C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Learning from the Golden Era Legends of Bodybuilding’s Past      I was sitting in my recliner, laptop where it should be, on my lap, typing away at a transcript for a talk I’m giving this weekend at a writer’s conference when I just decided I needed a break.  I like giving talks, especially if I can help and inspire young or aspiring writers in any way, but writing a talk is not my favorite thing.  Giving the talk, I enjoy.  The process of actually writing the speech, not so much.  Anyway, I decided to take a break and write what I most enjoy, an essay where I just start typing away and see what comes out the other end.  There are times when I plan out an article in a lot of detail.  Sometimes, I do quite a bit of research, especially if I’m writing something such as a historical piece on Japanese Budo, but other times, such as this one, I just come up with a title, or have a basic idea in mind, nothing concrete at all , and then I...

Bodyweight Training and More for Upper Body Size and Strength      You don’t need much equipment to build a good physique.  A lot of trainees spend all their time at the gym doing endless bench press exercises with barbells and dumbbells along with an assorted array of machine movements for their chest, shoulders, and triceps.  Most gym-goers could get equally good results, and perhaps even better gains, with little other than dips and push-ups, however.  Push-ups seem so “basic” that many think there isn’t much use for them once one gets past the beginner stage or has access to “better” exercises.  But they still work as well as about anything.  And old-school bodybuilders and lifters from yesteryear often called dips the “upper body squat” for a reason.  Dips can produce big-time upper body gains.      Dips and push-ups have been around for a long time.  Well over a thousand years ago, Roman and Gre...

The Ultimate Workout Routine for Getting Massively Big and Incredibly Strong?      In my previous essay Go Heavy or Go Home , I discussed some ways to train using Pavel Tsatsouline’s seven “Russian rules” of training.  This article will be, in many ways, just a continuation of that one.  I’d recommend reading it first, but you don’t have to.  That article contained a few workout suggestions using Pavel’s 7 maxims.  In this one, I want to propose a workout that I believe is the ultimate for building a combination of size and strength.  This routine isn’t for beginners.  You need to be at the “intermediate” stage before even attempting this routine.  So, you’ve been warned.  If you attempt this without having the work capacity to handle it, it’ll be too much.  At the very least , spend about 3 months doing one of the workouts in the prior essay before moving on to this one.      This routine u...