New article in Iron Man: "Mass Insanity"

I have a new article out in the March, '10 issue of Iron Man magazine. The article is entitled "Mass Insanity: Crazy Training for Insane Muscle Gaining." Catchy title if I do say so myself.

Now, to be honest, the real reason to buy the magazine—besides my article—is because of Bill Starr's piece entitled "Make it Harder: There Are No Shortcuts on the Road to Building Strength." I love Starr, but this particular article—which tackles the health problem in America and how no one wants to train hard anymore—is the best training article I've read in I-can't-remember-when. Starr is at his curmudgeonly best, and the article is long, rambling (but in a good way), and pulls no punches.

Bottom line: Go out and buy the March issue of Iron Man. Starr's article alone is worth the price of admission.

Comments

No Squats, No Problem!

How to Build Mass, Strength, and Power Without Squats Tips, Advice, and Programs On October 20th, I posted a Q&A article with my answers to a few questions that I had received lately. One of the questions asked: Could one design a strength-building, mass-gaining program without the use of squats? The question came from the fact that I have, over and over throughout the years, pushed the squat as the king of all exercises. On top of that, I have, in fact, written more than once that if you don’t do heavy squats, you can all but forget about building prodigious amounts of muscle mass and strength. However, I also pointed out that I thought it is possible to build strength and power without the almighty squat if you include enough other big, compound lifts that work the entirety of the body, especially lifts that work the back and the legs. This essay will include, in much more detail, what I think such programs sh...

Full-Body Big & Strong

A 3 Days Per Week, “Moderate Strength” Program for Size and Power Last week, I published a Q&A article based on a few questions that I had been asked in the preceding weeks. One of the questions asked was if it was possible to do an “easy strength” program just 3 days per week. I answered the question in the best way that I could—if you want to read my answer in full, then, well, read that article—but the more that I thought about it in the days since, the more I think that one of my answers might just be the way to set up a full-body program for 3 days per week of training. I suggested that it might work for a 3 day program if you simply bumped up your total volume to around 15 reps per lift. In this article, I want to outline in much more detail what this might look like and how you can use it to get the most out of a 3 day per week, full-body program. In many ways, this shouldn’t really be thou...

The Budo Zen Way: Zazen and the Budoka

On the Physical Practice of Zazen and its Application to the Martial Ways This is the 2nd part in my new series on the Budo Zen path for the martial artist. Although this series is written for the martial artist, I hope that even those of you who may be lifters might benefit from its insights. In many ways, it is as much about the intersection of Zen and physical practice in general, meaning that some of its insights will carry over into active pursuits outside of the Asian martial arts. My intention is for this series to be practical. I hope that it does have some degree of depth to it but, at the same time, my wish is for it to be easy to understand and easy to apply, though you do have to apply it. Not applying what is written here would be akin to reading my pieces on strength training but never actually working out. The cornerstone of Zen is the practice of zazen or ...

C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Search This Blog