C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

On the Joy of Creative Training      I love training for many reasons.  Like a lot of lifters, I’ve always loved training because, more than anything else, I just loved the feel of moving heavy iron.  I also loved the kind of training that goes along with being incredibly strong.  I can think of fewer pleasures in life than a workout that involves near max sets of squats, bench presses, deadlifts, overhead presses, and curls.  But I also love training because I love the creativity of it all.  I am a creative, after all.  An artist.  Writing is one of the arts that my creative side is attracted to—not just attracted to but needs .  But I love lifting for the same reason that I love writing.  The gym is where I practice the art of training.      Training is both science and art.  If you neglect either side, you’re neglecting the full range of benefits that lifting provides.  Nowadays...

Unique Training Concepts and Ideas for Gaining Size and Strength or Getting in Shape      I have a lot of stuff that I’m trying to write.  So much that it can get overwhelming—a book I’m trying to finish but seem to constantly get stuck in neutral in the process, about 20 different notes for articles and essays, along with a handful of others that I’ve already begun and need to simply finish—that I don’t really know where to start.  Or finish.  With that in mind, I thought it might be good to just write an “odds and ends” essay, the very thing that you’re now reading.  These are a few of the ideas that I wrote down for some articles, but I’m not really sure if there’s enough there for each one to comprise an article of its own.  I thought, well, what-the-hell, I’ll just throw a few of them together in one essay.      With that short preamble out of the way, let’s get going and see where this thing will go. Rest-P...