C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

A Not-Thought-Of, Often Not-Used Benefit of Bodyweight Workouts and/or Home Training      There are some real benefits to bodyweight training.  You don’t need a gym membership.  You can train no matter where you are or at any time, day or night, since you take your “gym” with you at all times.  You can train more often—a real plus in my book—since you don’t have to make that trip to the gym that might prevent you from otherwise training.  You can train more as in more days per week or more workouts per day.  Doing double-split, or even triple-split, daily workouts are viable for the same reason.  It’s just hard for most people with any kind of “normal” life—family, spouse, kids, job—to make it to the gym more than once per day.  You also don’t have to wait in line for equipment or put up with any of the other annoyances I always found when training in a commercial gym.      Most of the benefits of bodyw...

Some Advice for Choosing a Training Program      I have, over the years, occasionally received emails from readers who are confused over what training program to use (or how to design one of their own).  Most of them discover my blog, but then are confused due to, not just the overwhelming number of training programs that I write, but the seemingly disparate methods present.  I do, after all, write full-body programs, split training routines (of all kinds), low-rep programs, high-rep regimens, high-set programs, low-set routines, and everything in between.  Of course, if you were to really read over the whole of my material, you would find a “string” of training theory running throughout all of them.  But I also understand the confusion.  I received just such an email this morning from a reader who, with the New Year upon us, was looking for a workout program, but then wasn’t sure what to select after reading through a lot my material. ...

Traditional and Non-Traditional Zazen as Training for Budo       In the early days of the Meiji era there lived a well-known wrestler called O-nami, Great Waves. O-nami was immensely strong and knew the art of wrestling. In his private bouts he defeated even his teacher, but in public he was so bashful that his own pupils threw him.      O-nami felt he should go to a Zen master for help. Hakuju, a wandering teacher, was stopping in a little temple nearby, so O-nami went to see him and told him of his trouble.       “Great Waves is your name,” the teacher advised, “so stay in this temple tonight. Imagine that you are those billows. You are no longer a wrestler who is afraid. You are those huge waves sweeping everything before them, swallowing all in their path. Do this and you will be the greatest wrestler in the land.”      The teacher retired. O-nami sat in meditation trying to imag...