C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

     The following is a slightly different version from an article of the same name that I wrote for Iron Man  several years ago.  The advice in this article is matter-of-the-fact, to the point, and—this is the best part—effective.      At some point in your training—if you want to continue to make progress—you must learn to tailor your strength program to your own body type, personality, and goals.      This article should be of help along the way. Tailor-Made Strength Customizing Your Strength Training Program       There's a truism in strength training that will never change: "The best program is the one that works best for you."   Nonetheless, there are some ground rules that I believe should apply to all lifters serious about building muscle, and the strength that goes along with it.   After these ground rules have been applied properly, it's then when lifters need to make alterations to the program in order to accommodate for such things as age, years of tra...

Grease The Groove For Explosive Strength and Power        There are several good methods and training programs out there for building large amounts of strength and power.   One of the best methods—one that many lifters will find works the best for them—is to practice what Russian and other former Soviet lifters call “greasing the groove.”      Olympic and powerlifting coaches from the former Soviet republic—as well as Eastern Bloc countries—held the belief that the more frequently you performed a lift, the better, and, therefore, stronger you became on it.   Even now, it’s not uncommon for Russian (and other countries from the former Soviet Union) powerlifters to squat and deadlift three to four days per week and bench press as many as eight times per week.      For years, the success the Soviet Olympic lifters and powerlifters had was attributed to large amounts of anabolic steroids and/or great genetics.   I’m here to tell you, however, that this is just not the case.   I...

     The following is an article I wrote for Iron Man  magazine probably more than a decade ago.  If you have read some of my more recent articles, then this one definitely reflects a difference: I used to recommend a lot more rest between workout sessions.  Nonetheless, it's still a good program.  (And the bulk-building diet at the end of it should be all that a beginning lifter needs to pack on some solid mass and—of course— bulk .) Bulk Forget about isolation exercises, ultra-high reps, machines and the like. For bulk-building you absolutely must use the compound movements for a limited number of sets. That means heavy bench presses, squats, deadlifts, barbell curls, rows, push presses, cleans and shrugs. Another factor you must pay attention to is recuperation. The following workouts all have those two things in common – heavy compound lifts and plenty of recuperation time. Use each for at least a month before switching to another, and six to eight weeks per routine may be even...

     The following blog post is actually an e-mail from a friend of mine here in Tuscaloosa—Jared Smith—who sent me this workout, and wanted to know what I thought about it.  He calls it "consolidated volume training".  I kind of like that title.  Wish I would have thought of it myself.      Check it out: Consolidated Volume Training      I was reading some of Mentzer's writing and though I think that training balls to the wall heavy all the time will inevitably lead to injury. However, I do agree with his ideas on consolidated training. Using only a handful of key compound exercises which will sufficiently stimulate all muscles of the body to their fullest. The program I have in mind is a 3 day a week program. Each muscle will get trained 3 times over the course of each week which is a significant difference from the once a week programs that most people do. But if people notice, successful lifters train major lifts several times a week. The rep ranges will differ each w...

     The famous Mahayana saying goes like this: "emptiness is form, form is emptiness."  And, of course, emptiness is nothing other than form, form is nothing other than emptiness.      Here's the problem: sayings like this have become so commonplace—even more so with the advent of the internet, and even more so  with Twitter and whatnot—that they no longer have much meaning to those who hear them, or read them, all the time.      They are just words, of course.  Words that point to the real thing.  But they are not  the real thing.      For spirituality to be true, for it to be capable of transforming your life (your interior life as well as your exterior one), then you must make it your own.  You must experience the truth of the words that are spoken, and then live those words with your entire being .      Inner creativity must explode into outward creativity—the creativity of living.      But here's an important point: Although you must make this lived spirituality...

     Tonight I went to the movie theater to behold—I think that's the only word that does justice to the film's power—the movie "District 9".  The movie was definitely a sight to see—equal parts allegory, tough-as-nails action movie, and deft tale of human transformation—but it was also extremely  violent.  I am usually not apt to enjoy a movie quite that violent, but I thought that the underlying messages of the movie at least partially excused all of the gore.    Nonetheless, I was looking for some quiet time—some moments of contemplative silence to recover from the in-your-face ness of the movie—and so I went to the local Books-A-Million.  The bookstore is always quiet on a weeknight—rather like the silence of a library—due to the fact that most people in town seem to hang out at the local (and louder) Barnes & Noble.  I wanted to peruse the theology and philosophy bookshelves just to see if there might be anything new—not to mention good—that had recently ar...

 Monster Deadlift Tips and Routines for Monstrous Pulling Power      When it comes to developing functional strength and awesome pulling power (the type of power required to do real work), the deadlift stands above all others for measuring that strength.   But rarely do you see lifters and bodybuilders performing the type of routines that build the deadlift.   Why?   Many powerlifters find the deadlift the hardest of the three lifts, so they focus instead on their benches and squats.   And bodybuilders don't think that the lift has much to offer them, so they stay away from the routines that work their lower backs and hips and focus more on the "showy" muscles of the back: the lats.      Another problem that many trainees who are not physically built to deadlift have is that when they start training it hard, they find that their deadlift actually starts to regress.   And why train it when it's going to go down, not up.   Right?      Well, it's time to cha...