The Ghandi Deadlift Project

Many of you may already know that I grew up on a strict vegetarian diet.  My parents have been eating vegetarian for the past forty years and meat was not really considered food in my childhood.  This is not such a big deal now but back in the 80’s in rural Washington in a hot bed of meat, mullets, and musk it was a much bigger deal.  It was a rare meal that I had without someone asking a brilliant question that warranted an answer such as:

“Well that’s a good question but no, turkeys are not effing vegetables so no, I don’t eat them.”

This continued through undergrad where I played division I men’s rugby.  It blew my mind how a person who I just literally spent an entire afternoon kicking around a field would inform me after that “you can’t grow muscle without meat.”  Rage.  Blind Rage.

Despite medical advice from authorities the vegetarian diet worked fine for me until my early 20’s when I met my beautiful, meat cooking wife Alicia.  I now eat large pieces of flesh at every meal and I will admit that I am significantly stronger now then I was in my early 20’s (ten years ago.)  I’m the same size and weight that I’ve always been but my training is more intense and focused on strength gains so to determine if it is the meat or the training that has me strong I am undergoing what I call:

4 weeks strict vegan (not vegetarian) diet

Intensive deadlift training similar to deadlift cycles I have done over the last several months.

Culminating in a deadlift single rep max attempt to beat my current record which stands at #440 on 5/1/10.

This lift was a #25 pound jump for me and was the result of a 6 week long deadlift strength program.

For this experiment to be a success and prove that Ghandi most likely had a SICK deadlift I will have to make a jump that big in only 4 weeks instead of 6 bringing me up to #465. 

The project begins Monday, August 9th.
The max is on Monday September 6th.  I’ll report back then.