C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

A couple years ago, I had a few "around the web" posts where I re-posted or linked to articles that I thought readers of my stuff would find interesting. From now on, I'm going to routinely do this again (I'm thinking that about once every 2 weeks would be good to shoot for), as long as I can find enough articles that I think browsers of this article would enjoy. I've come across several good articles, so here they are in no uncertain order: The first one is from Dan John, entitled Even Easier Strength .  And you thought his 40-Day Program was simple?  This breaks it down for those of you who may have a hard time doing stuff like simple comprehension. Over at T-Nation, despite the fact that they now publish a whole bunch of crap, there are still the occasional good articles, such as this one from Mark Rippetoe.  It's always nice when Rippetoe "goes off."  Oh, and just to make you realize how much you want to read this piece, here's a go

      I have long been enamored of ancient Greek philosophy – but of Stoicism in particular.  The truth is, I have long been a Stoic, even when I didn’t realize what exactly that word meant.  Its philosophical thought rings ever true in my ears.  It is, in many ways, so similar to the Buddhist and Taoist philosophy that I have practiced – to both greater and lesser degrees – throughout much of my life (and it is, also in many ways, a bridge that helped me to crossover from eastern philosophy to Orthodoxy).      But Stoicism – despite what many modern “stoics” say in various books or in places on the internet – is not “Buddhism in Greek garb.”  The truth is that the Stoics were very theistic, as is evidenced by this wonderful, always delightful (and forever ringing with the sounds of Truth) essay by the great Stoic philosopher Seneca.      Seneca is best known for his work “Letters to a Stoic”, but, personally, I enjoy his moral epistles and his essays much better.  This is also my

     In part one of this series, we discussed some of the basics for building a lot of strength and power using high-frequency training (HFT).  In summation, here are the main points from the previous post: ·          “Train as frequently as possible while being as fresh as possible.”  For most people, this means 5 days per week, sometimes 6.  Take off at least one day each week.  When you first begin, however, 4 days per week should suffice. ·          For the most part, use progressively heavier sets. ·          Train with 2 or, at the most, 3 exercises each day.  Pick a squatting movement, a pulling movement, and a pushing movement when using 3 exercises, or 2 combinations thereof when using 2. ·          The majority of reps should be done in the 2 to 5 range. ·          For most lifters, 5 to 7 progressively heavier sets are enough. ·          The more reps that are utilized, the less total sets should be used.  In other words, if you are doing progressively heavier s