C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

In my recent post dealing with building a home gym (and designing home gym workouts), I ended with a discussion of effective workouts using nothing other than a barbell.  And then I gave some brief tips for "getting creative" with your workouts.  One of the things I mentioned was combining your barbell exercises with bodyweight movements, but I didn't go into any detail.  In my next post on building a home gym, and the training that goes along with it, I will discuss workouts incorporating a bench and some dumbbells.  But the more I thought about it, the more I decided I needed to write a post - and, in fact, the subject is worthy of multiple posts - dealing exclusively with bodyweight movements combined with basic barbell (and dumbbell) exercises. George Hackenschmidt was a turn-of-the-century (19th to 20th) strongman who built almost all of his strength with nothing other than a barbell and bodyweight movements. These workout ideas are effective for both home gym t...

Essays and Thoughts on  The Dokkodo Part Twelve In All Things, Have No Preferences Picture of the 3rd Patriarch of Zen, Seng T'san, whose famous work, Hsin Hsin Ming ("Inscription of Faith in Mind," S hinjinmei  in Japanese), is strikingly similar to some of the musings of the Dokkodo .  Musashi was clearly influenced by Seng T'san's work, wittingly or not. ( Picture is in the Public Domain ) Here, at the midpoint of the work, Musashi seems to return to a musing that is very close to his first one, to accept everything as it is .  In order to accept life and reality as it truly is, you must also "have no preferences."  I believe Musashi did this in order for the reader (which would have been Terao Maganojo at first, but Musashi knew it would be passed on to students under Maganojo, and to future generations), to stay focused on the overall  meaning of the text, and of following the Way  in general. Although the samurais at Musashi's time - and throug...

  Essays and Thoughts on  The Dokkodo Part Eleven Do Not Allow Yourself to be Guided by Feelings of Lust or Love The Dokkodo in its original handwriting. (Courtesy of Wikimedia) The further along we get in the Dokkodo, and the more we realize how different  was the view of the ancient budoka compared with the mind and thought of the modern martial practitioner.  Here, we find a maxim that seems more harsh than all the others that came before it, cold even.  In our society (or I should write "societies" - for this goes for the East as well as the West), we are taught that romantic love is to be prized.  In fact, there are many whose entire life revolves around acquiring romantic love. But love is fickle.  And fickleness is not a feeling that the serious martial practitioner can rely upon.  Upon this very subject, Roshi Richard Collins has this to say, " We have all perhaps made unwise decisions in our lives based on what we thought were the dictate...

Home Workouts for Mass, Power, Strength, and Muscular Development! PART ONE: Just the Basic Barbell C.S.: Here is a photo I took of my home gym this past weekend. For well over a decade, I trained at a commercial gym.  When I wanted to take my powerlifting training seriously, however, in the late '90s, I decided it was time to trade in the commercial gym for a good home gym.  This is probably the opposite of what most people do, as many lifters will begin training at home on a basic weight set, then decide to acquire a gym membership once they "get serious" with lifting.  But I relished the idea of creating a good, dungeoness home gym free of the distractions on offer at any commercial gym. In this article (and the ones that will follow) I will offer some tips, tricks, and advice for creating a home gym conducive to hardcore mass and power training, and provide some ideas of the training you can do at each stage of your home gym's development. Getting Started To start...