C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Why are you warming up, when you could be priming your muscles for growth?! by Jared Smith I have never been one to just take the word of a scientist in a lab coat with no real world training experience. Many experienced lifters figure things out years before science finally catches up. For instance, look at the golden era of bodybuilding when antagonistic supersets were all the rage. Science now shows that training a muscle's antagonist increases performance for both! Well before the days of "human performance "labs", much like the one headed up by Dr. Jacob Wilson at the University of Tampa, time-tested meat heads were pumping opposing muscles to get the most out of training. Some of the methods I’ve come to love are unconventional, even by the standards of those who do love the pairing of agonist/antagonist muscle groups.  Arnold —seen here looking cool—was a big fan of pairing agonist/antagonist muscles For instance, I’m a firm believer

Three Ways to Make Dieting Easy—and Even Increase Your Performance By Matthew Sloan author Matthew Sloan      Any form of dieting can be stressful on the body, the mind, and your emotions, and sometimes the idea of "just push through it" isn't enough. Sometimes we all need some extra motivation or special methods to get us through the day or week. So here are three methods I personally use to make dieting easier, and I think any serious bodybuilder, lifter, or strength athlete can use them to his or her advantage. The 3 Methods      The first method is to just simply switch up your training . This switch up should be something " fun" or "exciting" to give yourself something to look forward to (because dieting for weeks on end can get repetitive). For example, if you are following my “lean mass-made-simple program” from a few posts back, and are getting bored with the training, then try something new for a day, then get back on

An Old-School Technique for Breaking a Mass-Building Plateau      I can remember rather vividly my first plateau in muscle-building.  It was 1991, and I was only seventeen years old, but I had also been training hard for a couple of years prior to this.  (I started training at the age of 15, when my father bought me my first weight training set—a DP bench, and about 120 pounds of weight from the local Sears.  By the time I was 16, I started training at a commercial gym.  It was located adjacent to the dojo where I practiced Karate-Do consistently 4 to 5 days per week.)      At the time, I used a full-body routine, where I would train 2 or 3 days per week, focusing on the basics such as squats, bench presses, chins, barbell curls, and whatnot.  (To be honest—as ashamed as I am to admit it—I didn't discover the efficacy of deadlifts and the "quick lifts"—power cleans, power snatches, et al—until several years later.)  For the most part, it was a 3-days-per-week routine,

a.k.a.: Antagonist Agony A Teeth-Grinding, Blood-Curdling Superset-Based Program! By Jared Smith Freddy Ortiz and Larry Scott - lovers of the superset!      We’ve all seen the images of bodybuilders from the golden age of training when there was far less—how should I put it?—“douche baggery” and far more camaraderie. The days when high-volume ruled the muscle-building world, and a 3 hour workout wasn't unusual. Much of what those guys did seemed deceptively simple. However, there is much you can learn from the bodybuilders of yesteryear. I absolutely love the antagonistic superset-based programs many old-school guys used. (Most people don't realize that optimal performance from one muscle is dependant upon how quickly its antagonistic muscle can elongate.)     Supersets are awesome in general; they decrease the amount of time it takes for a certain amount of work to be done, which increases the intensity level of the session.   This is key for reach

"If You're Not Tracking, You're Simply Slacking" by Matthew Sloan   The author, Matthew Sloan      Many people assume that tracking your food is difficult and time consuming, and that's just plain wrong. Tracking your food can be very simple, easy, and beneficial. Here are the two main reasons why tracking what you eat is so important. 1. Breaking fat loss plateaus . Many people who begin "fat loss journeys", see progress in the beginning—they lose 5-10 lbs or so, but then it stops. The primary reason for this fat loss plateau is a problem with their diet (I will go into the exact detailed reasons for this in another article). People will try everything to break through this plateau—everything from crash diets to extreme amounts of cardio. But eventually these people will just give up, end up binge eating, and gaining all the weight they loss back—I know from experience; this is how it started for me on my fat-loss journey. However

High-Voltage Shock Therapy Training for Stubborn Delts! by Jared Smith   Arnold and his massive shoulders!          Few things will make one stand out in a crowd quite like a super-wide, capped set of deltoids. Shoulders have always been the symbol of strength, and give a bodybuilder a comic book-character look.            While it is true that the delts get trained, to a certain degree, when training the chest, that doesn’t mean you can skimp on training them or simply press your heart out in order to earn them. Pressing will stimulate all three heads of the deltoids, but the anterior—or front deltoid—will get the brunt of the work. The best way to add width and dimension to the shoulders is to add a significant amount of beef to the medial and posterior delts. Delts to be Inspired By          I must admit that for a long time my shoulders were lagging far behind my back and chest. Though I trained them with the same volume as the aforementioned gr

Simplify Your Training, Your Diet, and  Your Life to Receive Your Best Results Ever!       Okay, perhaps the title of this article is  slightly over the top.  After all, some of you probably have achieved some pretty good results in your days spent pulling, pushing, and battling the barbell.  But, for a great majority, it could be pretty close to the truth.  If you have spent weeks, months, or, possibly, even years toiling away at ineffective—and often too damn complicated—diets and training programs, it could be that you've never really seen the results you want, much less what you're actually capable of achieving.      After training and working with many bodybuilders, lifters, and average men and women (my favorite people to train were always just average women who wanted to get in shape—they always trained hard, never complained, always did what I asked of them) over the years, the largest culprit for lack of gains—hands down—was lack of simplicity.      Women try to