C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

      “Bulking is basic.  Remember that.  If you try to do too much or get too clever… you’re not going to make the kind of progress that I’ve typically seen.” ~Dan John      I was reading Pavel and John’s book Easy Strength when I came upon that quote above.  That first sentence is so true that I don’t know why I never came up with it myself.  But, like a lot of the ideas for articles that I’ve written over the years, I figured that I’d use it for an essay of my own.  Which you’re now staring at on your computer screen or tablet or phone or, well, whatever-the-hell it is that you use to read my blog.      By the way, and before we get into the gist of this article outright, if you want to know about a lot of the ideas that I’ve stolen over the years—that’s correct; I’ve stolen a lot of good stuff—then check out an essay I wrote last year aptly entitled “Stealing Good Ideas.”   Any...

  Some Thoughts on How and When to Follow Specialization Programs Whether You’re Trying to Improve the Size of a Bodypart or Increase the Strength on a Specific Lift      This morning, I sat down with the intention of cranking out an article I had in mind for strength-specialization on a certain lift.  But, as I was working on it, I started to think that perhaps I should just write a “general” essay regarding my thoughts on when and how to go about setting up a specialization program.  The result is what you’re now staring at—I’ll save the other article I had in mind for another day.  (Hopefully, at least.  I forget more articles, unfortunately, than I actually write.)      First things first, for the most part you shouldn’t follow specialization programs the majority of the training year.  Specialization programs are needed when one of your lifts is falling behind the others—or if you’ve never really focus...

       I first tried using high-set, low-rep training sometime in the early to mid ‘90s.  At the time, I was bodybuilding and not powerlifting, and had just started writing for some of the major bodybuilding magazines, but I still had plenty to learn.  Don’t get me wrong.  I had done some low-rep training, especially for a few sets at the end of a workout, but I had never done low rep training exclusively using really high sets.  At one point, however, I read an arm training article by Greg Zulak, where he mentioned that it was beneficial to do 15 to 20 sets of 2 to 3 reps on occasion.  Now, to be honest, I can’t remember the exact article—I tried to find it in my attic full of old magazines while this essay was churning around in my mind, but to no avail.  Anyway, after reading it, my workout partner Dusty and I decided to see how that kind of workout felt.  We had been training at the time with a lot of sets, but also a...