C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

  Read On and Discover the 5 “Musts” of All Good Training Programs      If you want to make gains in training—be it mass gains, getting as strong as humanly possible, or you simply want to look good in a pair of swimming trunks or a bikini—then there are several universal features to a training program that all lifters should be doing.  If you include these elements in your training then you will get good results no matter your goals.      It doesn’t matter if you train with high-intensity and low volume or vice versa, whether you train every day of the week or can only make it to the gym a couple times per week, whether you train with high reps, low reps, or something in between, every successful training program should include the following elements.  Here are the 5 musts of all good workout programs: #1: You MUST Squat      I wrote this in a separate essay over 10 years ago:   ...

       I have been a voracious reader since I was quite young.  So, it only made sense that when I started lifting weights seriously in the late ‘80s that I would read bodybuilding magazines.  And I did.  A lot of them.  Starting in 1989, I’m pretty sure that each month I scoured the magazine stands for every magazine that came out.  IronMan , MuscleMag International , Muscular Development , Flex , and lesser known rags (at least, today they’re lesser known) such as Dan Lurie’s Muscle Training Illustrated and the natural bodybuilding magazine aptly titled Natural Bodybuilding and Fitness were some of my regular reads.  I couldn’t afford to actually buy all of the magazines at the time, which meant that I would sometimes hang out at the local grocery store or drug store’s magazine stands for hours so I could read the magazines from cover to cover.  If I did manage to scrounge up the money for a magazine or two, I almost ...