C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

 I have, for a number of years on Integral Strength, pushed the benefits of high-frequency training.  But no matter how long I've been training, I can always learn something new.  And what I've learned over the past six months, is how wondrous hard, heavy, frequent  dumbbell training can be when it comes to eliciting mass and strength gains. I really can't believe it took me this long to give dumbbell-centric training a "go", but it did.  In the past, with HFT, I always used primarily barbell exercises, coupled with dumbbell training for "assistance" lifts.  Don't get me wrong, there were a few exercises that I always did, such as thick-bar one-arm dumbbell deadlifts and one-arm dumbbell overhead presses.  But now I've come to appreciate - not to mention very much enjoy  - exercises such as two-arm dumbbell power cleans, one-arm dumbbell power cleans, one-hand and two-hand dumbbell clean and push presses, two-hand dumbbell hang cleans, one-hand a

 Matthew Sloan's Program for Packing on Winter Bulk A few months ago - it was the week of Thanksgiving - my oldest son Matthew (who used to post here on and off several years back) decided he wanted to go on a "winter bulk" and find out just how much muscle he could pack on over the course of a few months.  Prior to the bulk, he had been training in a sort of haphazard fashion, and wasn't "out of shape" but wasn't exactly svelte, either.  He started his bulk-building regimen weighing between 205 and 210, depending on daily weight fluctuation.  His goal for his winter bulk and power program was to reach a weight of 250. This past week, he weighed over 250 - 251 to be precise - when he weighed himself first thing upon waking, sans clothes. Here are some pics of what he looked like before his bulk (these were taken a few years ago, but he wasn't too much heavier than this when he began the bulking regimen - I hate I didn't take some legit "befo

 Building Mass and Power/Strength with HFT + Dumbbells Combo The great Reg Park overhead pressing a pair of dumbbells In my last post, I outlined a brief, basic, (somewhat) hard full-body, 3-days-per-week program using ONLY dumbbells.  For this post, I'd like to outline a  high-frequency training (HFT for short, hereafter) program using primarily  dumbbells to build mass, power, and strength. The MASS is going to come about on this program from the sheer amount of total work performed in the course of the week.  When a lot of lifters -at least the ones I've worked with over the years - first take up HFT, they typically complain because it doesn't seem as if they are doing enough at each workout, or they don't think that they are training enough.  But the sheer frequency of the workout program really does add up .  After several weeks on the program, when most of the lifters I've worked with begin putting on muscle at a rate they hadn't been doing before, often w

 Make Fantastic Strength, Power, and Mass Gains by Utilizing Heavy Dumbbell-Only Workouts! The great "old-time" strongman Arthur Saxon lifting a heavy pair of 'bells! When most lifters think of building tons of mass, power, and strength (either all at one time or in some combination), they usually think about heavy barbell training.  And when the same lifters think about dumbbell training, they usually think of it in terms of traditional "bodybuilding-style" workouts (3 to 4 sets of 10-12 reps - that sort of thing) or in terms of really light, higher-rep workouts.  But this shouldn't be the case.  The same way that a barbell-only workout can be geared toward traditional bodybuilding workouts and mega-high-rep training, dumbbell-only workouts can be great for building mass, strength, bulk, and power! Of course, every single workout of your program doesn't have to be a dumbbell-only regimen, but it does make for a nice change of pace and  dumbbells in many

Make Fantastic Gains by Using the 3 to 5 Method to Specialize on the Bodypart of your Choosing! Here I am finishing off an old-school garage gym workout with some good ol' farmers walks. For those of you unfamiliar with the "3 to 5 Method" of training that I have touted more than a few times on Integral Strength, the gist of it is this: Train 3 to 5 days per week Utilize 3 to 5 exercises at each workout Perform 3 to 5 sets of each exercise Perform 3 to 5 reps on each set The 3 to 5 method of training is typically used along with a full-body workout.  As anyone who has done a fair amount of reading on this blog probably could have guessed, I would recommend using the "Big 4" while employing 3 to 5 training: Squat something heavy every week Press something heavy overhead every week Pull something heavy off the ground every week Drag or carry something heavy for either time or distance every week It all adds up to a week of workouts that might look something such a

  New Year, New You A.K.A.: Designing a Kick-Ass Program to Achieve Your Goals Simplifying Your Workout Program Now that it's the start of a new year (yes, I know, I'm a month late in getting this out😏), I thought it would - quite obviously - be a good time to put out a series of posts on some of the various keys to designing, and then maintaining, a workout program, whether your goals are building muscle mass, losing body fat, gaining prodigious amounts of raw strength, or some combination therein.  And perhaps the fact that I'm putting this out at the end of January may not be such a bad thing.  If you are already  having trouble sticking to your New Year's resolution(s), then just maybe I can be of some assistance.  For Part One in this series, I would like to offer some basic tips for getting "back to the basics" and simplifying your workouts.  Each post in the series will build upon the previous ones, so this seems as if it's a good way to start. Tip

  Welcome to the World of High-Intensity, High-Volume Workouts-Of-The-Day! First things first: read Part One of this series from September 15th of last month if you haven't already done so.  If you have, then we can move on... Let's keep things as simple as possible for the sake of "ease of workouts".  The workouts themselves will be hard enough without overcomplicating the program. Start off by training each of the core lifts - squats, bench presses, and deadlifts - on one day per week.  I like to train during the week when on this program - or when training someone on this program - and then take the weekends off for rest, relaxation, drinking cocktails, throwing down the gauntlet at an arm-wrestling tournament; ya' know, whatever it is you like to do with your weekends without having to think about also performing a hard-ass training session. So the split would look like this: Monday: Squats - pick any of the WOD below Wednesday: Bench Presses - pick any of the