C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

If you haven't noticed, the blog has a new look.  You may have also noticed a new Header, with a subheading that explains the fact that this blog will now focus on essays - as opposed to traditional articles - on a wide range of subjects. I thought it fitting, then, that the first essay with this new focus would actually concentrate, in some way, on all of the topics that I will be writing about. *** "Damon of Athens said, 'when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them.'  Artists cultivate our culture.  Politicians can write as many laws as they wish, but they will never change the heart of the culture.  This belongs to the artists - we do battle for the soul of society."   -Jonathan Jackson in The Mystery of Art: Becoming an Artist in the Image of God The above quote by the Nashville actor Jonathan Jackson covers fundamentally what I'm going to cover in this essay, only with more detail.  But if you underst

Shortly, you will see a big change at Integral Strength. First off, I'm back to writing with a volume that I haven't attempted in many years, which means a lot more posts.  But Integral Strength is also going to change in a large way. For the last several years, my health has sucked , to the point at which I even thought I may only live a few more years.  This has severely limited the amount of training I could do (in lifting or martial arts), and it has hindered the amount of writing I have done, whether it was articles for magazines or posts on my blog.  But I am now feeling like my old self for the last several weeks.  And I'm not just talking about feeling a little better, I'm talking about feeling better than I have felt in about a decade (when I was at my peak strength and conditioning in my mid 30s).  I'm currently lifting (or performing bodyweight workouts) 3 days per week, in addition to regular martial art workouts such as I haven't done in almost

A.K.A: Roscoe and His Backwoods Alabama Arm Power Program Part ONE       I told myself, when I first began writing this piece, that I would no longer do any multi-part series on this blog.  The main reason being that I never seem to get around to writing the 2nd or 3rd (or even 4th) parts.  However, this piece was going to be SO long that I had to go back on my original intention.      I hope you enjoy.      A few years ago, I took up the last sport I will compete in.  Unless my health improves, I seriously doubt competitive events are in my future, especially the kind that I have competed in over the years.  (Towards the end of this post, I will even tell you about my only—and final—competition in the particular sport concerned with here.)  Barring help from the Triune Absolute, I just don't see full-contact martial arts, bodybuilding, powerlifting, or arm wrestling in my future.      But enough whining from me.  Here's a little snippet of what I learned about build

This may be a bit of an odd post.  It's basically whatever is simply swirling around in my head at the moment.  I will try my best to make sense of it.  Not for me.  It makes sense for me, however abstract it might be.  But for you. I've often felt that what makes us good, makes us bad, as well.  Let me explain... A Saint Who Wasn't When I was accepted into the Orthodox Church (or, as the Orthodox refer to it, the One Holy, Catholic, and Orthodox Church), baptized, and then chrismated, I took Saint Christopher as my patron Saint.  It made sense to me, since my parents had given me the name Christopher (after the very same saint, Christopher the Christ-Bearer).  (They also gave me two other middle names, one of them being Stuart, for those of you who actually give a damn.  Hence, the name C.S.)  But Christopher is not the saint I would have originally chosen.  No, that honor would have gone to Saint David, or the Prophet David, to be precise.  (Unlike the Roman Catho

Pat Casey: King of all Powerlifters The massive Pat Casey performing shoulder presses. When I first fell in love with powerlifting - and power training in general - in the mid '90s, I immediately had a few heroes.  Some of the early 19th century strongmen such as George Hackenschmidt, Arthur Saxon, and Louis Cyr were all fascinating to me.  As was my favorite power bodybuilder of all time, Marvin Eder ,and then, of course, there were guys like Bill Kazmaier, Don Reinhoudt, and Bruce Wilhelm.  But, once I discovered him, Pat Casey might have - just might have - been my favorite. Several different things fascinated me about Casey.  First, was his strength (obviously).  He was ahead of his time when it came to the bench press and the squat.  Second, was his physique.  He looked as if he could - at any time - strip some fat and step onto the bodybuilding stage. And third was his training.  And it was this 3rd thing that I think I loved the most.  A lot of his training influ

Q&A for the Month of October I have decided to do something slightly different starting with this month. Over the last couple of weeks - since I switched over to my new email address - I've received multiple emails.  Not exactly an entire plethora, don't get me wrong, but enough that it's been hard - or, at least, very time consuming - to answer them all.  And, so, I'm afraid that I simply haven't answered some that I otherwise would have - I apologize, right now, if yours is one that I haven't answered as of yet. Several of the emails, however, while not being exactly  the same, are at least in the same ballpark.  Which got me to thinking: Why don't I return to writing a regular Q&A column (something I've attempted in the past).  If this is successful, and if it gets enough views (some of my posts, depending on popularity, get decidedly more views than others), then I will continue to do this sometime around the first of each month. I&#

Bill Pearl is, without a doubt, in my top two or three list of "greatest bodybuilders of all time."  In my opinion, he was the first bodybuilder to look truly massive while in competition shape, not to mention massive in all of the photos that you saw in the magazines. Pearl was before my time.  But maybe that's why I hold him in such high regard. A lot of the bodybuilders and lifters that guys these days consider to be "old-timers" aren't old-timers to me.  Hell, I'm considered an old-timer by many. And maybe that's why he's always been so mythic to me. I can still remember (sometime in the late '80s) thumbing through a stack of old Iron Man  magazines that my uncle had kept from the '60s and the '70s.  Many of the bodybuilders I first came across in those pages were impressive, no doubt.  But THEN I came across Bill Pearl. Bill Pearl as I remember seeing him for the first time Everything was large on Pearl - his chest,