Vegans Build Muscle and Strength Just as Well as Meat Eaters, Trial Shows

Vegans on a high-protein plant-based diet gained just as much muscle and strength as meat eaters over 12 weeks of weight training, a new study finds. Both groups added an average 1.2 kg of leg lean mass.

Researchers at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, led by Professor Hamilton Roschel with Professor Stuart Phillips of McMaster University in Canada, put 19 habitual vegans and 19 omnivores, all young men new to weight training, through a supervised program twice a week. Everyone's protein was topped up to 1.6 g per kg of body weight a day, with soy protein for the vegans and whey for the omnivores. The results are published in Sports Medicine.

Thigh muscle size, muscle fiber size and leg press strength all rose in both groups, with no differences between them for any measure.

The authors conclude in the abstract:

A high-protein (~ 1.6 g kg-1 day-1), exclusively plant-based diet (plant-based whole foods + soy protein isolate supplementation) is not different than a protein-matched mixed diet (mixed whole foods + whey protein supplementation) in supporting muscle strength and mass accrual, suggesting that protein source does not affect resistance training-induced adaptations in untrained young men consuming adequate amounts of protein.

Hit your protein target with tofu, tempeh, lentils or a soy shake and the gains will come.

It backs up earlier research showing plant protein works for building muscle, and last year's study in which vegan women outlasted meat eaters in an endurance test.

No meat, no problem.