Skip to main content

Coming Soon...

Shortly, you will see a big change at Integral Strength.

First off, I'm back to writing with a volume that I haven't attempted in many years, which means a lot more posts.  But Integral Strength is also going to change in a large way.

For the last several years, my health has sucked, to the point at which I even thought I may only live a few more years.  This has severely limited the amount of training I could do (in lifting or martial arts), and it has hindered the amount of writing I have done, whether it was articles for magazines or posts on my blog.  But I am now feeling like my old self for the last several weeks.  And I'm not just talking about feeling a little better, I'm talking about feeling better than I have felt in about a decade (when I was at my peak strength and conditioning in my mid 30s).  I'm currently lifting (or performing bodyweight workouts) 3 days per week, in addition to regular martial art workouts such as I haven't done in almost 2 decades!

In future posts, I will discuss my health problems, and how my practice of kan-geiko helped me immensely as a supplement to the medicine and therapy I received from a great neurological team, but for the sake of this post, I want to focus on what is to come.

The past is done.  If I would have known before what I know now, there is no doubt that I wouldn't have suffered for as long as I did.  But there is no need to even think about the past, much less dwell upon it.  Use the past to teach you lessons for the future.  Nothing more.

So I will look ahead to the future.

Soon you will be able to read the topic you want at Integral Strength by clicking on the "header" for that particular subject.

I will be writing on 5 separate, but interrelated, topics.  At first, you may not even see how they are all related, but it will become clear if you choose to read all my posts.  But you don't have to.  For instance, if you love powerlifting or bodybuilding but could care less about Greek Philosophy or Zen Combat (something I don't personally recommend, since both aid the lifter immensely, but it's not my choice, and, besides, if you are not ready to hear, you will be incapable of listening) then all you have to do is click on the "Lifting" header, and you can read as much old-fashioned, classic lifting as your heart so desires.

In no certain order, my future posts will be on the following subjects:
  • Lifting.  This will include old-school approaches to powerlifting and bodybuilding for the modern lifter.
  • Zen Combat.  Unless you have read and understood a book written by Jay Gluck in 1963, then you will not understand (yet) what is meant by Zen Combat.  Obviously it has something to do with both Zen and the martial arts, but that is not to understand it.  It is about the "jutsu" of training - even if that training is powerlifting - and how you, the practitioner, must discover the do for yourself.  Clear as mud?  Cool.  You'll get it - or you won't - in the future.
  • Ancient Philosophy.  This will primarily deal with ancient Greek philosophy.  If you want to read the Asian stuff, then most of that will be under the "Zen Combat" heading, but it's the ancient philosophy of the Greeks that has affected me more than anything.  Its also the philosophy that I can believe best help the modern man.
  • Asian Cinema.  The one thing that I have loved in my life as long as I have loved lifting and martial arts is Asian cinema.  From the time my father first made me watch The Seven Samurai as a child, through the '80s and my love of Shaw Brothers kung-fu flicks, and on through this decade and my newfound love of Thai and South Korean cinema, I have never stopped loving Asian Cinema.  On this topic, I will primarily write movie reviews, but I will also write some essays on the influence of different genres of Asian cinema in both my life and the greater world.
  • Fiction.  And, lastly, I will include some of my fiction writing.  At one point in my life, I stopped writing non-fiction (bodybuilding) articles altogether in an attempt to become a serious novelist.  It was pretty much a bust because - although I was published - I just couldn't make enough money as I could in non-fiction, even after I had my first novel published.  Originally I wrote under the name Christopher Sloan when publishing my novels and short stories, but I prefer to write under the name (and be called) C.S. so, from now on, C.S. Sloan will be the name under which I pen all of my work. Most of my fiction is "military" in nature, so you will find the obvious influences from my martial arts training and my lifting in my works.
In short, Integral Strength is about to become truly integral.

Comments

  1. Good to hear from you. Have checked your posts but figured you were busy being a family man. Now we will look forward to your work agian. God bless

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Feel free to leave us some feedback on the article or any topics you would like us to cover in the future! Much Appreciated!

Popular posts from this blog

Bradley Steiner’s Rugged Size and Strength Split Routine – Easy Strength Version

  Bradley J. Steiner, author of the original "Rugged Size and Strength Split Routine"      In the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, Bradley J. Steiner was the voice of (what he called) “sane, sensible” barbell training.   His workouts were full-body programs done 3 times per week, utilizing a limited number of big “bang-for-your-buck” movements such as squats, deadlifts, barbell rows, bench presses, overhead presses, barbell curls and the like.   They were intended for the average, drug-free lifter who didn’t have the luxury of living at Muscle Beach in Venice, California and training all day, but worked a full-time job, had a wife and kids—you know, a “regular” life—but still wanted to build a strong, impressive physique that could move some heavy iron and turn heads at the local swimming hole.      He wrote prolifically for (primarily) IronMan magazine up until the early years of this century.   When I started writing for IronMan i...

Basic Lifting, Instinctive Training

                     While doing research for my last article, I was re-reading Bradley Steiner’s original “Rugged Size and Strength” essay (from 1972) and came across this bit of advice: “Do not attempt to set up a pre-planned schedule of either sets or reps.”  That may not seem like much—it’s the kind of “basic” advice that’s easily overlooked—but there is wisdom in it, minimal as it may seem at first glance.      Depending on the workout program and the lifting population it’s aiming for, that quote could be either good or bad.  It’s not good advice for a beginner’s program, any beginner’s program.  It’s not good advice for intermediate or advanced lifters, either, who are attempting a new workout program or a new “style” of lifting that they haven’t utilized before.  For instance, if you’ve been training for the past decade on a bodybuilding workout consi...

Marvin Eder’s Mass-Building Methods

  The Many and Varied Mass-Building Methods of Power Bodybuilding’s G.O.A.T. Eder as he appeared in my article "Full Body Workouts" for IronMan  magazine.      In many ways, the essay you are now reading is the one that has had the “longest time coming.”  I have no clue why it has taken me this long to write an article specifically on Marvin Eder, especially considering the fact that I have long considered him the greatest bodybuilder cum strength athlete of all friggin’ time .  In fact, over 20 years ago, I wrote this in the pages of IronMan magazine: In my opinion, the greatest all-around bodybuilder, powerlifter and strength athlete ever to walk the planet, Eder had 19-inch arms at a bodyweight of 198. He could bench 510, squat 550 for 10 reps and do a barbell press with 365. He was reported to have achieved the amazing feat of cranking out 1,000 dips in only 17 minutes. Imagine doing a dip a second for 17 minutes. As Gene Mozee once put ...