C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

A Method for Developing a Work Capacity That Can Handle High-Volume, High-Frequency Workouts      I often preach the benefits of high-frequency training along with full-body workouts.  I think they are two of the best ways to build a lot of muscle and strength, especially for the natural lifter.  Another central component for the natural lifter is to develop a strong work capacity , or the ability to do a lot of work and then recover from it quickly.  Read that last sentence again if you have to and let it sink in.  There are, I would guess, a lot of lifters who are capable of doing a lot of work in the gym, but very few of them can then recover from it quickly.  You can blame that on modern training, I suppose, more than anything else, since we live in some sort of upside down, topsy turvy training world where bodybuilders “blast” their muscles with endless sets and then give those muscles a week—hell, sometimes even more—before train...

A HIgh-Frequency Muscle-Building Routine So Simple That It Seems Almost Too Good to Be True      A few years ago, after suffering from some herniated discs that were causing me pain, I experimented with a program so simple that I wasn’t sure it would work.  I should have known better.  After utilizing it, and getting good results, I thought it was even too simple to write about.  Readers might think I had gone off the deep end.  But I didn’t.  And I haven’t.  I’m currently using the program right now, after taking a week-long layoff in order to prepare myself for a “bigger” program a few weeks down the road.      Before using this program, I had already had a lot of success with easy strength methods.  I write about them quite a bit, so, unless this is your first time reading one of my articles, you’re already well-aware of the methodology.  With easy strength, you, typically, do no more than 10 r...

  Why You May Not be a Hardgainer After All      Based on the title of this essay, there is a good chance you are going to end up reading something different than what you probably expected.   By the “myth” of the hardgainer, I don’t mean that hardgainers don’t exist.   It is certainly true that some lifters find it harder to gain muscle than others.   That’s simple genetics.   The “myth” is the fact that, just because you find it harder to gain muscle, doesn’t mean that there is just one way for you to train.      When a lifter is labelled a hardgainer—either by himself or by fellow lifters—the typical recommendation given is that he needs to train with a lot less volume than other lifters but with more “intensity”—intensity meaning the effort that is put forth in a set.   But I don’t think this is necessarily the case.      It is true that there are plenty of lifters that will find it h...

High-Frequency Training Parameters and Programming Ideas      Yesterday, I was sitting in my garage gym—pen and paper in hand as I jotted down some different article ideas—watching my son Garrett go through a lower body session when I told him the title for this article.   I thought “Train Easy, Repeat Often” was a pretty good title.   I originally intended it to simply be the title for a workout program.      Then Garrett said, “Okay, but how easy and how often?”      I stroked my beard as I began to mull over his question and the wheels began turning in my mind.   “Good point,” I replied.   “Maybe that’s what the article should be about.   I could still outline some workout programs, but I could mainly just explain how much you should train based on how frequent you want to lift.”      Garrett gave me a thumbs up, then returned to his sumo deficit deadlifts.   I doubt ...