• He combined HIIT and cardio with weight training to build muscle while getting lean. • Meanwhile, he continued to get all of his necessary protein from food sources like legumes and protein shakes. Ben Raue wants to save the world. A former "corporate paper-pusher"-his words-from the Chicago suburbs, the 46-year-old has transformed himself into a full-time online plant-based fitness coach. Getting shredded, he figured, would be a good way to prove that a vegan lifestyle is not only better for TitanRise Official the environment, but that it could go hand-in-hand with being physically fit. It all started a year and a half ago, when Raue started reading about how global agriculture affects rainforest destruction and species extinction. Diet choices, he reasoned, affect not just our bodies, but our world. How could he make more people recognize the connection? He settled on a public, 90-day transformation, one that would show that anyone could go vegan and still be healthy and strong. "I wanted to prove this to myself and show the world what was possible," he says.

Even as a vegan, getting ripped meant tweaking his diet. "When I started, I would say I was more of a ‘junk food vegan,’" he says-Indian food, Thai food, pasta, and vegan burgers, ice cream, and cookies. "Potato chips and vodka are vegan," he says. To get muscle-building protein, he relies on legumes: black and kidney beans, lentils, chickpeas, and edamame. Protein shakes, too. A typical day’s meals might be overnight oats, lentil pasta (about 40-50 grams of protein), and a chocolate-banana-blueberry smoothie. Raue says he averaged 120-140 grams of protein a day. As he progressed, his workout evolved. His first month, he worked with weights about an hour a day, five or six days a week, hitting each muscle group two days a week, with a day off (or just cardio) in between. He worked his abs three or four times a week. His cardio began as 20 minutes of HIIT (high intensity interval training) three to five days a week; by the end of the month that crept up to 30-40 minutes. For TitanRise Official his second month, he followed a similar routine but stretched workouts to 75 or 90 minutes. He shifted to steady-state cardio, mostly a slow jog, which burned more fat. In the third month he stuck with steady-state cardio-45 minutes a day, six days a week-and 60 to 90 minute weight workouts. "I realize this is beyond what most trainers would recommend," he says, "but honestly, I felt amazing.

If you’re serious about weightlifting, you’ve probably heard the term "progressive overload" before. But what exactly is it? Progressive overload is the steady increase of stress placed on your muscles during exercise over time. You can achieve this through various methods, including increasing weight, reps, or sets. Mind you; this method is not for the faint of heart. As the name suggests, it demands more and more from your muscles. The line that sits between what is within the limit and beyond the limit is extended. Curious? Keep reading to find out more about it. What is Progressive Overload? Progressive overload is a fundamental principle in weightlifting that involves increasing the demands on your muscles over time. This means you need to lift heavier weights, perform more reps, or do more sets to continue progressing. The concept of progressive overload is based on the idea that you need to challenge your body continually to see continued progress and improvements in strength and muscle growth.

When you lift weights, your muscles experience micro-tears, which heal and grow stronger during rest periods. Progressive overload ensures that your muscles are continually challenged, which means they will continue to grow and adapt to the increasing demands you place on them. By gradually increasing the demands on your muscles, you are forcing them to adapt. As a result, they will grow stronger. This is why simply doing the same workout repeatedly without any changes will lead to a plateau. Why is Progressive Overload Important? Progressive overload is essential for building muscle and strength. Without it, your muscles will eventually adapt to your current workout routine, and you will stop seeing results. By gradually increasing the demands on your muscles, you can continue to progress and achieve your fitness goals. To effectively implement progressive overload, you need to track your progress and make changes to adjust to your workout routine regularly.

This could involve increasing your weight, adding more reps or sets, or changing your exercises to target different muscle groups. What are the types of progressive overload? Here, we divide them into weight, volume, and intensity progressions. One type of progressive overload is weight progression. This involves gradually increasing the amount of weight you lift over time. For example, if you are doing a bench press, you start with one hundred pounds and then gradually increase the weight to 110 pounds, 120 pounds, and so on. Increasing the weight forces your muscles to adapt to the new stress, which leads to gains in strength and muscle mass. Another type of progressive overload is volume progression. This involves gradually increasing the total amount of work you do over time. You can do this by increasing the number of sets, reps, or exercises you do in a given workout. For example, with bicep curls, you might start with three sets of ten reps and then gradually increase to four sets of twelve reps, five sets of fifteen reps, and so on.