frees up ressources for other clients. Would be interesting to hear how he succeeds in Oly training.

[AndrewLewis]

Looks like they didn't have a bar lighter than 20kg, so it's probably artificial, given that this dude started at 180lb. Just guessing though.

[Mark Davenport]

Just to clarify, yes, the lifts where artificially light to start with because he had zero lifting experience and those weights are just where he was learning the movements on the first session. We titrated the weight up over the next few sessions as he got used to the technique.

Bench press was still progressing on 5 pound increments as the press was starting to need to be micro loaded. So I think the ratios between these lifts would look a little less weird if he had continued a bit longer.

At the finish weights listed the deadlift and squat were really slowing down. (Last set of squats was a grinder after 7 minutes rest) my next move there would have been to reset the squat or micro load. Which I think would have only got him a little further given his inability to increase body weight for the last 4 weeks of his training.

This is a stark contrast to everyone else I’ve trained with some females almost matching this guy’s performance in the squat and deadlift in this time frame.

Mark Davenport

[Mark Davenport]

vegan bodybuilding diet pages etc.

He then gained a small amount of body weight and his squat looked a lot better but soon stalled again at the finish weight. I do think he was trying to eat enough but it just wasn’t easy to find plant foods which where calorie dense enough and I suspect he wasn’t getting enough cholesterol & saturated fat. Also, his build was skinny fat and eating more just seems to put more non-useful ballast around his midsection.

I guess the solution might be to adjust expectations for vegans at the start.

[Suboptimal]

I'm no coach and I know you didn't ask me, but here's my n=1.

I've been a vegan for a little over 8 years and started training a little over 3 years ago. When I wasn't injured or doing lots of running and cycling, I made strength gains on par with what most lifters on this board have reported--both during LP and my runs of the Texas Method. (At least that's my impression. See the first post in my training log for my lifting history.)

Obviously the fail here is for him to to not put on sufficient Bodyweight despite constant pressure from me for him to increase bodyweight by any means necessary.

I concur with this assessment. At 6'3" I grew from ~180 pounds to a slightly chubby ~230 pounds on LP, with my squat ending up around 330 and deadlift over 400 for sets of 5 (although it took me longer than 8 weeks). If your man is 6' and 190, squatting 165, he is likely a bit overfat and undermuscled (the latter being the real problem). I read a lot of Jordan Feigenbaum's posts about nutrition, and tried to follow his macro advice for the most part. I found success with ~200-250 grams of protein and leaning toward more carbs around training times, eating enough total calories to consistently gain weight. Another key to my success was getting comfortable with being a bit fatter than I'd like, knowing that it was only temporary. YMMV on that one.

Still working on getting big and strong, but this is how I'm doing it.

[J-Alfred]

I have been vegan for a year or two, and noticed no difference in my performance personally. I am actually unclear as to in what way veganism would be suboptimal, the only way I can think of is a lower leucine content, which presumably can be easily made up for with BCAAS or pea protein with every meal.

I think there are a few concerns not directly related to diet though, it is worth mentioning that vegans have higher rates of mental disorders, especially (I believe) anxiety and diet related disorders. In my experience there is also a culture of low protein, low fat, raw food, healthy eating though whole foods, and extreme thinness.

I would also argue that even if you did find people who got strong as a vegan, this wouldn't demonstrate the efficacy of a plant based diet, because if it is less effective at stimulating protein synthesis than a diet with flesh, that difference might be hidden by the effects of PEDs. However, I believe Clarence kennedy, Kendrick Farris, and Patrik Boubmian have all gained strength since stopping eating animal flesh.

In terms of diet, I found soft grains like wholewheat pasta or noodles were the easiest to eat large amounts of, and eating 4-5 equidistant meals allowed for more comfortable digestion of the higher fibre and mass foods. I have eaten 5500kcals for weeks in a row this way, but never needed to go higher.

[Alexander Dargatz]

I've been lifting ("exercising") for 23 years, vegan for 18. I agree with Coach Wolf, Marenghi and J-Alfred.

Does anybody know if it’s possible for a vegan to get strong while being a vegan? (If so how?) Is it actually possible to get big and strong as a vegan? Has anybody seen it occur? and how the hell did they do it?

Is it actually possible to get big and strong as a vegan? Has anybody seen it occur? and how the hell did they do it?

It is possible. I know a few pretty strong vegan powerlifters. And quite a few who want to be strong, but are not.

The problem usually is the same as with everyone NDTP. If the problem is not training (adherence) related, it's probably a lack of protein, calories, or both. Some guys are afraid to eat to grow. I know some vegans with weird beliefs,
some esoteric shit, some paranoid paramedicine stuff like "too much protein will kill you, 50g/day is enough". Not the strong or big ones, though. I'd guess not the diet is the main problem, but the mindset.

I'd concur it is more difficult to get protein as a vegan, especially lean protein (without carbs or fat), unless you want to add a lot of protein supplement. But definitely possible. It takes a bit more dedication than usual, though.

Also, "vegan diet" is not a precise definition of what he eats. Could be nothing but chips and soda, could be raw fruit and veggies, could be reasonably balanced, who knows.

My own experience: on a vegan diet, at age 39, I started SS after 22 years of exercising religiously. 186cm (~6 feet 1), 87kg (~191lbs), ripped. I ate like there was no tomorrow, as I had always had a hard time gaining weight (even before on an omnivore diet, I might add). The reduced training volume on SS, the planned progression of weights, the dedicated eating effort plus the slowed metabolism compared to my younger (lifting) years added up to ~12kg (26lbs) weight gain in the first 6 months, now I'm at ~226 lbs. Obviously, a good part of that weight gain was, erm, not muscle, but I can still see my abs. As for everyone, commitment is key.

All in all, I'd advise not to give up on a client just because (s)he's vegan. They need to eat enough food to facilitate recovery, as everyone else.