C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

      Doing a high rep set of squats or deadlifts with a heavy poundage is one of the toughest, most demanding, most painful, and most brutal things you can do.  It is a training principle that has built tons of muscle and it is a training principle that has been endorsed by many of the most knowledgeable and influential writers to ever grace the game.  Dr. Ken Leistner, Peary Rader, Dr. Randall J. Strossen, John McCallum, Mark Berry, Joe Hise, Arthur Jones, and Bradley J. Steiner all have written at length about the almost uncanny ability of heavy, high rep leg and back work to transform a bag of bones into a human gorilla. ~Brooks Kubik in Dinosaur Training (1996 ed.) Kevin Tolbert (adopted son of Ken Leistner and current head strength coach at Michigan) seen here in his younger days.  He was massively strong, and used the sort of workouts described here.      After my brief essay at the beginning of the month on a basic 20-rep squat program, I thought I would return to the same sub

How Old-Time Lifters and Bodybuilders SLOWLY Worked Up to Using Split Workouts - How They Utilized Them and How YOU Should Use Them Bill Pearl was one of the greatest bodybuilders who ever lived, and he rarely used anything more than a "2-way" split program.      If you’re new to training, always start with full-body workouts.      I say this because I see WAY too many split workout programs being recommended on the internet for “average” or even “beginner” trainees.  I write “trainees” because I understand that these guys aren’t lifters per se, and the kind of results they are after are probably not what the average reader of my blog is after.  None-the-less, I have a feeling that the majority of lifters that read my blog probably do a lot of split workouts, too, where you just might be better off performing a full-body program instead.      Now—and I must make myself crystal clear on this point—split workouts are not “bad.”  They simply need to be utilized correctly.  I

  The "Original" Rapid Mass-Gaining Regimen A picture of a young Ken Leistner, one of the modern "popularizers" of 20-rep programs such as the one below.       When writing my “Old School is Still the Best… and Always Will Be” essay, I mentioned that I would begin to write regular programs on various old school training regimens.  And even though it wasn’t that long ago that I wrote about a 20-rep squat program (in a post a few months back on power rack training), and even though several of my articles/posts have mentioned 20-rep squat programs, I still thought that this would be the best program to begin any series on old-school muscle-building.      The 20-rep squat program is the original mass-builder.  Before steroids even came onto the scene, a couple of men named J.C. Hise—who first used the program to great success—and Mark Berry—who first wrote about the program—made this form of training the method for packing on muscle mass in a fashion never seen befor