Carrying fat does make you somewhat stronger - not as much as carrying extra muscle...but, if you look at any powerlifter above a certain weight they carry a bit of fat as fat does 'stuff' to the body. It may be joint cushioning, it may create better leverage's within the body, but it is a fact that carrying fat increases strength. In weight classes it is certainly better to have more muscle as muscle is a lot better than fat, hence lower weight classes have a lot of muscle & not so much fat, but do not totally discount fat as a strength giver as it has some benefits even if we don't understand exactly what that is.
Now on to the issues. You've lost strength, probably because you've lost fat. My suggestion to you is you go about this the hard way. You could add back the fat, regain the strength that way, but my suggestion to you is to regain the strength by adding on some muscle. This will probably be slower & certainly harder, but you'll look better & probably be more healthy.
Firstly, I notice you are a t-shirt muscle junkie:
- Quote :
- Monday chest and bicepts (probably the longest workout of the week)
I would suggest you swap this around & make the longest workouts of the week the legs & the back workouts - There is a quote (I'll paraphrase it here) the muscles at the front make you look fantastic - the muscles at the back make you perform fantastic!
I would like you try a cycle of exercise that focusses upon some form of squat or squat related movement if you have issues with an ordinary bi-lateral squat & some form of deadlift. I would suggest you aim at working these two exercises hard as studies have shown that these two exercises really bump up the anabolic hormone production, work them into the ground & your strength in EVERY movement will get a kick start.
I'd suggest you back off a bit on other activities a little while you do this. It will be hard, you want to go hard, go heavy. You should expect a week or two just sorting out the form if these are new to you, but then you should work up to heavy weights. Be sure to keep the depth as low as you can on the squat & in the deadlift it is pushing the hips back & do not round the back.
For other movements focus on compound movements & for this cycle cut isolation movements to a minimum.
This should aid in increasing the strength up to or even beyond your present levels.
Diet is the other think you'll need to sort out a bit more to go beyond where you are now - the stronger you want to get , the more the diet will have to improve, it's really that simple. If strength is important enough, then the diet will have to be a higher priority.
Hopefully that will give you some ideas about how to improve your strength.
Welcome on to the board!
Oh yea, there are quite a few vegans in Italy I've done a talk & contest at the Turin vegfest & had a fantastic few days there - it 'may' be on again this year (if so we have a crew of us from the UK going to visit, do a talk & a push-up), so they are out htere. I know they had started selling stuff like Fry's fake meats & quite a few other bits then as they were there & we talked to them about it. I could only find the details for the 2007 event, but it has contact details, so maybe checking this out & giving them an email could help with the diet & maybe meeting a few vegans in your area as well!
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