C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Two Training Challenges for Busting Through Plateaus and Forcing New Gains      For a program to be successful, it must regulate the variables of volume, intensity, and frequency.  Generally—and this is not an absolute; there are exceptions—two of the variables should be high (or one high and the other moderate) and the other variable must be low.  The reason I believe many “bro splits” are popular is because they are easy to program.  Many gym-goers these days, for instance, like to train one-bodypart-per-week and train with a lot of sets, a lot of intensity, but with very low frequency.  Although this approach most certainly can work for a lot of lifters, I don’t think it’s the most optimal way to train.      If you’ve read any of the material that I’ve written on this blog and in articles elsewhere, you will know that I’m a fan of high-frequency training.  And I typically recommend a lot of high-frequency, hi...

  Some Slightly Rambling Thoughts, Musings, and Reflections on How One Should Train (and How I Train)      The other day I received a question from a reader who asked how I really train.  He said that, since I write about a lot of different training methods, he wanted to know how I actually trained.  He wanted to know this because he was confused about how he should train.  He said that he read a lot of the articles here on the blog, but he was confused because I seemed to recommend so many different training methods, and it left him a little bit bewildered and conflicted over the correct training methods for him—those weren’t his exact words, but I’m just paraphrasing in my own vernacular.      I have received questions such as this one before.  I even wrote an article over ten years ago entitled “My Training Philosophy” because of the confusion about the various lifting methodologies I recommend, but I figure...

A Mass and Power Program for the Natural Lifter      This morning, I was reading some old muscle magazines—I have hundreds of them boxed in my attic—when I came across an article by Don “Ripper” Ross entitled, aptly for this essay, “Power Bodybuilding.”  I’m always looking for inspiration for new training programs, and this article gave the idea for the program you’re now reading.      Ross’s program was a 6-days-per-week routine where you trained chest and arms on days 1 and 4, back and shoulders on days 2 and 5, and, finally, legs on days 3 and 6.  I really like a lot of the training programs that Ross created—this one included—but I do think it had too much overall volume at each session for that many training days.  Each day contained between 8 and 10 exercises in his program.  Ross was the kind of guy that thrived on hard work and a lot of volume (oh, and a lot of anabolics).  This program keeps some of Ros...