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How To Gain Serious Muscle Mass As A Vegetarian Without Going To The Gym

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Depending on your situation, going to the gym may not be feasible for time or financial reasons. That’s no excuse however, for not getting fit. Since ancient times, men have trained without weights outside in nature and were in much better shape than today’s keyboard pusher.

Pushups, squats, and pull ups are the powerful trio that have been historically used for overall muscular development. In many cases, this type of training is superior to weights, because most lift improperly, and the strength gained from calisthenics carries over to weights anyway. This challenge is multiplied by not eating any meat products.

How to gain fast

Training should be quick and focused. Experienced lifters are in and out of gyms without indulging in distractions. There are three rules to follow for results if you want big gains as a vegetarian body builder…

Intense brief training. Two sets at most should be performed for high reps, ideally ten or more. You’ll want to use a variation you can do at least 15-20 times. Rest five minutes or longer in between sets. You’ll also reduce training frequency for recovery.

Nutritious food. You should be more meticulous about eating high-quality food products, since you can’t just eat a big steak and call it a day. I’ll explain more on this below.

Rest. Many neglect adequate quality sleep. You need 8-10 hours of sleep with odd naps here and there. Go to bed early, it’ll work like steroids. Reduce cardio to just 10-30 second sprints 1-2x a week. Rest for two days minimum.

One of the hardest tasks professional coaches have when dealing with top athletes is preventing them from doing too much. We’re not mutant freaks, we’re human beings. It doesn’t take much to exhaust the muscles for growth.

Physiques built without weights

Charles Atlas became the most perfectly developed man without weights and even today, Indian wrestlers in the jungles of India still train mostly with yoga and calisthenics. You can quickly build a foundation with floor exercises alone.

Gymnasts are in wonderful shape, and their physiques look like Greek statues. So there’s no shame in training exclusively with calisthenics.

Achieving massive gains while vegetarian

Yes, I’m vegetarian, but I don’t necessarily advocate it to others. Many mistakenly believe getting off meat somehow makes you more healthy and spiritual, but I don’t concur to this false sense of superiority.

For those of you who want to switch or at least want to have more options other than meat as a protein source, you can consume the following:

Nuts – almonds, cashews, and walnuts increase free testosterone and supply healthy fat. They’re also good for the brain.

Diary – milk, cheese, cottage cheese, and yogurt. And for all those vegan nuts who think it is wrong, one of the first things I learned in genetics class was that all lactating mammalian species have the biological instinct to nurture the young of even different mammalian species.

Beans – chickpeas, kidney beans, black beans, and chana are all packed with protein and combine well with rice.

Seeds – flax, chia, and sesame are great and can be mixed with nuts.

Peas – contains protein and combines well with rice or noodles.

Other important foods like spinach, kale, and quinoa, are equally important as they supply iron, vitamins, and minerals. Combining foods such as rice/quinoa with beans, nuts and seeds, and topping cheese on dishes are very effective ways to easily get enough protein.

Every morning, India’s vegetarian wrestlers work hard by performing various calisthenics and following strict principles. While the rest of the world binges on trash TV, alcohol, and drugs, these guys are getting stronger and maintain spiritual practice.

Personally, I favor calisthenics, because it’s faster and can be done anywhere. I get it done in the time it takes me to travel to the gym, and I get better results. After hitting the weights again, the barbell flew off the floor and I felt I wasn’t even getting a workout from my old poundage. That’s the effectiveness of body weight training.

Why I don’t go to gyms

For starters…

This is not to say all gyms are bad, especially the old school ones. If you can get the same, if not better, results with calisthenics without having to leave your house, why bother with a gym? You save time, money, and headache.

Where did all the barbells go?

Whenever I enter a gym, I’m always displeased with lack of free weights/barbells. Everything is all machines, cables, and exercise bikes. I can’t train seriously next to treadmills or step climbers.

Most guys are there desperately trying to show off, struggling to heave heavy weights to impress babes while they themselves are there to boost their ego. That combined with the pop music, the smell, the dirty sweat-infested equipment, the giant fans blowing dust in your face because people can’t take the heat, the air conditioning, and the big screen TVs, all make it not for me. I simply can’t take it.

That’s what I’m talking about, Vasily Alexeev cleaning and jerking in water, that’s real training!

Visible results that impress

While I was in Florida some years ago, I built up to a solid 180lbs using nothing but pushups, squats, and door pull-ups (wouldn’t advise unless yours is study).  A guy I knew there at the time referred to me as “Mr. Muscle”. I didn’t have much to eat either, a diet consisting of peanut butter banana, rice with beans, and the occasional pizza.

Later, I saw a long lost acquaintance in Hawaii. He commented on my physique and asked if I had been lifting weights even though I hadn’t touched a single one. So you see, anyone can build muscle mass without going to gym on a vegetarian diet as it’s been done in the past.

Over the years, I’ve refined techniques ave the best results and found that two sets of high reps does the trick, the first being a little over 50% of your max and the second less challenging set to avoid failure. Rest two days, and then add a rep on your sets next training day and continue progressing. It starts slow, but quickly becomes challenging. You can read more about it in my book.

Summer is here, so now is the perfect time to get into beach body shape.

Read More: The Most Efficient Rep Range To Build Muscle

220 thoughts on “How To Gain Serious Muscle Mass As A Vegetarian Without Going To The Gym”

  1. This is a well written piece, the variety with respect to diet and using calisthenics cannot be stressed enough for anyone that trains seriously.
    I agree with you on most gyms, I would also add most crossfit gyms into the same category as “feminized gyms”.

    1. I can respect crossfit as a business model to extract money from dingbats…but that is about it. However, I will say with regard to crossfit, bootcamp classes and all the other things like it that even though they are silly and create a culture of incredibly annoying fan boys (as many hobbies tend to) you will get a calorie burn in those classes that is pretty good and since they have become mainstreamed more and more people use them for social events. If this means that instead of going to bars and ingesting empty calories after work more women are going to these classes and doing a calorie burn and toning workout then I am well pleased.

      1. I do a mix of crossfit, running and lifting on my own after crossfit class ends.
        The key is knowing where to go. My gym is good in the sense that they play metal and gangster rap if there aren’t many chicks that day. They also cater real well to serious lifters.
        The only reason I got into crossfit was because half the guys I ran into when I was at Marine OCS did that to prepare, and they (unlike me) were able to avoid serious injuries as a result.

        1. A lot of mil guys got into crossfit and stayed that way and I think you can tell the difference beteeen a CF box which caters to that clientele versus the money makers which are catering to the more annoying type.
          I’ve never really understood people talking about the music in the gym. I have no idea what kind of music mine plays — I assume shitty — because I have my headphones on.
          With fitness one should do what they enjoy most foirst and formost. If you aren’t enjoying your work out you will not remain consistent. That said, the cult of CF is really nutty. I’ve been known to dona WOD or even 2 back to back on my (active) rest days.
          Nothing in the world funnier than the look on a crossfit instructor trying to sell you a membership when you tel them
          That you only really crossfit on rest days

        6. He deftly grabbed a hold of his hairstyle destiny and directed it like a boss. As befits all real men.

        7. Hahaha, I know the feeling. CF is definitely a baseline workout for minimum overall fitness. The cult-ish factor to it drives me nuts too, since all it does is combine, tweak, and repackage existing training techniques. Deadlifts are Deadlifts wherever they’re done.
          If you want gains, you gotta lift heavy with good form and safety, even the “pro” crossfitters know that, and that’s all they really do.

        8. Cultishness is annoying in all forms…crossfit gets a bad rap for it and rightly so but I see the exact same coltishness in yoga people, paleo diet people, long distance runners…..and even outside the realm of fitness in gamers, sports fanatics and gun enthusiasts all of which have elevated their perfectly legitimate hobbies to some kind of universalized heights.
          Crossfit, when done right, is a great way to break a sweat and burn some calories, can be very social and is not bad at all for toning the body.
          As for gains and lifting heavy…that works for sure, but I am a HUGE proponent of volume lifting. So I will hit rep ranges of 16-20. I guess there are some that would consider the weights I use heavy but they are a lot lighter than when I did standard 12,10,8,6 rep movements, 5×5 or other low rep heavy weights and my gains have been significantly larger with far less chance of injury

        12. Torn ligaments in my right ankle on a ruck March (60lb pack on my back at the time).
          Took a year to rehab, couldn’t really run then, so I couldn’t get a waiver to go back. Also fucked up my rotator cuff down there.
          I didn’t really start to feel better until I started crossfit. Now I’m stronger and healthier than I previously was, and my running pace is starting to get back to where I was.

        13. Yeah torn ligaments are a bitch. I’ve done the same. Took me a year too. Ruck marches are notorious for fucking up young men. Typically too much weight for too long.

        14. Heavy metal and gangster rap music are certainly what I look for when seeking out a gym.

        15. Ill assume you’ve heard of Tim Grover.
          In my yoot I did his jump attack book for a while
          Very serious stuff.
          Lots of fun too.
          . .
          I recommend reading up. If not to follow. Just to gain some extra knowledge.

        1. Agreed, but that said I would much rather see a woman who goes to crossfit after work than one who goes to happy hour.

        2. Pretty sure ol’ Jesus didn’t have wheels at the bottom to help him slog along. Just a hunch.

        6. obviously scary exceptions and I would bet dollars to doughnuts that these girls don’t just train hard, the Tren hard and that they are well…..Test……ed if you know what I mean. I think I can actually see an HGH brand trademark on at least two of them. However, there are plenty of girls who go to a CF box just to get a good sweat on and be social with other people rather than go inhale sugary alcohol drinks after work and they are going to generally be much better looking

        7. Thick obliques and delts – dead giveaway, and the GH gut – always a nice touch!

        8. Damn… Staying fit is one thing, but losing all femininity – I’ll never get it. I can’t picture any of these (women) in a sexy summer dress, And heels…

        9. Guaran-fucking-teed the one in the lower left is a dyke. The face and hair give it away.
          The rest, even if straight, are just gross.

  2. I’m going to have to sorta “disagree” with you here.
    When looking to countries to emulate for fitness, yes look to Russia.
    But India seriously? Fucking INDIA?
    India has won LESS THAN 30 Olympic medals EVER!!
    And most of their medals come from such badass manly sports as Badminton, Field Hockey and Air Rifle.
    Sorry, I just had to giggle.
    Ya, India is shitty, disgusting and everyone stinks so just surviving in a shit-hole with more cell phones than toilets is a genetic and athletic accomplishment. But truly, come on. You lost me at India

  3. Claim your man space at the gym!
    As part of a cross-fit upgrade, my gym replaced all the nautilus type machines on one floor with a group exercise area with kettlebells, etc. They also got a heavy sack for some reason. This area is also right next to the studio room. Now at least once a week, the noon yoga class has to hear me take out work aggression with roundhouses throughout their practice.

  4. That vegetarian diet is almost exactly what I eat. For exercise, I do Frank Medrano’s calisthenics. So far, it’s been working quite well. I lost 15 kg in 3 months.

    1. The vegetarian diet above is pretty much what I eat minus the grains and beans and with a couple pounds of meat every day.

  5. While I admit that I read this article with a look on my face somewhere between dubious and condescending, it was, I admit, well written and interesting to see this point of view expressed so well.
    I will say that it is unfair to use planet fitness as an example of gyms. The people at planet fitness are very smart. They realized that the real money at gyms in not made on people like me who show up every day, twice a day, 3-4 hours a day, are rough on equipment, leave blood in the knurling of bars etc…the money is made on the people who sign up for an annual contract automatically debited from their CC in January and then never show up and pay for nothing. Planet fitness isn’t there to get you in shape, they are there to make money on people who want to say they are going to do something about it and they will start next week….as such it is an incredibly profitable enterprise.
    Are gyms getting a little feminized as the author points out? Yeah, sure. Many of them are. However, I go to a gym that has 8 benches, 16 dumbbell benches which are adjustable, 6 squat racks and 2 dead lift stations on top of all the cardio equiptment and the machines and everything else. Out dumbbells go up to 150 lbs and they allow chalk. Now I go to a pricier gym because I like the amenities, convenience, number of hot women who go there and the fact that it is freaking spotless…but I can give you a list of 10 gyms you can join for as low as 40/month going all the way up to 250 a month and everything inbetween where you will get a good workout.
    As for the preening and pussy begging of other men, I would suggest the same advice I give newbies who are intimated by people lifting heavy….put your headphones on and play your own game and stop paying so much attention to what other people do.
    Now if you will excuse me, it is lunch time and I have 1.5 pounds of chicken and a spinach salad with hardboiled eggs, bacon and walnuts to eat.

    1. I will say that it is unfair to use planet fitness as an example of gyms.

      That was my immediate gut reaction too. It’s like saying that you can’t eat any beef, because McDonalds.

    2. “put your headphones on and play your own game and stop paying so much attention to what other people do.”
      That wisdom is applicable to most of life.
      I hate the Planet Fitness business model, but when I just got out of school and was short on cash, $29/month was affordable. It was empty 6 a.m. and had enough free weights to get a decent workout.

      1. Hey if it’s what you can afford and it’s there than it’s better than nothing and you can always just block out the idiots

      2. Probably empty all day every day except for when they’re handing out the free pizza…

      3. Just go when it’s not busy. And don’t stare too long at the women. Of course it’s Planet Fitness so you won’t see much eye candy.

        1. Got your point but just wanted to say, what’s there to “stare too long at the pussies” ! and how do they know that somebody is “staring at them for too long” ! unless they do the same thing in first place !!
          They have what we “need” and We have what they “need” !! It’s that simple. I guess no Real MAN will give a shit about “staring at pussy” !

        1. You come, you pay, you eat, you get the fuck out of heel ol we carr poreece…chop, chop mothelfuckle.

    4. Well said. In fact Planet Fatness aside, the trend in gyms (at least here in the UK) is away from cardio machines and an expansion in the weight room and freestyle areas, with monkey bars and such. Also, there is an upsurge in HIIT training classes for the pear shaped chicks…

      1. same here with the trend. I think the general trend in the world has been towards fitness and it is a good trend. Funny, for all the talk about the modern world being “degenerate” here, I feel that we probably live in a far better time than the world has ever seen by any reasonably sane metric.

      2. absolutely. I used to use liquid chalk when I was in a gym that didn’t allow regular chalk and it wasn’t bad but just not the same.

      3. Using chalk is an insult to everyone but yourself. Go clean that shit I would say. It’s a mess.

    6. You should see the picture of him. He got a dad body after the yoga and veggie diet. Having some kind of animal protein regularly raises your testosterone and makes it easier to lose fat and build muscle.
      Veggies and fruits are good but if you skimp on protein and fat you will make up for it with sugary and starchy foods which make you overeat.
      Even the powders and shakes vegetarians use in place of meat can’t stop sugar cravings.

      1. Ha! I totally would expect this if you didn’t confirm it as true. People like this never make sense to me

        1. He said he was 150 pounds before and 200 after. Says his before height was 5-11 and after is 6 feet even. Now that does not make sense. Gaining a lot of weight will make you lose height and in his case I would guess half his weight gain is body fat just by looking at his after photo. He has gained muscle, but its clear he gained bodyfat in the process as well. Most lifters tend to gain some, but they often go on “cutting” diets to lose it. Pretty hard to cut when you don’t have a robust protein source and can’t easily limit carbohydrate intake.
          He clearly appears to be an Ectomorph. People who are Endo or Mesomorphs might gain even more body fat on a vegetarian diet.

  6. You lost me at INDIA.
    Russia, yes, but India? We are looking to India for fitness inspiration? Their last Olympic gold medal was in 10m AIR RIFLE. Baahahahaa!
    They have 1.2 BILLION people and have won less than 30 medals EVER. Most of their medals are from FIELD HOCKEY and BADMINTON; SUCH HARDMEN! I think Grenada and Jamaica each have more.
    Yes, look to Russia for fitness inspiration but not India. Yes, kudos for anyone who survives in a country where cell phones outnumber toilets but, ya, I’ll look for role models elsewhere; results count.

    1. Aye. Hell brother, you can watch the training sequence of Dolph Lundgren from Rocky IV and put on muscle mass. That’s just how awesome Russians are.

      1. I train with Russians weekly. They are no joke. Also, my current fitness regime is based on the Russian Spetsnaz approach.

    2. Only thing worse than a scum Indian is a scum Indian in a planet fitness

    3. I wouldn’t write them off so quickly. Indian club training, yoga, state management, etc. And those Sikh Warriors were no joke.

    2. I’ve always wondered at how fun life would be with an English butler, and a French maid. Just seems like it would be luxurious, no end of laughs making fun of the uptight butler, and no end of poonage via midnight sex with the French maid.
      Plus, you know, French maid in general. Va va voom!
      “‘allo, bonjour, I am ‘ere to clean ze rhhhoom, monsieur”
      http://images.esellerpro.com/2466/I/315/89/French%20Maid.jpg

      2. lol, now french maids are mostly out of shape black african women..
        (For what i have seen in orly airport and in hostels..)

        1. Oh good lord, no, she’s hideous(!).

    4. I would live a Sikh Butler and also 4 skinny Sikhs to cary my palanquin….and a palanquin

    5. I thought that was mainly a lease thing, not a buy thing, these days.

  8. Looking at the picture and not reading the article – I’m going to guess – Gay Sex?
    Am I right?

  9. I like the cross-eating technique: A little vegetarian and a little vagetarian (vadge)…I don’t really eat that way, but I usually go for the joke (even it it doesn’t work). No pain, no gain. No tickee, no laundry. No cash, no ass. No gym, no trim.

    1. I did that for a few years, but it just became too anti-social for me. I actually enjoy going to my gym and seeing what “Day” it is. For example, yesterday was Right Wing Conservative day (lots of people wearing gun themed clothing, and even one anti-immigration t-shirt). Back during the Arnold we had “Superior genetics Ubermenschen” day which featured people that I was pretty sure had come from some future eugenics world. The only bad part is that once in a while you’ll get “Frumpy Soccer Mom Day” which is, may I say, rather nasty. But generally it’s nice, the equipment is much more varied than I can fit in my basement, and I like watching pretty girls go through stretching routines.

      1. I work a demanding irregular schedule so it’s too inefficient for me to go elsewhere. I have everything I need available 24/7/365. Too many gyms have inconvenient hours for me and the ones I go to rarely have females at all, much less attractive ones. And when I work out I’m not chasing biddies anyway.

        1. Scheduling makes sense then.
          I’m not chasing chicks either, but when some of the more fair of that sex start to stretch, I can’t help but sigh and thank God that I was created as a man.

        3. I’m a versatile person, but I become very unhappy if I don’t get physical activity regularly. Which is why I don’t understand people that don’t exercise and become overweight. It contradicts my programming.
          I was doing personal training for men in college, and I was always surprised by the positive impact music and women watching would have on them.

        4. The left photo brightened my day and put a little spring into my stride. The right photo made me a very sad panda.
          I’m really confused now.

        5. That dude is pretty limber on the right. I’ll give him that much. That’s all I’d give him though. Now, the girls on the left…I would give them a ___ and a hard ___-ing, and then I’d ___ them until they ___.

        6. I traveled much.
          had 3 memberships crossing over at one point – Miami/NYC/Montauk
          now few dumbelss – body weight stuff – good enough for me – for now.
          Also my gyms were full of standing bitch faced man haters and queers – not that there is anything wrong with that – but nothing good for me

        8. I have a subscription to 24 Hour Fitness (got a great deal at work), and they are actually open 24/7. Admittedly, there are always too few benches and racks available, but I don’t have the room for a full setup at home at the moment.

        9. I’m pretty sure that’s redundant.

    2. Did the same. Just a bench, a roman chair and lots of weights for the dumbbells.
      I can use that shit for the rest of my life and it costed as much as two years of gym membership.

    1. Assuming she has a pretty face, that would would be the perfect future ex-wife.

      1. Oh yeah. And I would put a bag over her head with absolutely no problem at all…

        2. A very good point. I admire creative approaches to unconventional situations…

      1. We’re going way back here – I had a Stretch Armstrong as a kid in the 70’s!

      2. Its remarkable how many strippers and escorts were former ballet dancers.

        1. Kind of a sad statement really when you think about it. All of that beauty, grace and flowing movement being used to tug a few bucks out of some poor schlubs hand, instead of being used for finer art.

        2. far more money in stripping/prostitution. Also way way less discipline involved.

        3. That’s what I told my sister when she signed up my nieces for acro-dance and ballet.

        5. I also warned that allowing too much of this ballet and dancing on your toes will give them deformed feet. Unless your kid is going to be a professional ballerina or dancer, refrain from over doing the dance classes. The only one who profit are the orthopedic surgeons removing bunions and straightening out deformities.

      3. Obvious Bob ! Replace that pussy image with “Conan the Barbarian” and I am damn sure that “100% of women will never notice king kong is on the picture” !
        The key: opposite sex !!

        1. Women are not visually stimulated the way men are. That’s pretty obvious isn’t it?

        2. Ha Ha Ha !! No Bob, it’s actually otherwise. women are indeed “visually stimulated” but the “level” of stimulation is comparatively less. More interestingly, our society “shields” women from their Sexual desires, fantasies and their “physical reactions” are never openly admitted or discussed !!!

        3. Is that like how society makes girls dress in skirts and play with dolls and tells us that we’re all straight?
          This Society fella is pretty damn powerful.

  13. Funny I would have figured the only way to build muscle without the protein of meat was to farm the plants yourself.
    And use Kratom too.
    But…. I’ll be honest here: I have not been in a Gym in 7 years myself, but I do get exercise and have a 7 percent bodyfat measurement. The number 1 mistake I see many fellows make is they think it’s all about exercise. It’s not. I estimate roughly 70 percent of fitness is about what you eat. I have seen many who eat garbage but spend hours in the gym every day.
    All you are doing is running your engine too much on bad gasoline. Something will give, and then, as I have seen all too often in my roughly 50 years, is they lose the exercise but keep the eating habits.
    I used to be one of those guys 3 hours a day in the gym eating entire packages of sausages and large steaks every day and just about everything in reach. My father used to say to people “Don’t put your hands too close to my son’s mouth you might lose one”.
    But in my early 20s it was becoming obvious that this was not sustainable. So I changed things around a bit. I also took advice from a sibling with a degree in nutrition and who is one of those “fitness queens” who, though older than me, still turns heads while she is past her prime. She did no get indoctrinated in college to sit there and tell us we naturally get fatter when we get older or “blame the victim” while ignoring the high fructose corn syrup in everything. She told me, for example, back around 1996, that artificial sweeteners cause more weight gain. So I stayed away since. And high fructose too.
    I exercise for roughly an hour a day, six days a week, since I was 21. (Prior to that I was a gym rat). That “hour” is so ingrained in my schedule it’s no big deal for me to adhere to it. This is something that I marvel at: how people just can’t get that one hour to themselves. How many people sit around dicking around on social media for even longer yet “can’t get an hour of exercise?”?
    Or maybe they are so “in demand?” Well, I have had this problem. I have had some cunts in my life who would not even let me have that one damned hour to get some exercise. Those are the same cunts who are (partly) responsible for guys “taking 20 years to restore a car”. Can’t even give a man a few hours or an afternoon on a weekend to restore his damned car or fix up his old truck.
    Partly responsible, because he puts up with it (for pussy or more likely if he is married, “for peace”).
    So in a sea of “dad bods” and balded life-sucked men over 40 (you can see those guys on the weekends, sitting in just about any passenger seat of any vehicle going into or from the parking lot of the supermarket or home improvement store) I’m nearly 50 and look like I was under 35 – I’m told.
    So all you need is that hour and you don’t need to “kill yourself”. I have not done a bench press in 7 years. I figured out that pushing heavy weights on a bench is NOT natural and just about every pot-bellied man with a bad shoulder told me so – alongside the story of how much they were benching before their shoulder went out.
    I run 6 miles several times a week, have one martial arts class, and in between, I do a semi-yoga semi stretch routine derived from some things I learned in martial arts years ago. I don’t go full yoga because I think most yoga is dumb. Just keep it simple. The non-run non martial arts day is 45 minutes actually.
    I weigh the same now as I did when I was 19.
    As for being a vegan or vegetarian, there is something to it. We have a wrong idea of it not because we are ill informed but because every damned SJW walking piece of shit is a “vegan” or something like that and these people make me want to eat a raw baby seal right in front of them. But a proper application of the concepts does work and most American meat-avoiders do it wrong: you can’t have good health from pretense. This is why the health food stores are full of people who look like a stiff breeze could knock them over. They are retards.
    One thing that was learned over the years: plants do have a lot of medicinal and restorative qualities but eating meat, the overhead of digesting it, gets in the way of benefiting from the plants. So every other day I avoid all kinds of meat and just eat plant-based healthy stuff.
    In summary (my point, my TL;DR) is it’s more than exercise, it’s mostly about diet, and to some extent, how you live your life and what you put up with.

    1. great info – thx.
      I have cut out most dairy/sugar/grain products.
      not that I ate junk food – but those are western staples. also Orange juice – -probably full of sugar?
      I mostly eat veg/meat – more fruit in summer…
      shoulder problems – I use dumb bells rather than bar bells. allows individual articulation of joint.
      no need for bench press at all
      https://athleanx.com/ -> love this guy saved my life with shoulder issues.

      1. OJ is full of BPA- the acidity of the juice allows more of it to leech out of the plastic

        1. Indeed. These “estrogen mimicking hormones”….
          I avoid these bad plastics like the plague.
          Unfortunately the concept of these plastics and feminization is lost to people who have the wrong idea of the effects.
          You get people who overly dramatize the effects, talking about “gay frogs” or something.
          And your typical idiot will stand there at the water cooler (the big plastic jug BTW is one of those bad plastics) who will giggle and laugh and say “ughhhhhh ha ha I uhhhhhh don’t look like a woman from drinking the *giggle* water! Ha ha! conspiracy theory! ”
          Standing there with pattern baldness 20 years ahead of schedule and hair all over his back and shoulders like a monkey.
          Why?
          Because the plastics don’t make you grow tits, but the response to these unnatural estrogenating hormones is what? A reaction of more T, but it’s an unnatural condition, and if a man’s health is already shit, his progesterone is already unable to regulate the reply to these attacks. Therefore you have a lot of T upticks most of which might become DHT (especially if he is a simp and has to bite his lip every two seconds and is stressed out) and hormones swing wildly. So there is enough T to cause DHT and baldness, but not enough to actually make the man a real man. So you get a balding, hair-backed like a monkey pussy. And when you try to tell him about it he giggles like a woman.

        5. And then that extra T converts to E and he grows a nice feminine butt and hips. Its a vicious cycle.

        6. We actually produce a lot of E but convert it to T. Heck we make more E than a woman does.
          Whereas T is the “muscle hormone” E is the “bone hormone”. Hence we have lesser issues with bone brittleness at age than a woman does because we spend a life with more E, but we convert a lot of it to T so it’s not like we’re getting bitch tits from it. Men are typically 10 to 15 years behind women in bone brittleness/density loss issues.
          One big misconception about hormones is that we get “low T” as we get older. What we are really getting is “low everything”. That would include E. Lesser total production of E means lesser conversion to T (less to work with).
          So a lot of fellows make a mistake trying to boost T as if it was a standalone thing. Most plant stuff is actually E-boosting! But… do we avoid that and just eat steaks as a path to manliness? Won’t work that way. E is merely a building block to T. Thus an overall healthy diet high in the plant estrogens (except Soy, or worse, GMO soy, which I like to call “magic tranny potion”) is not going to fag you up but give your body more base building blocks to build T with.
          (of course if you eat more high E plants in your diet and DO grow boobs it’s an indication that your balls are failing in their role as E to T converters and you might have a real medical issue, but stress is also known to mess with this process).

        7. I honestly always pity the guys with wide butts and hips.
          It just ain’t right.

        8. I’m no expert but I understoood the other way: excess testosterone converts to E and this process is exacerbated by excess fat tissue… Yeah I put “low T as we get older” in the same camp as we get “fatter, weaker, stupider” as we get older. No these things happen as you feel your belly with donuts, beer and Kellogs cornflakes while taking regular smoke breaks. It is our habits that reduce our T. There is no reason why in the absence of bad habits that your T should reduce as you age.

        9. So how do you get rid of the bad hormones. sorry if it sounds dumb but it’s 1pm over here.

      2. Fruit juices are dead. Imagine a vampire trying to get blood from a corpse. The viability of a fruit juice does not last long. What you buy bottled in a store is even more dead. You want fruit juice, get it from the fruit itself, on the spot, and then consume it right after you make it. You don’t need a juicer if you have strength enough to squeeze it yourself.

        1. A half-decent blender serves me better than any kind of juicer. Whatever value is stored in the meat of the fruit makes it into my body, and I don’t go too excessive on sugars because a decent amount of the liquid is added water.

        2. yea i mostly eat fruit – don’t buy OJ anymore.
          however, I often buy coconut juice these days.
          seems good???

        3. Not bad, but if you can find young coconut you’ll notice the difference immediately. The coconut water is flavorful, and the meat has this whole gelatinous sweet flavor that makes it basically a very healthy candy.
          Of course, coconut meat is full of healthy fats and has some decent fiber, and the water is tasty, so that’s a good solution as well. I think either solution will be cheaper in the long and short run than buying pre-packaged juices.

        4. caribe/florida is common to buy from local guy.
          machete open – straw first, and then cuts open full to scrape the gel…
          too good

        6. Fresh juice is ALIVE and full of nutrients, including fructose. Not sure what you’re taking about. Fruit / veggie juicing is a powerful and effective way of losing weight and getting healthy.
          Store-bought juice on the other hand is shit, but still better than soda pop, sports drinks and most dairy-based beverages — so it’s the better of many evils out there.

        7. I get mine straight from the coconut and I break the coconut open by hitting it with my enormous dick.
          Just kidding.
          Try to get it from the nut itself. The meat you can grate and use on other things.

      3. Dairy is mostly fine, so far as I can tell, so long as you keep the artificiality down. Whole milk is about as thin as you want to go, and frankly creams, butter, full-fat natural yoghurt (Bulgarian, etc), and half-and-half are pretty good bang for your buck nutritionally.
        Not at all necessary, if you get your fats and proteins from other sources, but it’s not something you have to necessarily avoid.

        1. I find dairy to cause bloating. Also, milk is so full of sugar it ought to be categorized as a candy. I do use butter when I cook and will occasionally have some cottage cheese but I try to avoid dairy in general.

        2. I treat milk as a cheat food, true enough, and even so I use half-and-half instead. Love me some cream in my coffee (no syrups), cook with butter, take in a decent amount of yoghurt.

        3. yeah, the fat content from the milk doesn’t bother me at all..just the sugar. Yoghurt isn’t bad, but I just don’t really like it. That said, last week I poached some chicken and mixed with yogurt, walnuts, grapes, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper and made a surprisingly good chicken salad

        4. Works better than one might think, doesn’t it?
          I need to play with making homemade mayo. Part of me wants to try cooking the yolks a bit to prevent any risk, but without a sous vide machine it’s hard to keep the temperature right.

        5. I have played with homemade mayo but have simply switched to greek yogurt with a little Dijon in it as it works just as well for any recipe, is far easier and faster to get together and is quite health conscious.

        6. btw sous vide is the shiznit and I suggest getting a machine.

        7. off topic again. But anyways kneeman what do you recommend for men’s clothing and style. I need a serious improvement in that area and i figured since you are the james bond type of dude you would be an expert on this

        8. I believe that the most basic wardrobe a man ought to have is
          2 suits (one charcoal one blue)
          3 pairs of 3 season slacks
          1 pair winter slacks
          1 pair summer slacks
          5 button down shirts
          1 white French cuffed shirt
          2 sports jackets 3 season
          1 winter sports jacket
          1 summer sports jacket
          5 neck ties (I believe in simple or even solid)
          6 pairs of high quality dress socks
          10 pair high quality underwear
          12 undershirts
          1 white pocket square
          1 pair cufflinks
          1 pair of jeans
          2 pair casual pants
          1 fitted polo
          1 sweater
          This makes a good baseline closet and you grow from there.
          Obviously going out and buying everything at once is a luxury few can afford but you get things bit by bit.

        9. Btw: important to note
          Get every shirt and pair of pants and jacket tailored. You want it to fit your body just right.
          Also, don’t fall into the black socks black shoes trap.
          There is a time for black socks and it is when you have a tuxedo on. Get peanut brown shoes to go with all colors of pants and suit and match belt to shoes

        14. I almost never wear the one pair I have. If I wear jeans once a month it is a big thing

        16. Worsted wool trousers for winter and fall, cotton for spring and linen for summer

        17. It’s refreshing to see other guys talking candidly about this subject… You can’t emphasize tailoring enough – especially if you have any sort of muscularity. The average guy can sometimes get away with “off the rack”, but us bigger guys absolutely need a proper tailor. Find yourself a good Asian, or if you’re lucky – an older Italian tailor… this is almost becoming a lost art in certain parts of the country, but well worth the search – the small investment will pay huge dividends.

      4. Orange juice is essentially the water, sugar and flavouring from oranges with all the good fibre and most of the nutrients taken out. Eat an orange and wash it down with a nice cool glass of water.

    4. Mate that is a good set of pointers. I never got into regular exercise partly because my diet is generally good and my natural inclination to move a lot, sometimes quickly and my weight is stable at 110-115kg (at 6’8″).
      At 45 I can see some muscle loss and fat gain so that needs adjusting; I’ll try the doktor’s advice!

  14. One last thing: While I did like this article as it is always nice reading a good example of an opposing or different view, the sentence “Charles Atlas became the most perfectly developed man without weights” is patently false. The claims that he didn’t lift weights were pure showmanship….or, in a less genteel way…lies to draw a crowd which was possible back then. He was a student of the famous weightlifter Earle Liederman and without a doubt lifted weights. Strongmen at the time of Atlas were closer to the circus freak show than the celebs they are today. that Atlas didn’t lift was just a gimmick

    1. Not to mention there have been many other guys who got much better physiques without weights.

  15. gym – reminds me of marriage
    I pay to do all the heavy lifting.
    I’m conscience of more veg/salad these days…

  16. You’ll never sway me from steak and eggs. Eggs, in particular, are about as super a food as one can possibly find.
    Don’t get me wrong – I like chana and chola and other vegetarian Indian foods as much as anyone half-raised on the stuff. But I know what my body needs, and it’s damn-near impossible to fulfill it on a vegetarian diet. Goodness, the body’s saturated fat requirement alone can only be fulfilled by animal fats or coconut oil, and coconut oil just doesn’t make as good a french fry as tallow.

      1. In my research and from my observations, they don’t eat enough. That should be a staple, as in three eggs per day, just to cover the deficits of the other foods most vegetarians consume.
        There are apparently levels to vegetarianism. Pescatarians don’t think fish are wrong to eat, ovo-lacto vegetarians eat eggs and drink milk, and vegans don’t touch anything concerning animals whatsoever. As long as the non-vegans get enough of the non-plant matter every day, there’s no harm in it (except the harm of never being able to enjoy a seasoned pork chop on a bed of mashed potatoes, swimming in gravy).

        1. Well I’ve had my three today… Generally, outside of the Indian variant of vegetarianism, its a bullshit philosophy.

        2. There’s a great book called The Vegetarian Myth that exposes every angle on vegetarianism to scrutiny. The author did a number on her body by living vegan (according to her, her spine looks to doctors like she was in a skydiving accident), so she took a hard look at the philosophies she held to so strictly.
          Suffice it to say, I’ve never seen a book that so completely dispels the bullshit.

        3. You know, I actually have that book. You’re right, she utterly eviserated it.

        4. this book was debunked over and over, the author is just a deranged female.

      2. recent conversation with model I am now grooming for penetration and quote excited about
        model: I’m a vegan
        me: yeah, all models spell anorexic that way
        model: shut up
        lol.

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    2. I don’t know about you guys, but in my culture vegetarianism is gay as fuck. Meat is like women: we eat both because it’s fucking good.
      A man doesn’t need any other reason to eat something besides its taste. The proof is the popularity of bacon.

      1. I am not a vegetarian but what kind of “culture” that is; to treat vegetarian”ism” as gay (or maybe Dike, Lesbo !) !!?

        1. The brazilian culture.
          We call gay everything a man do that is effeminate. When we say they’re gays, we aren’t saying it in the literal sense, we’re just mocking their lack of manlyness.

        2. I can’t say it’s strange ! Back in Bharat/India, a MAN without mustache is mocked as (similar to) “eunuch” !! Ironically, every culture as some kind of mocking only for MEN !

        3. But of course, because masculine standards are high, masculine symbols are regarded as very important. Being manly is not easy, it requires hard work for the body and a strong mind, this rule creates cultural standards to reinforce these values and maintain them as filters from which man can guide themselves in the path of masculinity,
          When a man disrespect these cultural standards, he is actually negleting masculinity, as these cultural standards are products of masculinity.
          A man that neglets masculinity is the most patetic one. Therefore, mocking them is a moral obligation, as mockery is a tool for correcting socialy harmfull behaviors.

        4. “…as these cultural standards are products of MASCULINITY.”
          Up voted for this line !

    3. Eat nothing but steak and eggs, and your body becomes a fat burning machine. In fact a bodybuilder from the 50s created it the diet as a way to lose weight before Dr. Atkins. Its the most pure form of ketogenic dieting, fat and protein and zero carbs. Most guys usually lose the fat, and gain muscle doing it. Some guys just lose fat, but the point is that it works.
      Vegetarians and Vegans can gain muscle and have ripped bodies, but you need weights, this calisthenics won’t work with many people, there are people who struggle doing pull ups and push ups. Also that being said, if you are vegetarian, you will automatically consume more carbohydrates and sugar, and less protein.

  17. Worth noting: be careful of your nut intake. There are trace poisons in nuts that make no real difference when you eat a few handfuls of nuts per day, but people have been poisoned by too much almond meal and almond milk.

    2. Yep.
      And you gotta be careful not to drink too much water. Shit is deadly.

      1. No kidding. After all, it is a “turd world” country.
        Oh, sorry, I’m being insensitive again. It’s a “developing” country.

  20. Calisthenics can be helpful but I don’t see the point of articles like this; why would anyone go to such an extreme as to avoid weights unless they have some bogus reason like they’re afraid to find out how weak they really are and they want to excell in obscure tricks and acrobatics so they can brag about it being great at something that most everyone does not care for? I can sort of see short insecure dudes going for this out of the knowledge that they’ll never be big and strong in the eyes of the majority unless they roid up. I understand that people who double down on this kind of exercise can look impressive to the average person but a bodybuilding expert would quickly criticize their physique to shreds over all the little deficiencies and imbalances they would have? Good luck training your calves or lateral delts without weights; same thing goes for hamstrings as well. As for the rest of the muscles well I suppose a lot of them would improve to a point, especially if you’re a chick who’s bothered by weightless push-ups and dips, but would plateau soon enough unless you went for some joint busting acrobatics like one arm pull-ups or perhaps even one arm dips. Despite common belief to the contrary even the abs should be trained with progressively heavier weights for maximum development.

  22. If you don’t want to spend the $ on a gym membership, you can still get a good workout at home. Herschel Walker, running back for the Cowboys back in the 80s was a good example of this. He had an autobiography written about him with his input, of which explained that in his childhood he did home workouts for fun and invented his own home workouts inside and outside the home. He would actually do them all day long every day because he had nothing else to do. By the time he hit high school, he had never touched a weight in his life, but was able to bench press enough weight to impress his football coaches.

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  24. I was walking 7 miles a day for my blood pressure but switched due to the time. Now running 2.4 miles every other day. And on non-running days, do the following.
    1-3 sets of push ups. 1st 2 sets 20 each, last set push myself and do about 50
    3 sets of squats
    3 sets of pull-ups. 6 pull-ups 1st 2 sets. Last sset today did 12
    3 sets of curls.
    3 sets of flutter kicks
    3 sets of a ssort of leg lift
    3 sets of arm exercises, a sort of sitting position lift where I push myself up between chairs.
    3 sets of cruncches.
    Not too bad for a 52 year old geezer. I am not trying to bulk up though, just reduce some fat and lowwer blood pressure.
    But I am pleased to see that I could max certain parts of the army PT test for someone my age. And I could pass it with my numbers even as an 18 year old.
    ROK articles like this really remind me of the need to “keep on truckin” as they said in the 70’s.

  25. I have a better way to gain muscle mass as a vegetarian without going to the gym:
    Step 1: Stop being a vegetarian and have a damn steak.
    Step 2: While eating said steak, drill the fact into your chlorophyll-addled brain that the human body REQUIRES nutrients found in meat and that humans are NOT meant to be herbivores.
    Step 3: Once you’re done with the steak, go hit the effing gym, you salad eating pansy.

    1. God, that post was just perfect, lol!

    2. Everyone I knew always said protein is the centerpiece if you want to build muscle. When you lift weights, your body needs a lot more protein than the average person. Vegetarian diets tend to have less protein than meat based diets. Also people who go on the vegetarian diets often eat more calories and carbohydrates to get the same amount of protein as a meat eating lifter.
      It would not surprise me if those vegetarian wrestlers are building muscle because of genetics, they live in a traditional society where kids follow the same job as their fathers.

  26. Tomorrow we’ll show you how to sign your name without hands and how to screw in a lightbulb with your teeth.

  28. “a diet consisting of peanut butter banana, rice with beans, and the occasional pizza.”
    Jeez Louise…constipation city!
    But seriously, absolutely agree with the emphasis on body weight exercise. Not that I’m an expert or anything, but I have been working out since I was a teenager, and have found that after 45/46 or so, the weights cause many nagging injuries and tendonitis.

  29. I was barely able to sustain my life as a vegetarian, doing physical work that is,
    the best way to stay healthy as a vegetarian is to restrict it to one meal / day, and go meat fort the other 2.

  30. At my local gym I’ve seen more and more women entering the heavy weight hall. First they were a bit hesitant. Then, more and more came in.
    It’s a big gym and surely they have the right to be there since they also pay the membership fees, but that space was one of the last male bastions I’ve seen turning into… well, a sort of catwalk. And I don’t like it. Yogapants belong in the yogaclass.
    Modern males are narcissistic, but the females are way worse.

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