C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

      I have not been able to write quite as much on the blog as usual of late.  I also write full-time for a media company, and sometimes it causes me to get a little behind in the stuff that I really love to write about; hardcore strength and power, traditional budo, etc.  Anyway, I should have some more "regular" articles published here in the next couple weeks, and, until then, I thought it would be good to do another "Thursday Throwback."      This is an article I wrote for Planet Muscle  around ten years ago.  I think it's a good article, and, in fact, I thought it would be more popular than it was/is.  You can find quite a bit of my training programs out there on the internet - my "high-frequency focus training" is rather popular, for instance - but you don't see this program anywhere.  Credit Jeff Everson - who I miss dearly every time I think of my time writing for PM - for running a lot of my programs in the pages of his rag.  Believe it

  Some Random Thoughts (like Really Random) on Nutritional Concepts That May, or May Not, Work       C.S.’s note: As I wrote above, what follows is very random.  I had read about Suzanne Somers’ recent death, and it made me think about something I don’t typically write about: nutrition.  Take what follows with a slight grain of salt…      Suzanne Somers died this past week just short of her 77th birthday.  If you were a kid in the ‘70s and early ‘80s (like me), then you remember well her character Chrissy from the tv sitcom “Three’s Company.”  In fact, if you were a young boy in the ‘70s and early ‘80s (once again, like me), then there’s a good chance that your love of all things female boiled down to the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, any one of Charlie’s Angels , Linda Carter as Wonder Woman , and, finally, Somers as Chrissy Snow.  But don’t worry, this isn’t an essay where I go on and on about the first “loves” of my young male life.  No, Somers' death got me thinking about somet

 For this week's "Thursday Throwback" I have selected an article that I originally wrote for Planet Muscle Magazine  around 15 years ago.  What is interesting is that the article as I wrote it for PM was essentially a "redux" of an article I wrote in the late '90s for MuscleMag International  when I competed regularly in powerlifting - and bench press-only - competitions.  Jeff Everson - the publisher and editor of Planet Muscle  - actually sent me a "clipping" of my original MuscleMag  article, and asked me if I could re-write it, and make enough changes that it was different from my original (and therefore wouldn't violate any copyright laws).  And the funny thing - for me, at least - is that I could hardly even remember writing that original article.  Anyway, the article itself as it appeared in PM is still great, I think (I am a little prejudice since I did write the thing), for anyone that is looking to build his/her bench press but doesn&