C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Thoughts on Lifting and Thoughts on Thoughts While Lifting      What do I think about when I think about lifting?  For one, just lifting in general.  I think about programs, workouts, regimens that work for me and work for others I’ve trained.  I think about the ones that didn’t work and why they didn’t work.  I suppose, more than anything else, I think about life.  I think about life when living and when lifting.  They’re inextricably bound for me, life and lifting.  My life, in many ways, is a life of lifting.      I suppose it would be different if I wasn’t a lifter.  There are those who lift.  Then there are those who are lifters.  The former do it for any myriad of reasons.  At least, I guess they do.  I’ve trained a lot of those who fit in that group.  I’ve trained with those that fit in it.  And I’d also surmise that a lot of folks who read my writing fall ...

George Turner’s Old-School Full-Body Program for Gaining 90 Pounds—that’s right, 90!—of Pure Muscle George Turner was in his 60s in this picture!      When it comes to old-school bodybuilders, George Turner remains one of my favorites.   Probably because of the fact that he was more than just a competitive bodybuilder.   He was a gym owner along with being a damn good writer of (damn good) training articles.   He was also a bit—how should it be said?—curmudgeonly.   But he was without a doubt curmudgeonly in the best possible way.   He was, in many ways, similar to Vince Gironda in that regard, just without the disdain for squats.   (That’s right, as much as I like Gironda, he wasn’t a fan of the barbell back squat.)   Myself, I love back squats.   As did Turner.      Anyway, that paragraphic preamble is just a way of writing that, as I was thumbing through an old IronMan magazine this morning, looking ...

       Before we get started here, I want to apologize for the delay in posts.  I have been working on, and formatting, my e-books so that I can start selling paperback versions of the same books.  Be on the lookout for those in the next week or two.  With that out of the way...       I have a semi-regular, semi-ongoing series which I have titled “Real Bodybuilding.”   The first installment—which I never, by the way, planned on being the first in a series of training articles—was some scribblings and thoughts on how old-school, real bodybuilders actually trained before the advent of large doses of various anabolic steroids in bodybuilding (which changed everything).   And after writing that one, there was enough interest in the topics discussed that I thought some follow-up articles and essays were in order.      Before we go any further, here are the links to the past installments.   Reading th...

  A.K.A. The Total Variety Regimen Old-School Advice for Breaking Through Progress Barriers (With a Little Help from Classic Bodybuilder and Writer Gene Mozee)        “Athletes in every sport suffer through periods of retrograde progress—plateaus, or slumps, during which they lose their edge and don’t play up to par.   Major league baseball players can’t get a hit, golfers can’t make a putt, basketball players can’t buy a basket, and quarterbacks can’t find a receiver with a pass.   Such is the nature of slumps.” [1]      So begins the legendary bodybuilding trainer and writer Gene Mozee in an article he penned for IronMan entitled “Plateau Busters: Punching Through the Progress Barrier” in the November, ’91 issue of that magazine.      I came across this article today while going through a box of magazines that I dragged out of my attic a week or so ago when researching my last essay on John Fa...